And it’s not like there was very much to grab our attention in Barry’s trip to the future. Barry has a few run-ins with Mirror Master and Top, who prove themselves to be bland and forgettable in any timeline, but he spends most of his time interacting with future versions of himself and his friends. Grant Gustin was less successful in making Future Barry a distinct character than he has been in playing other versions of Barry such as his Earth-2 counterpart. Future Barry didn’t have very much to offer beyond a one-note sadness; sure, it’s understandable that Barry would retreat into himself after such a big loss, but watching him be basically expressionless and stand around for most of the episode doesn’t make for very exciting TV.
In fact, the most interesting thing about Future Barry is far and away his new supersuit. The suit has had a few different alterations of the past few seasons, but it’s basically remained the same. Future Barry’s suit however had some quite noticeable changes, and all of them worked for the better. The bright red and gold are more eye- catching colors and the cut of the suit much more flattering on Grant Gustin frame-- whenever Present Barry and Future Barry were standing next to each other, it looked as if Present Barry was slouching while Future Barry standing up straight. Hopefully it won’t be too long before we see this suit make its way into the main timeline, though I suspect any real costume changes won’t come until next season.
One good thing that can be said for the trip to the future is that it at least did put the spotlight back on the bond between Barry and Joe, which hasn’t gotten as much screentime this season as it has in years past. I liked that despite Barry’s insistence that he will not allow this future to pass, he still wanted to make sure he left this Joe in a good place, even going so far as to bring the estranged Team Flash back together. It felt like a very selfless move from Barry, who sadly hasn’t had very many of those moments lately.
Ultimately, however, Barry didn’t end up learning very much from his trip, except the name of a scientist who could potentially help him. The mystery behind Savitar’s identity, which for a moment looked like it was going to be resolved this week, continues to be painfully dragged out. At this point all of the snide comments from Savitar’s henchmen about how Barry will “never see this one coming” feel irritating rather than suspenseful. Even if there does end of up being a compelling answer, it seems pretty unlikely they’ll be enough time to properly explore the fallout with less than five episodes left, and it’s hard not to feel like the villain is mostly talk at this point.
I’ve previously speculated that Savitar is actually a version of Barry from another timeline, but that theory seems a little hard to reconcile with the ending of this episode. Killer Frost never misses a chance to bring up her disdain for Barry, so it’s hard to imagine her first instinct after learning Savitar’s identity would be to immediately team up with him if he was linked to Barry in any way. I’m still pretty convinced Savitar hails from an alternate future — there aren’t very many older characters on the show, and it’s hard to imagine any of them calling Caitlin “my child” — but beyond that there isn’t much to go on. The sooner THE FLASH actually starts properly diving into Savitar’s character instead of teasing mystery after mystery the better it will be.
Written by Kaitlin Roberts, THE FLASH Beat Writer -- Click to read Kaitlin's posts
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