The Flash Episodes 20-23 Capsule Review/Spoiler Talks

Well, I've caught up with the Flash last week, just didn't have the time to give each Flash episode the gigantic reviews they deserve. So let's make this short reaction of every episode because I watched the finale and I was so stoked. It isn't quite the perfect finale, but it is an awesome ending to one of my favourite shows ever.

Spoiler alert to anyone who hasn't watched the Flash episodes 20 through 23, of course.

Episode 20, the Trap: This is the big 'oh shit we're entering the home stretch' episode with Barry and company discovering about Harrison Wells' true identity and attempting to confront him with it. Cisco uses his dream thingamagig (which woun't be explained until the finale) to figure out how Harrison Wells will react... only for it to be revealed that Harrison Wells, or rather, Eobard Thawne as it's more appropriate to refer to him now, has been watching them all along. So this episode that's set up to be the trap for Harrison Wells ended up being a trap that Wells set up for Team Flash, which is pretty awesome and I totally didn't see that coming. Using Everyman as a decoy (and something that eagle-eyed viewers will notice since Everyman-Wells does everything with his left hand) is a pretty awesome twist, because I thought Wells will just shake off the bullet wound, not be revealed as an impostor. Eobard-Wells is a gigantic ham now that he doesn't have to pretend to be good anymore, and he kidnaps Eddie for his vague plans.

We also get some nice little nods to stuff all over DC comics in the future newspaper (including some foreshadowing for the Legends of Tomorrow show, which has an awesome trailer) and some nice intrigue about GIDEON being created by a future Barry. I also like the realism of Cisco being unable to fuck with technology several hundred years ahead of his time because, really, that's the realistic thing. Also apparently Barry did something to Eobard in the future that's so unforgiveable that he went back in time just to kill Barry, and later kill his mother, in order to get revenge... though even until the end of the season we don't find out what, exactly, this is.

Episode 21, Grodd Lives: My reaction to this episode flip-flops between HOLY SHIT GRODD IS AWESOME and 'why do we have such a gigantic focus on the Iris plot'. Iris' rage at Barry and everone else is justified because beyond the flimsy excuse of it's-for-her-safety there is really no reason to keep Iris in the dark when everyone else and their mother knows that Barry Allen is the Flash. So yes, her rage is justified when she figures out Flash's identity (by the most random event imaginable, mind you) and yes, I would take her side instead of Joe's and Barry's, but three episodes to the finale and this is when you focus on 'Iris discovers Barry is Flash'? To top it off, we had to have Barry recovering from Grodd's telepathic attack to involve the cheesiest do-it-for-the-girl speech ever. I just don't like the big focus on this whole thing, especially with Eobard being such a dick and waving the whole 'Iris West-Allen' in Eddie's face just to be a dick.

Of course, all that is kind of offset by the awesomeness of Grodd. He looks pretty awesome, this giant telepathic gorilla, and he does feel like a threat. Everything he does from the initial Jurassic Park demon-in-the-shadows scene, the 'Grodd hate banana' joke, the chilling scene with Joe and the gun, Grodd just refusing to be taken down by anything -- the telepathic blockers, the supersonic punch -- and just being this unbeatable monster is pretty awesome. Wade Eiling's return, albeit traumatized and forced into an alliance with Barry, is handled pretty well too with the little fake-out that Grodd may have taken control some random Z-lister villain-of-the-week to do his bidding. Grodd is just awesome, and I cannot believe this show just adapted a goddamn telepathic gorilla into a live-action show and plays it so straight. Grodd's apparently just buying time while Eobard is doing his scientific... schemes or whatever, and it apparently involves the particle accelerator which neatly ties it together. I kind of thought Grodd was kind of wasted because he could've easily been Reverse-Flash's second in command and had a more active role between menacing Team Flash this once, but damn if he isn't effective. Grodd is awesome, he isn't taken down and just taken out of the picture and I can see him being a really big threat down the line.

Episode 22, Rogue Air: The premise of this episode is pretty awesome, with Barry caught in a dilemma of whether to rescue these psychopathic metahumans from being killed when the particle accelerator explodes. And there being a set time for the particle accelerator to activate is kind of a convenient thing, because it allows the whole other-villains thing to happen. It's really a bit weird for Eobard not to do a damn thing after running away, though, simply waiting until the particle accelerator activates, but whatever. This episode is chock-full of awesome. There's a bit of an anticlimatic end to the Eddie situation and we still get a 'we break up because I have seen the future' which is annoying, but again, it's offset by the sheer amount of awesomeness in this episode.

Captain Cold is a smooth motherfucker, showing that while he does have a code of honour (he saves Flash by killing Deathbolt) he isn't above backstabbing and deceiving people to get what he wants. Cold gets a lot of really awesome lines and moments in this episode. Just awesome all around. And we finally get some of the lesser villains getting their moments -- Mist, Weather Wizard and especially Rainbow Raider are given time to actually interact and shine, though I imagine anyone who didn't watch Arrow will be confused as to where Deathbolt showed up from. Not even a 'hey Ray dropped this off the other day' line from Cisco or whatever. That scene where everyone just explodes with powers as Deathbolt launches lasers and Weather Wizard summons thunderbolts and the Mist just, well, mists around... it's pretty awesome itself with all the displays of the powers, and while it doesn't come into play in the finale, every single one of the metahumans other than poor Deathbolt breaks free and are at large, with hints of a partnership between Cold and Wizard... we're just one Mirror Master short of having the classic Rogues ensemble!

Also random continuity nods like Lian Yu and Captain Boomerang? Yay. Hopefully the moronic Suicide Squad embargo that cost us Deadshot and Harley Quinn doesn't make us lose Captain Boomerang as well.

And that ending? With Firestorm coming down from the sky and Green Arrow coming down with that loud twaaaaang as the music builds up? My face was light up like Eobard's was in gleeful anticipation of the fight that's to come. And it comes and holy fuck does it deliver. I honestly expected it to be a cliffhanger and the finale to be your standard 'heroes take down big bad once and for all', but no, this... this prototype Justice League just lays the smackdown onto the Reverse-Flash within five minutes. And it's five of the happiest minutes you'll ever find me in. It's pure awesome as these three heroes work together to defeat the Reverse-Flash, a gigantic threat that can take down the strongest one of them (Barry) easily, and there's no guarantee that the three of them combined can take him out. That's the sense of threat that Loki and Ultron failed to deliver in the Avengers movies, and indeed in those movies neither of the Big Bad Villains ever engaged more than two Avenger at one time and came victorious on top. Reverse-Flash was effectively fighting everyone at once, and the show makes a really good job of making Reverse-Flash be awesome while still not overpowering him. Arrow gets some nice moments to shine with speed-disabling nanites (and I do like how the arrows manage to find their mark because no matter how fast you are, you can't dodge what you don't see coming). It also shows just how dangerous Reverse-Flash is. Even without his intelligence and superior speed to Barry, he's also a pretty awesome hand-to-hand combatant that gave Oliver a bit of a run for his money, which basically means that Barry and his one boxing lesson is kind of fucked up. And they totally beat Reverse-Flash! That was freaking awesome.

Episode 23, Fast Enough: Fuck the cliffhanger ending with the giant time storm, we know that's not going to stick. But it's a wonderful, wonderful ending. We don't get answers to every single question -- we don't know Eobard Thawne's origin story, we don't know what the Future!Barry time travelling back is doing while fighting Eobard Thawne... and unlike what we guessed ever since we saw that scene, it's not Barry at the end of this episode travelling back and fighting Eobard Thawne in the past. No, Flashpoint didn't happen either, which is awesome. But we do get some really awesome closures to a lot of plot arcs. Eddie in particular goes out with an awesome bang. He's been this dogged nice guy throughout Flash, and the show pulls no punches in making him feel like shit. But he says 'fuck the future', proposes to Iris... and then pulls another 'fuck the future' as he shoots himself in the chest and wipes Eobard out of existence. Granted that time paradox was probably the cause of the gigantic timestorm at the end of the episode, but still.

Also, we also get confirmation that Cisco is indeed a metahuman -- Vibe, though he hasn't quite named himself yet -- except instead of earthquake powers, he gets his secondary New 52 powers, which is the ability to see through dimensions. Or in this case, the ability to remember splinter timelines he's experienced. A pretty awesome but simple explanation for the whole 'Cisco remembers the splinter timeline' thing that is otherwise stupid.

We get a couple of heartbreaking scenes as Barry waffles between going back to the past and changing everything -- thereby breaking all the dynamics he's made so far -- and the conversation with Joe about losing a parent to save another... the two of them clearly consider each other father and son, and it's heartbreaking when they said goodbye to each other before Barry goes through the crazy time loop. But more heartbreaking is the moment where Barry goes to the past not to change it, but to have some closure with his mother, to comfort his mother while she died and generally just telling her that everything's going to be fine. It's fucking sad I cried.

Granted Eobard's plan doesn't really make that much sense. Have Barry create a temporal hole which he'll use to escape to the future and reclaim his life, while Barry changes the past by... beating up past-Eobard? Wouldn't that invalidate everything, also creating a temporal paradox by erasing Harrison Wells' contributions to the timeline? Eh. Eobard, you're crazy. It's a good thing Barry punches through you and your time sphere. Also he actually does care about Cisco. Cisco kind of doesn't give a fuck, since, y'know, stabbing someone through the heart with a vibrating hand tends to have that kind of effect.

Also Jay Garrick's hat! WOOOOOO! Apparently Eobard didn't make himself an enemy of just a single Flash. We also get several hints to the Legends of Tomorrow show which I'll talk about some time later, with Rip Hunter and the Time Sphere being mentioned, as well as parts of the trailer seen by Barry as he runs through the Speed Force. We also see the Flash museum, Barry in jail, and most importantly KILLER FROST and Caitlin is totally rocking that look.

The ending isn't quite as action-packed as I expected it to be and it's more of a crazy emotional rollercoaster not just for Barry but for, well, basically everyone involved. Martin Stein steals every scene he shows up in, we get a shit-ton of nice nods to future installments of Flash and Legends of Tomorrow. It wraps up a lot of plot threads, yet still leaving some of the larger ones open. And while the Big Bad is taken out of the picture, I have no doubt that Reverse-Flash will come back, either by Rip Hunter fixing that big hole in the timeline, or some wacky time hijinks happening.

Still whatever the case holy fuck that was an awesome ending.