The Flash S04E21 Review: Buying Time

The Flash, Season 4, Episode 21: Harry and the Harrisons

It's very interesting that they ended up stuffing in what probably amounts to a 'filler' episode two episodes before the finale. It does break up the relatively tedious Thinker stuff, of course, and far more enjoyable than the previous Thinker-centric storylines, so I can't really blame them. This episode's two main storylines involve Harry and Caitlin going through personal struggles to find a piece of themselves that they've lost -- Harry's intelligence and Caitlin's Killer Frost side, and they're both forced to confront relatively unlikely allies to get them back. For Harry Wells, it's asking the aid of the Council of Wells, whereas for Caitlin, it's asking Amunet "Blacksmith" Black, an old enemy.

The Harry stuff is take-it-or-leave-it. Tom Cavanagh's over-the-top acting is always funny, but while the scenes themselves are all right (German Wells calling people 'dum-dums' are the highlight of this episode's wacky hijinks), as a plot device I've always thought that the Council of Wells was a bit too self-aware and often takes me out of the show. The lesson that the 'rejects' Council of Wells gives Harry is to 'think with his heart'  or something along those lines, which is... something Harry's learned a couple of times already in the past. It's inoffensive, but it's repetitive and doesn't really feel like it adds much. Oh, and we get the revelation that apparently Thinker's not done his global domination plan yet because of episode quotas his heartbreak over Marlize leaving him, which... yeah, whatever. I've given up hope on DeVoe really making much sense anyway. 

The Blacksmith/Killer Frost stuff is pretty neat, and although Katee Sackhoff is clearly having fun in the role, there's a definite sense of 'we're making a filler episode with the excuse of a plot device'. And there's nothing wrong with filler. Caitlin gets some neat moments as she struggles with herself, and Amunet shows a more... tender side, I guess, is the right word? She's more helpful, even if she masks it over a "oh, I'm totally doing this for self-preservation" deal, and she deduces that Flash is Barry Allen because, y'know, she's not a moron. Amunet's treacherous second-in-command Norvock is the villain here, and we end this with Amunet going off on a cloud of metal shards, Team Flash having a little meta-organic-metal grenade (however the hell that works), and Caitlin goes off with a Dumbo-style "the power is inside you all along!" zen koan from the episode's events. 

There's also a B-plot about Iris trying to publish every single thing about the Thinker's plan in her news blog, which runs along the episode with Barry being less than keen about doing that, but Barry's passive-aggressiveness ends up just petering out by the end of the episode, Iris posts the article, and apparently it becomes a place for commenters all over Central City to post sightings of DeVoe (because apparently people aren't already tweeting about 'oh my god a guy in a chair just popped out of thin air' already?). Okay? It's not the best storyline, for sure, but it's short and barely noticeable. 

Overall, we've got two more episodes to go, and I really don't have that much faith in the finale, so I'll take solace in this neat but fun little side jaunt.