Although Barry is clearly trying to heed Jay’s advice about living in the moment, he’s clearly haunted by what he saw in the Speed Force. The arrival of Plunder (another sadly forgettable villain of the week) escalates Barry’s feelings, as he finds himself torn between doing his duty as a superhero and doing everything he can to protect Iris. Refreshingly, it doesn’t take long for Barry to come clean with Iris and confide in her what he saw. It’s a nice bit of character development for Barry, who has often been guilty of keeping people in the dark and trying to go it alone, and it led to a truly stunning speech from Iris who makes Barry promise not to stop saving people for her sake. Candice Patton is one of the strongest actors on the show, and hopefully this storyline will lead to more compelling material for her, because, boy, does she knock it out of the park every time.
As Iris herself points out, keeping this from everyone else means lessening the resources they have, and the two waste no time in revealing Barry’s vision to the rest of the team-- which now, of course, includes Kid Flash. It’s also nice to see they aren’t wasting much time before taking the training wheels off for Wally. Considering his sister’s life hangs in the balance, it wouldn’t make sense to keep him on the sidelines. And I do have to commend the show for how seamless Wally’s transition into Kid-Flash has been. THE FLASH has always been a very team centered show, and while Barry having a partner in the field is a slightly different beast than having a partner in the lab, Wally suiting up with Barry feels like a natural extension of that core team dynamic, rather than saddling Barry with a sidekick.
And while we’re on the subject of team efforts, although basing all their plans to change the future off of one newsreel Barry saw doesn’t seem like the most ironclad reasoning, it sure is fun to see the team try and piece together a makeshift timeline out of the facts that they have; especially since some of them, like the STAR Labs museum closing and the return of Killer Frost, have personal consequences for team members besides Iris. While no doubt everyone is keen to see Iris safe and sound, adding these other more minor revelations is a great way to make sure no one on the team becomes a background player. It’ll be interesting to see how many times we revisit that scene in the future via Cisco’s vibes and how different it becomes before it finally comes to pass in one form or another.
While Savitar is still seemingly defeated for the moment, there’s still a lot to propel the show forward in the second half of this season. There’s certainly a sense of excitement and suspense that was never there in the earlier episodes — having a ticking clock raises the stakes a lot more than just waiting for whatever new meta Savitar will send. It may have taken a while for THE FLASH to find its footing this season, but now midway through, the show finally feels ready to dive into compelling and uncharted territory.
Written by Kaitlin Roberts, THE FLASH Beat Writer -- Click to read Kaitlin's posts
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