The Flash: Things You Can’t Outrun (EPISODE REVIEW)

This week on the Flash: we’ve got a guy who can turn himself into a noxious gas, and his motives are as sinister as his powers sound. 3 metahuman villains in as many weeks? This is looking more like Smallville than anything else on tv. But it appears now they’ve actually got a place to put the errant metahuman scum: they’ve already got built in prison cells below them in the particle accelerator. Yep. That actually happens. Why must all metahumans have such dastardly motives? This week, The Mist as he’s aptly titled, just wants to kill three people. And that’s his endgame. He knocks off two. The third? Joe West.

One of the strongest scenes to play out actually occurs with Joe and Barry’s father. Henry was a good friend to Joe, and apparently Joe never made the excuse to see him after Henry was accused of murdering his wife. John Wesley Shipp does an excellent job with his facial expressions here, delivering the perfect amalgam of hate, sorrow, and hope.

Iris and Eddie Thawne… Hmm. I really have nothing to say about their relationship. I think it’s blatantly not going to work, which is annoying to have to watch, but it’s still slightly entertaining. Eddie Thawne is most certainly going to eventually become Zoom, or the Reverse Flash, whom we saw a brief snippet of in the Pilot episode, but he doesn’t appear to have any sinister intent just yet. I wonder if Barry’s inevitable relationship with Iris will spark this deadly rivalry. Does he already have his powers? Guess we’ll see. But I find I actually like his character so far.

This episode marks the first time we get to see what really happened behind the scenes with the particle accelerator mishap. We get to see Caitlin’s fiancé for the first time during the flashback sequences. He’s an incredibly self-sacrificing character, which is instantly likable in a person. I hope we get to see more of him – whether that means more flashbacks, or that he comes back to life. Robbie Amell is the actor’s name, and he looks remarkably similar to his cousin Stephen Amell. I wasn’t thrilled with Danielle Panabaker’s acting in this episode to be honest. It didn’t strike me as very genuine. Rather it seemed a very forced procedure.

Where this episode really let me down though was the emotions they were trying to convey. If the audience doesn’t at first empathize with the characters, telling them why they should doesn’t help. And this episode was one big pity party. Again, Barry’s emotions run rampant. He messes up and he blames it all on himself, and then he starts blaming himself for his mother’s death as well, and… It’s all overkill. We get it. He’s had it rough. But then he starts talking to Caitlin and she too tells Barry how hard her life’s been since her fiancé died. This series is way too young to fully grasp us in a believable pity party. We may like the characters, but that doesn’t mean we’re ready to get involved personally. It bogged the episode down unnecessarily.

It turns out Harrison Wells knew the particle accelerator would explode. He fitted Barry’s work lab with a camera to see him get zapped by residual energy. So does this make him the bad guy? He’s certainly playing the puppeteer, but to what end? And do we really need these scenes at the close of each episode? Stay tuned next week and find out!

Current ranked average for The Flash Season One: 7.33

14 thoughts on “The Flash: Things You Can’t Outrun (EPISODE REVIEW)

  1. I’m really enjoying The Flash so far and I find it to be the perfect opposite of Arrow and the two work beautifully together, with Arrow dealing with a darker and grittier, more realistic side of the same coin whereas The Flash is more upbeat and more immersed in the super of super heroes. It’s clearly still setting itself up, foreshadowing future heroes and villains to the left and right which makes me very happy.

    I also don’t mind the Wells mystery, quite the opposite because I don’t think the show would be nearly as interesting without it. He adds an endgame to the series early on and gives you something to discuss in between episodes (what’s his deal, who is he, why and how and so forth) which is also what I really, really loved about Arrow, the material for discussion with friends.

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    1. Actually i really like the Wells mystery so far, despite what I may have said in the review. I only mean that I hope they don’t simply lay it on too thick after every episode. If it were every few episodes i think it would be better. Make it more surprising when he does do something curious and adding onto the mystery a bit slower.

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      1. That’s assuming it’s going to be a season-long mystery and I don’t think it will. I think we’ll have a major reveal at the mid-season finale that will reveal a lot about Wells. Pictures of the Reverse Flash is already floating around the Internet and I don’t think they’ll wait much longer to introduce a season villain than the mid-season point, regardless of whether that’s Wells or Thawne.

        I also don’t think Thawne will be Reverse Flash, at least not in the shape and form we know him now. Dangling Eddie Thawne out in the open like that is way too obvious to build a mystery around since every single DC fan out there will go “OH! ZOOM!” the second they hear his name, it’s a bit on the nose. He’ll probably end up being the major suspect when it then turns out to be Wells or something, shocking reveal with fanfare.

        Or, I dunno, I guess we’ll have to wait and see. The suit looks kickass either, I must say.

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  2. Regarding the actor playing Barry’s father… “John Wesley Snipe”

    This is either THE funniest typo in a long time… or you did it intentionally, in which case it is pure genius.

    Either way, I almost spit out my mountain dew while reading that!

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  3. I definitely agree about Danielle Panabaker’s acting. She strikes me as the weakest of the cast so far. But the series is still young, so she might ease into the role given time.

    I think we’re seeing a definite trend in Flash regarding metahumans. It seems The Flash will address the supernatural elements of the Arrow/Flash universe while Arrow deals with the more “normal” criminals (Slade and MiraKuru aside).

    I do hope The Flash stops ending each episode with a scene of Harrison Wells. He is an interesting character, but the plot development of the episodes is starting to feel a bit formulaic.

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    1. Yeah. Which is a shame. Its only been three episodes and we can already explain the formula. But yeah. Perhaps Panabaker’s acting will fit in ar some stage. We’ll see.

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  4. okay am I the only one who thinks the wheel chair dude is the Flash from the future? I mean they look really similiar and he had that paper from the future thing and all… though he is looking a little evilly… but I hope not cause I really like that actor… plus I think it’s awesome that the Flash’s dad played the Flash in the old episodes… I loved that show… and everytime that dude passed out in the 2nd episode all I could think was he needs to be ordering himself some pizza… but I’m liking it so far… I do think he needs to lighten up on the pity party thing now… I mean for the first time they got some good ideas on what might have happened to his mom… now isn’t the time to whine… it’s the time to get to work…

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      1. sometimes people grow up to be evil… and we don’t know the full story… maybe in the future that man did a lot of bad things and that’s why he got stabbed in the past to prevent it… but obviously that dude isn’t just some normal guy and he has intel from the future and he’s very concerned about the flash… plus I find it odd that the person that was zooming around his mom was in the same colors as the Flash… not that he would purposefully kill his own mom… but like an accidental shift in time and junk happened or maybe he was trying to protect her from something else going really fast and all… I’m just saying… and plus we don’t know for sure he’s evil… just maybe a little too obsessed with the Flash…

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      2. Whatever is going on… I’m sure the future-Flash didn’t come back in time to kill people… even bad guys. Also… if you go back and look carefully at those flashbacks of whomever killed Barry’s mom… those weren’t exactly the same colors as the Flash.

        To say any more would ruin things if you don’t already know the story behind that from the comics.

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