The Flash, Season 1, Episode 17: Tricksters
I
have caught up with all three superhero shows, except, y’know, writing reviews
may take a bit more time. But let’s talk about the Flash first, because that’s
the only show I make a point to watch as soon as is humanly possible while the
others I usually wait until weekends. Or the weekend after. This episode is
called ‘Tricksters’ and you’d be forgiven for thinking that it’s going to be
just a filler-y episode focusing on the two Tricksters, something that’s been
hyped for quite a while, and we’re going to have a break from the heavier time
travel and Reverse-Flash plots. But no, naturally, we don’t.
We do take a break from Barry’s exhausting
love-life, though, and that is an absolute plus.
The two
main things running along this episode are the absolutely hammy Trickster plot
in the present day and an Arrow-style flashback of the night where it all went
down. Naturally the circumstances on how Eobard Thawne and Barry Allen went
into the past is still unexplained, but we do see just what happens to Eobard
Thawne and we get some unexpected explanations regarding the Reverse-Flash’s
origin.
Also,
while I have never watched the 90’s Flash TV show, this episode apparently is a
gigantic homage to it. Not only does Henry Allen (played by the actor who
played the Flash in the 90’s show) appear again after an extended absence, we
also get him in a bonding moment with Barry and we have Barry straight-up
reveal his identity. And Henry takes it really, really well and acts all proud
and happy and stuff. The older Trickster, James Jesse, is played by Mark
Hamill, who played the same character in the 90’s show… we even have stills
from the old show to represent James Jesse when he was first caught by the
police some 25 years ago in-universe! And to round it up, apparently the actor
playing Mayor Bellows, introduced in this episode, played a character with a
similar name from the 90’s show. Apparently there are several more subtle lines
and props that are nods to the older show, but they are things that work even
if you’re unfamiliar with the old show so they aren’t just ‘we referenced the
old show, eh, geddit?’
And
Mark Hamill’s Trickster? Oh lord the Trickster was a glorious hammy bastard. He’s
definitely channeling a bit of the Joker, but he does make the Trickster
distinctive enough so that he becomes his own character. This Trickster is a
bit of a psychopath, but he’s also portrayed as this villain who holds his legacy
in great esteem and is absolutely enraged and horrified that someone is
masquerading as a cheap-rate knockoff of him. And indeed it does really seem to
be playing up to the Flash siccing the older Trickster on the younger one…
which was, by the way, something that actually happened in the comics – the younger
Trickster was a psychotic loose cannon of a manchild as opposed to the first
Trickster, who actually did beat up Trickster II.
But
no, halfway through the episode we find out that Trickster II (who’s as much of
an annoying hyperactive manchild as he is in the comics, except less orange) is
actually working with Trickster I, and they are actually working together the
whole time! It’s a bit of a twist for me, definitely, since I wasn’t expecting
that. Hamill’s performance put me off the track, especially his angry ranting
and sudden switching-off of the psychopathic ranting in the prison when Barry
and Joe showed him about the pretender.
I
also wasn’t expecting James Jesse’s sudden revelation that Axel Walker is his
son. Yes, Mark Hamill does say ‘I am
your father’. That was a glorious scene, even if it’s a bit on-the-nose.
Other
than that, though, Trickster I was hilarious! Trickster II was just unstable
and mostly just wallpaper, really, but Trickster I was fun. Breaking Bad jokes.
Knowing when people come with candy (Trickster eats the same candy that Coulson
offers Skye in this week’s Agents of SHIELD, incidentally). And I do really
like that while they mention all the time that Trickster I killed guards and
they had to shove cable TV into the prison to keep him docile, while Trickster
II dropped bomb balloons on children, they don’t really feel dark and gritty at
all and they really felt fun
The fact
that they kidnapped Barry’s father out of all the people in the prison felt
like too much of a convenience to me and a way to get Henry Allen to meet Barry
without the excuse of a prison break.
I
also did find the big ultimate plot, namely poisoning a bunch of reach people
in a gala and blackmailing them to send money, to be a bit underwhelming
especially since there are two Tricksters now and they were teasing ‘big bomb
that will explode the city’ a while back… but that does serve as a key to bring
in the kinetic bomb – something taken from the JLA comics as a countermeasure
Batman prepared should the Flash turn evil, and that’s your DC comics trivia of
the day. And the kinetic bomb does serve as a tutorial for Harrison Wells, er,
Eobard Thawne, to tell Barry about how to embrace the Speed Force and actually
vibrate his way through an object. A power which the Flash abused to no end in
the comics and cartoon, and I was honestly waiting for when they are going to
show it in live-action. And I must admit, it does look pretty great, as much
sense as that makes. The terms ‘Speedster’ and ‘Speed Force’ are being dropped
like there’s no tomorrow in this episode too. Way to embrace the comic book
lingo, TV show people!
Meanwhile,
as all the Trickster plot is going on, Barry is starting to show his suspicions
to ‘Harrison Wells’ in snide, sarcastic remarks. I did like that scene where
Barry makes a sarcastic comment about the STAR labs explosion and we cut to
this hilarious expression of Harrison Wells going ‘um’. And him mouthing ‘oooh’
with a wince when Cisco googled James Jesse’s old leotard costume was hilarious
too! But I digress. Anyway, we’ve got both Barry and Wells having a ball with
dropping subtle, sarcastic remarks all over the place which is really fun.
We’ve
also got Iris investigating Mason’s disappearance, and near the end of the
episode Joe and Barry bring Eddie into the fold and reveals Flash’s identity to
him. Why not reveal Flash’s identity to Iris and tell her to slowly back off, I
don’t really know – even if they don’t trust Iris to write a news story about
it, I’d think that they would prefer Iris be aware of the facts so she doesn’t
go snooping without them knowing. Eddie doesn’t really take it well, though.
Also,
they suspect Harrison Wells even more because there is no way Harrison Wells can
give such an awesome in-depth tutorial on how to utilize the Speed Force. Which
also ties in well with when Henry asked Barry about how it feels running at
super-speed.
The
flashbacks are a bit heavier compared to the lighter tune of the episode. We
get to see a bit of a replay of the fight fifteen years ago, with some brief
slo-mo fighting between Flash and the Reverse-Flash. That was cool. And we see
what happens from the Reverse-Flash’s point of view. He loses speed and contact
to the Speed Force thanks to the long time-travelling jump, and there was an
actual Harrison Wells and a wife. So
Eobard Thawne (played by a different actor) engineered the car accident that
killed the real Harrison Wells, then used some weird face-snatching machine to
melt the real Harrison Wells and reconfigure his own face to become Harrison Wells. I do like the thematic choice of having this little trick by Eobard Thawne shown in an episode showcasing the two Tricksters, because this is one big trick of his own as well.
And he’s
definitely not trying to preserve the future, because he mentions that the
particle accelerator should be created in 2020 but he’s moving the time-table
forward for his own ends. Well, Eobard Thawne definitely have fucked up the
timeline more than we know. It also neatly explains why the blood at the crime
scene doesn’t correspond to Harrison Wells… because Eobard Thawne the
Reverse-Flash is different than Harrison Wells.
Overall a pretty low-key, but still fun, episode. As far as I know we're on the home stretch of this season and I absolutely cannot wait.
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