The Musical Accompaniment for Tonight's Review
Episode Description: Barry and Caitlin attempt to balance their crime-fighting/work duties with having a social life while Cisco uses Hartley to try and discover what happened to Ronnie on the night of the particle accelerator accident.
High Points:
- Not only are we seeing Barry do his casual superhero thing, but the people he saves are starting to interact with him/thank him (that's the type of gratitude that leads to museums being built...)
- Despite what I said about Barry "slowing things down" he actually hit a new top speed tonight. They didn't say what it was but The Scarlett Speedster is getting faster!
- Every second that Cisco and Hartley were together during this episode seemed to hint at a potential Vibe/Pied Piper rivalry ("I know about vibrations too Hartley", dueling intellects, and even a physical fight on the rooftop)
- Branching off from that last point, it was kind of exciting to see Cisco throw down with Hartley even if it was for a brief moment (Who knew Cisco could throw a guy over his shoulder like that?)
- Though we had pretty much put the pieces together at this point, tonight it was officially spelled out for us that Ronnie Raymond did fuse with Martin Stein the night of the accident to become Firestorm
- Barry sensing and catching the bullet was insanely cool and unexpected. Also the resulting "I guess I'm faster than a speeding bullet" line from Barry is the second fun little nod to Superman that this show has had this season (The first being "Hmm...A Man of Steel" referring to Girder)
- Barry is relentlessly hit on by Linda Park at the bar (Another indicator of Wally West perhaps?)
- Grant Gustin reminds us that he was on Glee before he became The Fastest Man Alive
- After a week of kinda iffy effects, they were back on point tonight, especially the bullet catch and the scene of Barry running around in the blacked-out tunnel
- Gorilla Grodd! Gorilla Grodd!! GORILLA GRODD!!!
Look at it! Look at it! I want all of you to look at it!!
Low Points:
- All-in-all tonight's episode was a bit slower and a bit less action packed then usual. The focus was less on Barry as The Flash and more on Barry as Barry. Not necessarily a bad thing, but it was a bit of a break in the action.
- Shawna Baez, a.k.a. Peek-a-Boo was a pretty weak villain this week. She was essentially Nightcrawler from X2 except that teleporting was literally all she could do (and she wasn't a blue mutant with a tail)
- I don't necessarily know how to feel about Barry's dad knowing he is The Flash. I don't think any immediate harm will come of it, I just think it was a bit of a forced conclusion for his dad to have come too..
Verdict: Tonight's episode did a lot to support some of the things talked about last week concerning Cisco and Hartley. We knew they were going to have to team up and as it turned out, they wasted zero time doing so. We got to see a brief skirmish in which Cisco revealed he can handle himself in a fight, and we saw both of them best each other using sonic vibration technology. Now if that isn't a big foreshadowing of what is to come then I don't know what else that could possibly be. Speaking of things to come, are we gonna get Wally West? Because it is really starting to look that way. Last week we were introduced to Mason Bridge, a character who is usually known to be a good friend of the Wally West Flash under the name "Trollbridge". This week Barry scored the digits of none other than Linda Park, a character who has been known to end up as the wife of Wally West. I for one would love to see Wally come on the show and it almost makes perfect sense. Think about Arrow for just a second. Roy Harper made a few brief appearances in Season 1 of Arrow, became a regular character in Season 2, and by Season 3 was The Red Arrow, and even occasionally referred to as Arsenal. Perhaps we slowly but surely start to work Wally into the mix on The Flash. First via these obscure references like Mason Bridge, then the actual character himself and then keep going from there until finally we get Kid Flash. It is too early to say anything of that nature for sure, but if I were to make a bold prediction, I would say that the bricks for Wally West are being laid and therefore, so are the bricks for Kid Flash. Now I am going to segway from talks of a bold prediction to talks of a bold cliffhanger: Gorilla Grodd is chilling in the sewers of Central City! If you haven't done so yet I ask that you take this time to scroll up and take in the photographic evidence of Grodd on a CW show. We got our first good look at him tonight and I am impressed. I am also extremely interested to see how they work him into the story. We know that he is the product of an experiment that involved both General Eiling and Dr. Wells but as of right now that is it. Will he come into play this season? Are we just being reminded that he is lurking around so he can take the spotlight next season? Could Reverse Flash and Gorilla Grodd potentially team up? Right now there are so many possibilities for Grodd and I love it! I can't wait to see what they do and if it is anywhere as intriguing as the Reverse Flash storyline has been this season then we are in for another great storyline. Despite a sub-par villain of the week, and a bit of a break in the action, we once again got handed a lot to look forward to both definitely and potentially, and I'm honestly not sure which one of those is better. In the spirit of tonight's romantic theme, an extremely sensual 8.0 out of 10 is in order.
Thanks for reading the review! Got any theories for the show's future? On a scale of 1 to apeshit, how crazy did you go when you saw Grodd? Let us know in the comments or on twitter @Caped_Informers. Be sure to check back regularly for more show/movie reviews and breaking news/stories regarding the comic book universe. The Flash returns same time next week with "The Nuclear Man".
GRODD MAKES THIS EP AN AUTOMATIC 10!
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