by Chelsea Dee, Editor-At-Large

Okay I take back my skepticism of how three heroes fighting Reverse-Flash would be interesting. That was definitely interesting. Dare I say fun? It was fun to watch, and it worked. Of course we had to spend an entire episode beforehand. I looked this up because I was confused, but timeline wise this episode takes place at the same time as the Arrow episode before. So it is before Ollie and Nyssa’s wedding, which will connect with the next Arrow episode that takes place exactly after this one. They apparently got their timing off, which would explain why the past few crossovers have seemed a little weird. Serious shout out to Wentworth Miller for being brilliant this episode, and delivering one of my favorite lines of the show with smarmy perfection. Previously on The Flash, everyone knows Wells is Eobard Thawne aka the Reverse-Flash. He kidnapped Eddie while he worked on a plan that would send him back home, and told him that Iris marries Barry in the future. Captain Cold and Barry made a deal that they would tolerate each other and co-exist in the city as long as no one crossed specific lines. They captured a few rogues over the episodes with superpowers and have been keeping them trapped at STAR labs.

Cisco realizes that Eobard had a speed charger of some kind in his wheelchair and that’s why he had it all the time, and why he’s faster than Barry. They then find out exactly where Eobard is pretty quickly, considering he starts to set the particle accelerator off again. This leads them to find Eddie, huzzah, but also to realize that the building is probably going to explode again. Barry is determined to save the metahumans, even if he knows that he can’t put them in a normal prison or set them free. He reaches out to everyone he can think of. Oliver doesn’t respond, he can’t find Ronnie, and the District Attorney very firmly says ‘are you crazy’ to Joe when he asks for help transporting them. This leads Barry to get desperate and ask Captain Cold to help him. In exchange for getting them to an ARGUS plane (and Oliver’s special island), he wipes Cold out of the system with a fresh slate. Everyone is pretty judgy about this choice considering, hello, criminal, but they need to transport the bad guys and there’s not a lot of time left. This is yet another distraction tactic by Eobard, masking over whatever he’s really got planned. Earlier in the episode he asked Eddie what he would do if one day he lost everything, all his friends and family, his city, etc., what would he do to get it back? I think that’s going to be an important question for everyone going forward.

Captain Cold of course betrays them. Oh Barry. You sweet summer child. I do enjoy that Cold just flat out says that he’s a criminal and a bad person and he lies. He’s sort of like the scorpion in the scorpion and the frog fable. He’s very upfront about it. Now all the rogues owe him a favor for letting them out, but he did save Barry’s life, so it’s even. Ish. I liked seeing his sister again too, Golden Glider! She finally got her name from Cisco. I know he’s about to head over to the Legends of Tomorrow show, and I wish she was going with him. Heatwave will be instead, but I think Golden Glider would’ve been more interesting. I love sibling relationships and they don’t have enough of real siblings in these shows. So now all the metahumans are loose, and the particle accelerator is going to be set off, so Barry’s really at a low point. He couldn’t catch Eobard the last time they raced, and he’s losing confidence. Joe reminds him that he cared enough to save all those bad guys, and he can handle what’s coming.

This sets up well for a great hero shot, when Oliver and Ronnie show up to fight Reverse-Flash. Oliver manages to use Ray’s little microbots to slow down Reverse-Flash, and I wasn’t expecting that. I kept going how can Oliver even stand a chance, but it made perfect sense in this scene. The three of them take him down, and it was pure entertainment to watch. Oliver asks Barry for a favor before leaving, and now they have Eobard in their custody. But what is his master plan? Hopefully we’ll find out soon. As a side plot that hurt to watch, Eddie broke things off with Iris. He told her about the future, and she said no one wrote her future but her, which I appreciate. But he’s just not okay with any of it and said if she loved him, she’d let him go. So she does. I keep worrying about Eddie and I hope he’s not going to be a supervillain or dead any time soon. He’s become a slow favorite of mine, and I wanted to hug both of them in that scene. Breaking up is hard, especially when there’s still a lot of love there.

So what’s next? To find Eobard’s plan and stop it, and maybe save Barry’s mom? I think what Eobard said at the beginning of the episode is something that Barry’s going to experience. If not out of time completely, he might end up in an alternate reality, or CAUSING an alternate reality because of saving his mother. Barry did not learn from his last time travel experience that it’s dangerous, because overall it turned out better than the original timeline. I almost expect the end of this season to be him time traveling and messing everything up, honestly. I wonder if we’re losing Tom soon. It’s hard to say what will happen there, or what Eobard is so angry about. I doubt it’ll be completely wrapped up in only one episode, so he probably will survive to taunt and torment another day. On the whole this has been a very impressive first season, and I can’t wait to see how it ends.

Rating:
ComicsOnline gives The Flash Season 1 Episode 22 5 out of 5 Epic Boss Battles

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