The Flash deals with time travel, antimatter and microwaves as they speed towards the impending Crisis. This week was a really classic episode of The Flash that moved forward the main storyline and positioned the subplots in new and interesting directions, all while giving us a meta-of-the-week that was engaging and related.
The episode opens with the aftermath of the Monitor’s message that to save billions, the Flash must die. After failing to successfully time travel to the day after the crisis, Barry decides to go to the Jay Garrick of Earth-3 for help. Jay successfully sends Barry’s consciousness forward in time where he experiences billions of possible future timelines. This is the Arrowverse’s Doctor Strange moment as Barry sees that the only possible outcome where he can save the people he loves is if he sacrifices himself.
The trip to Earth-3 also reveals that Jay has found a woman – Dr. Joan Williams – that is the Earth-3 version of Barry’s mom. It is cool to have Michelle Harrison back and it gives Grant Gustin the opportunity for some emotional scenes.
The visions of the future give us a fantastic view of antimatter wiping out everyone in an unstoppable wave. What is antimatter? Jay explains it as extra universal matter that stopped Barry’s body from traveling past that point and that is appearing across the multiverse.
After the visions, Barry seems to have accepted his fate. Iris accuses Barry of giving up but thankfully Joe has a different perspective. After a classic Joe cop story/parable, he explains to Barry that like Joe’s badge, the Flash symbol is a promise to do what is necessary and proof of Barry’s resilience.
Meanwhile, Cecile takes charge of this week’s metahuman case as her psychic powers tell her that the metahuman she’s supposed to be prosecuting as DA is innocent. Despite mounting evidence that Allegra Garcia is guilty, Cecile continues to fight for her and risk her job. We finally learn that Allegra’s cousin, Esperanza also received metahuman powers identical to hers and is really behind the attacks. Thought to be dead, Dibny learns that she was actually acquired and trained by an agency that redacted all of their information from her file.
It’s cool to see Barry take a backseat on this case as Cecile, Ralph, Iris, and Joe do most of the leg work. Flash has had some cool moments but he rarely gets to be Jesse L. Martin firing a metahuman inhibiting rifle in a three-piece suit cool. Of course, when Esperanza, aka Ultraviolet, attacks Central City PD, Barry has to race to help them.
It might have been fun to see the support players fully handle Ultraviolet but the showdown between her and Flash ends up being really fun. Since UV rays move faster than Barry’s top speed, he isn’t able to outrun her waves. Thankfully, we flashback to Joe’s speech about resilience to give Barry the strength he needs to fight no matter what. Instead of trying to dodge around the waves (seriously #shouldazigzagged) Barry runs straight into them, powers through and is able to knock out Ultraviolet.
The wrap up for this episode has some pieces moving in very interesting directions. Killer Frost’s storyline has her trying to discover who she is. This leads to a new art appreciation and learning empathy for other people. Cecile decides to leave the District Attorney’s office and become a Defense Attorney for metahumans. Allegra Garcia joins Iris and Camilla as the Central City Citizen’s new intern.
And…threats are growing. The team acknowledges the fact that there is a secret organization acquiring and training metahumans. We also get a small line about Chester P. Runk to signal that his story is not over. Most importantly Dr. Ramsey Rosso returns for a couple of short scenes where he accidentally “kills” an arms dealer with his new powers. The final scene shows that the man isn’t dead but has been revived with new powers. It looks like next week his story will be brought to the forefront as Rosso takes another step towards becoming Bloodwork.
This was a really satisfying episode of The Flash. Based on the mention of Chester and the intern status of Allegra is seems like they are working to keep their meta’s around this season to hopefully build towards something. The return of Jay Garrick and the vision of the future is another ominous reminder of the Crisis on Infinite Earths and the mention of antimatter signatures across the multiverse is our first idea of exactly what this crisis will involve. This episode does a great job with several long-term plotlines that I’m really looking forward to seeing progress.
What did you think of this week’s episode of The Flash? Will Frost ever have her own art show? Do you think Iris should have asked Allegra for a resume before hiring her outright?
