The Flash "All Star Team Up" Review/Thoughts

This week on The Flash, a source of evil so powerful threatened Central City that one superhero was simply not enough to handle it. That's right folks, The Scarlett Speedster teamed up with Arrow's very own Ray Palmer this week to protect Central City from the dangers of...BEES!!

Episode Description: Ray Palmer and Felicity Smoak drop by S.T.A.R. Labs to get some help with the A.T.O.M. suit while Mercury Labs is terrorized by Brie Larvin (a.k.a. Bug-Eyed Bandit) and her army of robotic bees. Meanwhile, Barry struggles with who he can trust in the wake of his discoveries about Dr. Harrison Wells.

High Points:

• Barry and the Central City Police teaming up to take on everyday petty crime. A stark contrast to what is going on in Starling City right now with Oliver and his city's finest. 
• I found Joe's comment about where Caitlin and Cisco's loyalties lie very interesting. Especially because Cisco may end up being the super-hero Vibe someday, and Caitlin could still very much end up being the villain, Killer Frost..(Could this be what sets them on their paths apart?)
• Bug-Eyed Bandit's bees were experts at making horror movie style entrances. Especially coming out of the mouth of that guy's dead body... 
• I enjoyed the bromance that was forming between Ray and Cisco. Perhaps that will carry over when the Atom heads his own show?
• Cisco has memories from the alternate timeline! 
• The Atom suit was awesome this week. We have seen it do some stuff on Arrow but this was one of the first times we actually saw it in full-on action. Now we just need to see it shrink
• And it looks like we may get that sooner than later: "It seems I need to go smaller" -Ray Palmer
• We got a glimpse of the Felicity Smoak we all know and love. The one who hacks computers like a boss and is funny doing it, not the trophy in a three-way superhero love triangle
• Cisco taking the bee for Ray. In the words of The Reverse Flash, I have grown quite fond of Cisco over the course of this show and I like the attention and character development he gets. 
• That last scene did a lot to support my prior suspicions about who Caitlin and Cisco will side with. 

Low Points:

• Bug-Eyed Bandit was just another throw-away "of the week" villain who turned out to be nothing more than a disgruntled employee who is really good with tech and computers. And had a weird thing for weaponizing bees...

I like to imagine that this is how Brie presented her bee weapons to Mercury Labs 

• Barry was having a really hard time with these bees... I know bees are hard to outrun but even for the Flash? I was having a really hard time buying that Barry was getting trapped so easily by these bees

Essentially what Barry was like the entire episode

• I am still not a fan of Iris. I want to be because she is supposed to be Barry's girl but goddamn she can be annoying as hell. Granted she is literally the only person in Barry's life who doesn't know he is the Flash, but if Iris finds out about Barry's identity just because Eddie doesn't want them to break up I am going to be pretty disappointed in all parties involved

Verdict: The second Arrow/Flash crossover episode brought The Atom to Central City instead of the Arrow himself (probably because Oliver is busy being transported to jail) and the results were pretty cool. We got to see Ray Palmer interact and even mesh pretty well with the S.T.A.R. Labs team, and we got to see him do some pretty cool flying around and over-glorified bug zapping in his Atom suit. We have all been wondering when we were going to get to see the suit shrink down to microscopic size, and even though we didn't get it this week, it appears that the seed for future shrinkage has been planted. And in a decently appropriate fashion as well. Bug-Eyed Bandit is actually a villain who is mainly associated with the Atom because the Atom is able to shrink down to size to better combat his tiny insect robots. I say "his" because the Bug-Eyed Bandit is also usually a male named Bertram Larvin, so it was cool to see a female version. However, that is kind of where the "cool' aspects of the character started and stopped. Brie Larvin was another "of the week" villain who wasn't overly compelling. But who knows. Maybe she will make a reappearance when it is the Atom's turn to lead his own show and we will get some tiny Ray Palmer vs. tiny robot bee action (preferably on a children's play-set).

If you haven't seen this Ant-Man trailer yet you are gunna wanna click here

This week's episode seemed to be more about character and relationship development, which I am never overly opposed to. Sometimes you just gotta slow things down in the fighting crime department and build some character for the greater evils to come. We got some Barry development as he struggles with who he can trust. We got some Ray Palmer development as he makes friends at S.T.A.R. Labs and does some hero work. We got some petty relationship bullshit on the Eddie and Iris front that I won't waste another word on. But the characters I was very interested in this week were Cisco and Caitlin. Honestly, I have become quite the Cisco fan over the course of this show. When this show began I thought he was just going to be the nerdy, comic relief type character but he has turned out to be a lot more. We are learning about his sub-par family life, we are getting glimpses of his fighting capability, and we are getting hero-like characterizations from him. Now there has never been a point in my life where I have considered myself to be a huge fan of the character Vibe, but Cisco Ramon has definitely got me excited for his potential appearance on The Flash. As for Caitlin, this Harrison Wells loyalty conundrum is especially interesting for her. Cisco's memories from the alternate timeline help him to see Wells for who he truly is, but Caitlin does not seem very sold on the idea. Could this split her from Barry and Cisco and lead her down a path of evil with Professor Wells? Could this be the turning point in her character that launches her descent into becoming Killer Frost? Besides having a relationship with Firestorm, there really hasn't been much to hint at a transformation of character for Caitlin, so I am very interested to see if this difference in opinion leads to a rift big enough to cause her to go bad. All-in-all this episode was another fun crossover episode starring members of the Arrow gang, that will hopefully get the ball rolling on a shrink function to the Atom's suit. The villain was weak, but the tensions were left running high at the end of the episode with the S.T.A.R. Labs team being thrown into a "forced to take sides" scenario that may not go entirely according to plan. Only time will tell, but for now the "All Star Team Up" episode gets an 8.0 out of 10.

Thanks for reading the review! Do you think Caitlin will side with Wells over Barry and Cisco? Who was the better character: Beth from The Walking Dead or Brie the Bug-Eyed Bandit? Let us know in the comments or on twitter @Caped_Informers and be sure to check back here regularly for more comic book related news, stories, articles and reviews. The Flash returns same time next week to ask the question we have all been waiting for: "Who Is Harrison Wells?".