SOME SPOILERS AHEAD.
This was one of the funnest and funniest episodes of The Flash this side of season three and definitely one of it’s best. At least for about half of it. At about the midway point the funny moments stopped coming and it settled into it’s usual seriousness and melodrama.
Amnesiac Barry is the best Barry. His reactions to everything are hilarious. Especially his freak out about whether or not he still had a liver and when he looked down at his hand after Wally said that the two of them are brothers. Wally’s face after that was priceless and meme worthy.
The one thing about stories in which time travel is at their core, is that the explanations for the events taking place are often times migraine inducing. That was the case for me with Barry and Savitar-Barry’s conversation at the beginning of the episode. It didn’t make a lick of sense until Cisco explained it later and I thank the writers (for once) for including that scene. It’s still cheesy that Savitar exists because that version of Barry had no friends, but I get that it hurt being rejected by the people he loved.
Ever since Joe’s “love conquers all” adjacent declaration, the show seemed to have doubled down on the “without love we become monsters” idea in this episode. It’s a little nauseating but this is The CW and they deal in cheese, corn, melodrama and tired cliches.
The second that Cisco presented his idea to stop Barry from retaining new memories, I knew it wouldn’t work because they didn’t have Caitlin. And given that the whole point of it was to stop Savitar from learning of their plans because he is a future version of Barry and will remember everything he does, I was surprised that none of them brought up the point that Savitar would know about this plan as well and that Savitar didn’t speed over there to stop them from taking away his one advantage. I also feel like because Cisco and Julian are scientists, even if they don’t specialise in biology and medicine like Caitlin, they should still have accounted for Barry’s powers as a variable.
That being said, it was really just a vehicle for demonstrating how critical a component she is in Team Flash. They were essentially useless without her. And having Barry’s memory loss extended to Savitar was a means of getting her back into Star Labs. It was a clever way to do that.
I didn’t think that Cisco reminiscing about his shared past with Caitlin would bring her back, but it seems to have worked a little since her eyes briefly returned to their natural colour as she was leaving. Here too the writer are stressing the whole love thing; only the love of her friends can bring Caitlin back.
It sprang back up again in the end when they fixed Barry’s brain but he still couldn’t remember, because Iris always needs to give him a speech to motivate him and only her love can bring him back to who he truly is.
It became very evident very quickly that this episode was about Barry accepting his pain and suffering as a part of who he is. For this reason I think that this version of Barry will likely end the Savitar loop. He will not become or create Savitar. Because he has accepted his pain and because he knows where Savitar came from, he won’t create the conditions necessary for Savitar to come into existence. I just can’t see it happening that a new Savitar will come out of this.
Random thoughts:
- That clash between Barry and Savitar was cool.
- “Speed For Canon” sounds better.
- This Tracy and HR ship is moving pretty fast.
- Bart:”How do we afford to live here?” I know right!
- This court case was a disaster.
- Iris and Barry are going to fall in love no matter what.
- Wally: “You should never have tried this without Caitlin.” I know right!
The Flash airs Tuesdays at 8 PM on The CW.
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What’s the name of your capstone project and what is it about?
Things were starting to look up for Mary and Darnley’s relationship in the beginning of this episode; she finally acknowledged that he tries and expressed a desire to return her efforts in kind. Then Darnley – as Darnley does – had to ruin everything with his desperation and ambition, in an abrupt change of character that came so fast, I got whiplash. We’ve always known that he was ambitious and had questionable morality, but never before had Darnley been this vicious. Especially toward Mary.
All he did was send her running to the man he wanted to keep away from her: Lord Bothwell. She had no choice but to turn to him and ask him to stop the attack on England and retrieve her seal. Sending him and Rizzio to speak to Gideon so that he could help as well. Luckily, Bothwell and Rizzio succeeded, leaving Darnley to quiver and beg at Mary’s feet once confronted with the news. It was satisfying to see. He quickly changed his tune, however, once she told him that they were over and threatened to publicly denounce their child as his. All of the hope I had for the relationship is now gone, as is my love for and faith in Darnley.
Unfortunately for Catherine as well, Narcisse has sided with Henry since he sees him as a better king than Charles ever was or ever could be. Granted, it is to some extent true; Charles is little more than a puppet being controlled by a foolish, if not ambitious, little girl and that is something that I could not see happening to Henry. He’s too strong of a person for that. In fact, Henry had been eyeing Nicole for the entire episode and I fully expect her to leave Charles for him at some point. Narcisse too. She’s in love with him now, but I’m confident that Henry has the charm and charisma to make her fall for him. Even if she doesn’t, she will align herself with whomever has the most power and if that ever becomes Henry, that is where she will be.
There, he promised he wouldn’t tell Elizabeth about their attempted coup. But when he got back home and Elizabeth said she would call off her engagement because she was worried he’d left her and she didn’t want to live a life with someone she didn’t love, he spilled the beans! Kind of. He bent the truth somewhat and only told Elizabeth that there had been an attempted coup by Catholic, English subjects that Mary asked him to help her stop. And that without a Catholic husband, she would always be facing such dangers.
With Team Pope thoroughly thrashing Payas in the last two episodes, it was only inevitable that he would push back at some point. And this week, he did. Hard. Taking inspiration from Team Pope’s fake out drone attack last week, he executed quite a show of force when he placed nine drones, armed with bombs, above nine American cities, threatening to detonate them at random intervals if Team Pope didn’t give him back Mellie and Marjorie-Samantha-Grace.
When her first request to her father failed, Liv sent Jake to get information from Marjorie-Samantha-Grace. Which he surprisingly got considering how deft Marjorie-Samantha-Grace is. But he expertly played her and she inadvertently revealed a tracking device in her neck that Payas used to keep tabs on her. One that Team Pope could use to find Payas’ location. It was too good to be true though, because a kill switch was activated and it was rendered useless. I really thought that Team Pope had Payas then. I should have known that that wouldn’t work.
In their conversation Papa Pope reveals that the bricks were a threat to keep him in line; a human head weighs nine to eleven pounds and they would send him Liv’s if he didn’t behave. They both noted how important Liv is to Papa Pope and that he would do anything to protect her. It was because of that exchange that I didn’t think that Papa Pope was truly running away when he freed Marjorie-Samantha-Grace.
Even with Marjorie-Samantha-Grace and Payas dead I was still uneasy. Their defeat was a little too easy and I was ready for another threat to rear it’s head at the very end of the episode, but nothing happened. If the preview for the next episode is any indication, I can rest easy on that front because their next big threat seems to be Liv.
The big reveal of Savitar’s identity was a big disappointment. Perhaps due largely in part to all of the fan speculating and theory-crafting that preceded it; we, the fans, knew for a very long time who Savitar would be and no amount of (annoying) teasing the writers could have done – Abra and Killer Frost anyone? – would have put the punch or shock factor into the moment. Beyond that, the way that Barry suddenly pieced it together, what made it click for him and the fact of who Savitar is was just kind of “meh.”
With Killer Frost and Savitar after Tracy, Team Flash decides to take her under their protection and tell her of her illustrious future. But not before Killer Frost makes two attempts on her life.
Team Flash is drawn into their last face off with Killer Frost when she kidnaps Cecil (who Joe had been awkward with all episode because she told him she loved him and decided to break up with because he doesn’t like lying to her about Team Flash and he doesn’t want to endanger her life) and threatens to kill her if they don’t hand over Tracy. Which is totally unnecessary since Tracy is sitting out in the open, on a bench in front of a statue of Galileo with HR at the time. She was completely vulnerable. It was the perfect opportunity
Joe makes up with Cecil and tells her everything and that he loves her. He relays the news to Barry, Iris and Wally. When Joe says “Love’s the only thing we got in this world. Without it, nothing really matters. And who knows what we’d become if we didn’t have it.”, Barry comes to the realisation of who Savitar is. It was the cheesiest, most eye-roll inducing catalyst for a character to figure something out I’ve ever seen.
Random thoughts:
With Wally’s help Barry opens a worm hole and travels to 2024; the year in which The Flash is reported to have disappeared and by which time he’s already trapped Savitar in the speed force. Before he leaves he promises Iris that he’ll be there for Joe if she dies. I found Barry to be a tad inconsiderate when having that conversation with Iris. It’s Team Flash, we all know that they’re going to save her, but even so when she was telling him “If I die” he shouldn’t have been so dismissive of what she was going to say.
Barry finds Wally in a wheel chair and catatonic, having had his spine shattered in his fight with Savitar. He tries speaking to him, but Wally is unresponsive. He asks Cisco where Joe is and finds him visiting Iris’ grave. Here, Barry learns that his future self didn’t keep his promise to be there for Joe. The two haven’t spoken for a long while and Joe is very upset with him.
After all of the doom and gloom of the episode, it was nice to see Team Flash happy and in a celebratory mood after their defeat of Top and Mirror Master. Emo Barry tells Barry about the scientist who helped him trap Savitar in the speed force. The only problem is that she did it in 2020, after Iris had died. Emo Barry gives Barry a device with the scientist’s information on it to give to her past self, in the hopes that she can give Barry the tech he needs to defeat Savitar before he can kill Iris.