By Brady Steele / twitter: @mrbradysteele.
The Flash / Barry Allen (Grant Gustin) has to play the game his mentor / enemy Dr. Harrison Wells / Reverse-Flash (Tom Cavanagh) has been playing all along: being friendly with your nemesis face to face. The moving parts and multiple plot lines system in place for this show are cooking along nicely again this episode. In addition to this game, a new game begins with an old adversary from the previous incarnation of The Flash from the 1990-91 show in The Trickster James Jesse (Mark Hamill).
I feel like the narrator from He-Man when talking about this week’s episode but it fits. Fabulous secrets were reveled this week as the secret origin of Eobard Thawne (played this week by Matt Letscher) and how he ended up stuck in the wrong time. Viewers also get a glimpse of what he’s done to get back to his time. Detective Joe West (Jesse L. Martin) nails it by calling Dr. Harrison Wells / Reverse-Flash (Tom Cavanagh) “scary patient.” Again, knowing what I know from the comic book lore, it still felt like a satisfying retelling with the extra components from the show mixed in. As convoluted as comic book storytelling can be, the show runners do a succinct job of telling a time-displaced villain story.
There are strong performances all around. The old Trickster / new Trickster team are maniacal, Dr. Wells’ increasingly less subtle pushing and prodding, the old Eobard Thawne silent and menacing presence and Barry Allen’s moment of fear and doubt all add to the storytelling tapestry. My only grievance is the frequency of The Flash sharing his secret identity with everyone. I had a chat recently about a problem my friend had with the much lamented Amazing Spider-Man film series. Peter Parker’s secret was not much of a secret which diminishes the purpose of it. Letting everyone in on the secret doesn’t do much but weaken the heroic / civilian duality of heroes. At this count, only Iris (Candice Patton) doesn’t know which feels like way too many people. As much as I lamented the time travel plot device last week, maybe there’s a mind-wipe / time travel arc down the line somewhere. Other than that, this was a banner episode. Here’s hoping they keep upping the intensity towards the season finale.
SCORE: 9 / 10 BOLTS