The Flash, Season 1, Episode 19: Who is Harrison Wells?
It’s a pretty awesome episode as we gear up for Flash’s season
finale. I can’t lie, Flash’s season finale has me more hyped up than Age of
Ultron, or the finales of either Arrow or Agents of SHIELD. And this one is
awesome! It’s primarily a villain-of-the-week episode starring DC Mystique – I mean
Everyman – and it’s a bit of a riot as our heroes have to deal with someone who
can pretend to be members of the main cast, but we’ll talk about that in a bit.
Last episode was about bringing Cisco and Caitlin on the same page regarding
Harrison Wells, but this episode was more about gaining their trust –
especially Caitlin’s – regarding Barry’s suspicions of Harrison Wells. And having
an enemy that can masquerade into anyone in plain sight as the villain of the
week? There’s some thematic appropriateness there.
And while Everyman doesn’t really get much development as a
character (he robs banks!) he does manage to pose enough of a threat to the
cast by impersonating them, and framing Eddie for the murder of two policemen. And
I do like how Everyman pretended to be a little girl in that scene when Iris
and Caitlin and managed to escape by pretending to be a kidnapped girl. That was
some nice usage of abilities there. We get to see some nice ramifications of
the law getting confused by all these fancy metahuman powers, and it’s always
fun to see Team Flash trying to figure out what Everyman’s power is and its
limits – will he copy Barry’s speed when he touches him? All that stuff. And it’s
absolutely hilarious when Everyman copies Barry Allen and impersonates him and
interacts with Caitlin. Everyman misreading the situation and kissing Caitlin?
Bloody freaking hilarious. (Of course, Caitlin does reciprocate that second
kiss…) I am also a fan of Barry and Eddie making fun of Everyman’s real name –
Hannibal Bates. No wonder the kid turned out evil!
Of course Everyman doesn’t get that
much of a personality by the end and it appears that he’s actually
forgotten who his original identity was. Kind of creepy. And, naturally, it
fits thematically with Eobard Thawne adopting the face and identity of Harrison
Wells. How much of the kindly Harrison Wells we know is an act, and how much of
it is really Eobard Thawne’s personality showing? It’s one of those rare times
that a villain of the week fits with the overreaching theme of the episode
instead of just being ‘oh look it’s this dude from the comics’ like the
Bug-Eyed Bandit or Deathbolt or Murmur.
(Kind of a bit convenient that Everyman was a leftie, though, isn’t
it?)
This episode also co-starts Quentin Lance and Laurel Lance from
the Arrow show. Not quite sure when
in the Arrow timeline this plays out beyond, say, episode 19, maybe? I’m not
quite caught up on Arrow just yet. But they are great guest stars, and again I do
like how Quentin and Laurel appearing in this show doesn’t really have that
much ramifications on Arrow’s show beyond Laurel getting some new equipment and
Quentin getting a bit of an epiphany. There isn’t a plot thread that gets
resolved in the Flash and leaves people only watching Arrow hanging or anything
like that.
Anyway, Laurel only shows up to talk to Cisco, and there’s a bit
of Cisco fanboying over the fact that he’s talking to the Black Canary (yep,
they’re calling her that on-screen now, not sure if they did so before). Laurel
gets Cisco to build a ‘Canary Cry’ weapon, which was what everyone thought was
going to happen sooner or later – Black Canary in the comics had the ability to
create a sonic scream from her vocal chords. And Cisco did have experience with sonics, what with the encounter with Pied
Piper a while back. So Cisco creates this little necklace he actually calls the
Canary Cry so Laurel can actually pack some punch. Nice way to intro that ‘power’,
and I did like the fact that Cisco’s payment was a photograph with her in
costume.
Joe and Quentin working together to investigate a case actually
makes thematic sense within this episode, since Joe has to consult with Quentin to dig up bodies and whatnot, and they
do get a little bit about daughters and secrets. Quentin has a rift because his
daughter kept a secret from him, while Joe is keeping a secret from his
daughter. There’s a nice sense of irony that Quentin might be considering to
actually give in and make up with Laurel because Joe managed to get through to
him… and Joe? Joe doesn’t try to make it up to Iris despite seeing just how
keeping secrets can ruin a father-daughter relationship. Not in this episode,
anyway.
Oh, also, Joe and Cisco find the real Harrison Wells’ body buried
not far away from the site of the car crash. I understand Eobard Thawne was
depowered and he didn’t really have much time several years back when the
accident happened, but couldn’t he have zoomed in, relocated the body somewhere
in the twenty years between the accident and the present day? That’s weird.
Eddie gets a fair amount of screentime here too, notably the
moment when he and Barry are just hanging out being policeman and just being
awkward while investigating Everyman’s “grandmother”. I don’t really care that
much about him being passive-aggressive with Iris and vice versa, but I do like
how cool and collected he is when he gets imprisoned, how he’s level-headed
enough to tell Barry to clear his name properly (and he did, by catching
Everyman doing his shit on camera) and realize that Barry might be projecting
his daddy-in-jail issues. Also I do like the ‘let me tell the truth… partly,
anyway’ moment where Eddie tells Iris that he’s working with the Flash. Not quite
the whole truth… but the truth. I imagine Iris will explode at everyone when
the real truth gets revealed.
I do like how Caitlin didn’t just trust Barry straight from the
get-go. Cisco had been recruited to helping Joe investigate the death of Nora
Allen several times, and he had that weird timey-wimey vision to boot. Caitlin?
Unlike that doctor from last episode, she didn’t know Harrison Wells from
before. Eobard-Harrison is the only Harrison Wells she knows, and he had been a
mentor, a father-figure, she knew Wells before she knew Barry and someone who
helped her get Ronnie back. Granted by the end of the episode she gets damning
evidence, but I do like her moments of doubt throughout this episode
Also, at the end of the episode, the big stinger scene is Team
Barry finding Eobard-Wells’ room, complete with Reverse-Flash costume and that
news report about Flash and the Crisis! That was unexpected of them to run
across the room so abruptly… I expected them to do so next episode, or as part
of an episode’s major plot. Fun! Can’t wait to see the next episode. And the
next. All the way up to the finale.
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