On the one hand, Doctor Alchemy and his new partner Savitar are about as blandly villainous as you can get. At least before they hadn’t been very present in the show, so you could imagine they would come more into their own once they stepped into the limelight. But now that they’ve come out of the shadows you can’t help but wishing they were out of sight again. There’s nothing more tiring than listening to generic bad guy threats about how the heroes have “no idea what’s coming for them.” Just typing that sentence out put me half to sleep. And another speedster villain? Really? Barry’s gone up against speedsters four times already; it’s hard to imagine Savitar has anything that new and exciting to bring to the table.
However, with all that being said, this episode did a great job of hyping Killer Frost’s Earth-1 debut, which seems to be happening next week. The truth is that Caitlin never really came into her own until this season; her character tended to get swept up in whoever was her love interest at the time, without really having any story lines of her own. Despite being part of the main cast since the show’s inception, we’ve only just now begun to learn about her family history and motivations for going to med school — all of which have tied nicely back into her Killer Frost storyline.
The writers also made a smart choice by emphasizing her bond with Cisco in what appear to be Caitlin’s last “good” moments for a while; their friendship has always been her most interesting relationship, and this episode only furthered the idea that he will be the one to take her transformation the hardest. And now that we’ve more or less seen that it’s her anger at Barry that will drive Caitlin over the edge, it’s looking like very few dynamics on the team will emerge unscathed.
I’ve spoken before about how frustrating it is that Barry often doesn’t have to deal with the consequences of his actions, even when they end up having huge effects on the lives of his loved ones, so in that respect I think taking this angle with Caitlin is a great opportunity to add some balance to the show — Barry needs to be held accountable for his mistakes by someone. Yet while her motivation is solid, I can’t help but wish it had been built up a bit more. Only a few episodes ago, Cisco and Barry were butting heads, and Caitlin was playing mediator between them. Wouldn’t it have been neater to introduce Caitlin’s resentment of Barry earlier in the season and let it fester for a few months? Still, it’s a fascinating turn of events that has great dramatic potential. The problem is that the show doesn’t appear to be positioning Caitlin as the main villain of the season. Now it could be that this is a fake out, and she’ll end up holding all the cards eventually, but it certainly doesn’t seem that way at the moment. It’s frustrating that the show has a perfectly solid villain that it seems to be sidelining in favor of two cardboard cut-outs. Brushing this storyline aside would be a major disservice to the characters, who, after all, are the reason the show continued to endure even when its plot begins to falter.
This week’s other main development was Wally gaining his speed powers, although with a dark cost. This subplot played out in a pretty straightforward manner and didn’t exactly guessing as to what was going to happen. As soon as Wally’s “speedster envy” was established earlier this season, it became obvious he’d take advantage of Doctor Alchemy’s powers to become Kid Flash. In spite of the standard material, Keiynan Lonsdale still gave a fine performance and did an excellent job showing Wally’s inner conflict. The real question that remains to be seen is if there will be any negative side-effects to his powers; as exciting as it is to see Wally finally gain his speed, it seems unlikely that making a deal with the devil would come with no strings attached, even once he’s freed from his cocoon.
With a title like “Killer Frost,” next episode is almost certain to be a messy, emotional affair. But at this point I think that’s what the show could use — a real blow-out where characters’ relationships are tested and there’s no easy answer. Not more focusing on tedious shadowy bad guys with no real connection to our leads.
Written by Kaitlin Roberts, THE FLASH Beat Writer -- Click to read Kaitlin's posts
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