The Flash S06E17 Review: Hello Siri

The Flash, Season 6, Episode 17: Liberation

So the Coronavirus pandemic has, understandably, put a lot of currently running shows on hold. After a month or so of hiatus, the CW shows that are still running announced that they're basically going to end their seasons early -- at least some of them are, I haven't really read up on what they're doing for every single show. The Flash, in particular, are basically ending season six in three episodes, and... and I'm genuinely not sure if this is the way the writers wanted to end the season and they just rushed through the available material and trimmed away all the fat unrelated to the Eva McCulloch story, or if this is an alternate stopgap ending while everyone takes a break due to the whole pandemic thing. Also, I'm not entirely sure if any of these episodes were actually filmed (or at least partly filmed) prior to the hiatus, or if this was hastily put together afterwards. Or something.

And... it kind of works? At least this one episode of Flash that I've watched is pretty exciting, anyway, feeling like a combination of them rushing through a plotline or just the general escalation that comes with the end of a season. Whatever the case, this episode covers the whole Mirror Iris storyline and concludes it, albeit you can totally see a version of this season where the Mirror Iris storyline takes two or three episodes to unravel, with maybe the mid-episode point of Barry being framed as the Mirror Creature be the focus of an episode. And things work out a lot better in this way, I feel, with the story moving quickly, and there being jut enough rama without things feeling stretched out.

Anyway, after several months of living with (and, as sirI herself points out, sleeping with... ick) the suspicious not-Iris, Barry finally gtes a bit of a breakthrough and realizes that the Iris he's staying with is not Iris, but maybe a shapeshifter or a martian or something. Of course in a better paced season we maybe have an episode prior to this where Mirror Iris slipped up or did something that's not just "she kicked me out!" but the abruptness of this and Barry himself going into a bit of a crazy conspiracy theorist web thing does end up making the whole theme of Cecile thinking that Barry's applying a superhero's cazy conspiracy mind into what's basically a domestic spat. Which, of course, the audience knows isn't the case and that Barry's actually right and not being an idiot for once, but Cecile does see that both Iris and Kamilla are being kinda weird, so she gives Barry the benefit of the doubt.

Of course, they reckoned without the fact that Mirror Iris's 'mother', Eva McCulloch, is able to see through the mirrors and basically catch what's going on and prepare Mirror Iris accordingly, by swapping the mirror-creature-detector device and making it react to Barry, making it look like Barry and his chaotic ramblings are that of a confused mirror creature himself. And then the episode focuss mostly on Mirror Iris, and... as a character that was very much uneven throughout the season, this eisode finally lets Candice Patton act the hell out for two characters. The real Iris gets a significantly less amount of screentime, just basically investigating Eva's lair and finding the secret observation room before being held hostage... but not without her basically calling Eva out on some of her bullshit, allowing Barry and Mirror Iris to talk it out in the climax.

But it's her performance as Mirror Iris that ends up being super-awesome. Throughout the first half of the episode we get to see Mirror Iris being her typical, flat villain-impersonating-another-person self that we've seen in previous episodes of the season. And turns out that Mirror Iris... is developing a soul! Not so for her 'siblings', Mirror Kamilla and Mirror Singh (which is a bit of a huge 'wait, what?' moment, but you kind of roll with it). She clearly feels a huge amount of guilt in imprisoning Barry in spite of her cover-rant to Cecile and Nash, but we get a huge moment when she goes off to Iron Heights with her mirror buddies to free Bloodwork, because Eva needs a sample of Bloodwork's blood for reasons.

And Bloodwork's still fun, talking about the survival of the fittest and chewing the scenery and stuff. Again, the fact that Bloodwork's arc was paced perfectly and the villain wasn't overdone like some of the weaker Arrowverse villains (Cicada, Thinker, Damien Darhk's stint in Arrow) makes his return so much more cool and fun, even if he's essentially just repeating the same old survival of the fittest mantra. Mirror Iris is clearly disturbed by the robotic 'everything for the master' mentality that caused Mirror Kamilla to literally just kamikaze herself into Bloodwork's forcefield, shortening out the Iron Heights prison. And when Bloodwork uses his blood-goop abilities to attack the two surviving mirror people, he basically demands to know from Mirror Iris what she wants... and she just tells the truth that she just wants to live. Because the season can't afford too many cliffhangers, Bloodwork just does the convenient thing and uses the excuse of 'this is not my time yet' and elects to not escape, and just leave the required blob of plot device on Mirror Iris.

And, sure, a lot of this doesn't really hold up to close inspection. Bloodwork letting the mirror people survive despite his previous M.O. of turning everyone into a blood zombie is a bit questionable, as well as him playing a bizarre evil-mentor figure to Mirror Iris. And, of course, his decision to not break out. But eh, again, I'll buy it. I'm giving these post-hiatus seasons a bit of a leeway for more rushed writing, y'know?

Meanwhile, Cecile decides to trust Barry and let him out of the Pipeline. There's also another bit of bizarre plot hole why Cecile never actually detects Mirror Iris's real thoughts or something, but I'll just chalk it up to selective plot-convenient telepathy that so permeates X-Men comics. Whatever the case, though, Barry confronts Mirror Iris in her apartment in a very cool boss fight mode. Mirror Iris turns her arms into some T-1000 arm blades which is badass, and then when Eva decides to help out her creation, turns out that Mirror Iris can stab into any mirror near her and have the tip of her blade appear elsewhere and turn the depowered Barry into shishkebab. Very comic-book-y, and I appreciate this so much.

The jump to the conclusion is a bit abrupt, but this is Barry Allen and Iris West, and the two of them, on either side of the mirror, realizing that Mirror Iris is super-conflicted and deciding to give her a chance at an independent life outside of being an extension of Eva is great. Mirror Iris (and a later monologue by Eva) ends up cluing Barry in about Eva's plan, but poor poor Mirror Iris ends up being literally shattered into itty-bitty pieces right after she's established her independence as a person. Incidentally, as someone who's been only portrayed as ambiguously evil and maybe even just doing things out of desperation, this episode really hammers home that, no, she's not a card-carrying villain like Zoom or whatever, but Eva McCulloch, the Mirror Master, is still a villain. Pretty cool stuff as we wrap up the Mirror Iris stuff this episode, making me actually care for a part of the plot that I genuinely didn't give a shit about in previous episodes. Good show! Now we have two episodes left to wrap up this season, and honestly, the shorter episode runtime might actually make this Bloodwork/Mirror Master season my favourite one.

There's also a B-plot I completely forgot about involving Caitlin getting a cold (a literal) cold and Ralph and Cisco go off to help cure her by using Ralph as a jumper cable. It's kind of obvious filler padding, but I do know that Caitlin's actress Danielle Panabaker was pregnant while filming this season so this is an obvious way to have her film a scene with everything below the chest under a blanket. Some other characters (notably Joe, and also Nash halfway through the episode) also are MIA, but at least unlike other Flash episodes, this one had a better real-world reason.

As far as other superhero shows go... Flash and Supergirl only have a handful of episodes to talk about, and I am comfortable with just blazing through Legends and talking through it in two-episode review format, so it's just going to be Batwoman, Titans and the final season of Jessica Jones that I'm going to be slowly taking my time to watch. Apparently Stargirl's out, too? I'm undecided whether I'll be covering that show or Doom Patrol on this blog -- I'm taking things a bit slowly after being perhaps a bit too hectic throughout April and May.

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Among the theories that Barry postulates what Mirror-Iris could be is Everyman, a shape-shifting metahuman killed in season one (but is alive post-Crisis, according to Barry); martians (J'onn gets name-dropped) and Plastoids (briefly mentioned off-handedly by Breacher last season).