This episode could have been just another filler episode. It could have been reduced to formulaic predictability - Barry Allen is lost in the Speedforce and must find his way home through the mystical power of believing in himself really, really hard! Also, love!
Somehow, this episode transcended the formula. Every scene drove the plot forward. The character interactions were on point. The dialogue was snappy when it needed to be snappy, heartfelt when it needed to be heartfelt. The Barry-Iris relationship actually felt real rather than forced. In fact, Iris has never been better-realized as a character in her own right. Do we have director Kevin Smith to thank? Maybe credit goes to the writer Zack Stentz, who also wrote Thor and X-Men: First Class. Regardless, one of the strongest episodes of the season, perhaps of the whole series.
Some other random thoughts: The Jason Mewes cameo was to be expected, but still hilarious. Greg Finley, who played Girder, also played a significant recurring role in iZombie; bringing him back here as Zombie Girder must have been an inside joke.
There were a lot of WTF-moments, though. Why was there no power in the morgue? Is this just, you know, standard creepy place protocol where you never look for the lightswitch? What brought not-so-Colossus back to life? Was that random? Due to the particle accelerator? And it was awfully decent of the speedforce to knit Barry a new costume; I guess even anthropomorphized aspects of the cosmos need a hobby, but I would never have guessed sewing to be high on that list. Also, I would have been utterly shocked if the thing Barry needed to catch for nebulous metaphysical reasons to get his speed back hadn’t been himself.
Or did I just miss a ton of explanations for these things?
Oh, and also. Seriously disappointed at the lack of actual dinosaur in this episode. C’mon, we’ve got time travel, in the speedforce, you can see past, present and future, it would have been awesome! Dinosaurs make everything better.
Well, the alternative to having the Flash show up in uniform would be to have him be naked. While I’m sure some viewers wouldn’t mind seeing Grant Gustin in his birthday suit, it seems to be a rather undignified way to make an entrance.
Zombie Girder was reanimated the same way Girder was created in the first place: dark matter from the particle accelerator explosion. Also, Speedforce!
The whole “believe in yourself and you’ll come back to life” thing is best not scrutinised too closely. The rules for how that’s supposed to work seem to get lost in glurgey nonsense*.
My interpretation of it all was that Barry never lost his speed force, he can’t just siphon it off and give it to people. He has always had it, it just needs to manifest in him. If he believes he hasn’t got it anymore, then he can’t use it. They were trying to tell him that no matter what it’s always there to be tapped into.
Somewhere along the line he had to let go of his mother, but that seemed irrelevant to the rest of this season so I don’t really know what’s up with that.
Anyway, so is Wells’s daughter going to be another speedster too?
*Not that it was an especially sentimental episode, it managed to navigate those waters quite well, all things considered.
I had no idea that Kevin Smith directed this episode. That whole scene (which seemed really out of place for The Flash) I was thinking “that guy really looks like Jay.”
Reminds me of Deep Space Nine. Let’s spend an episode visiting the worm hole aliens and come back and do what we were going to do anyway. Is Barry changed in any way that required the speedforce? He’s into his adoptive sister. We got that.
I liked it (well most of it at least. I’m still annoyed that they’re trying to keep the Flash a secret from Wally. There were several points in the episode that it would have made sense to just say “Look, Barry’s the Flash. Many, many, many people (including several evil metahumans) know about it. You’re in danger because you’re his roommate. Now, go hide in the bedroom.” Rather than just telling him to hide for no reason.) I loved the story between Barry & his mom.
In comic-world, are there any other good metahumans? Say, someone who can make plants grow and just uses their power to have a really nice garden and prize-winning tomatoes? Or are they all, except Barry, supervillains or potential supervillains?
As for Barry coming back from the Speed Force wearing a Flash costume and not his skivvies…IIRC In the comics, when Wally West-as-Flash was trapped in the Speed Force and had to find his was back (using his wife Linda Park as his anchor instead of Iris), he also came back wearing a Flash costume when he shouldn’t have. It turned out that the costume was actually made of Speed Force.
Did anyone ID any of the villains Zoom addresses in the final scene?
In the comics, there wasn’t a group of other superpowered people created at the same time as the Flash. He was just a guy who got struck by lightening while doing a chemistry experiment. The whole particle accelerator thing was added for the show, presumably to explain why there were now lots of superpowered people running around the Arrow-verse, which had mostly lacked them before that.
DC Comics uses “metahuman” to mean something like what Marvel calls mutants, or more generally to mean super powered people. There are of course a bunch of other good supers in the comics, including a fellow named Clark who you might have heard of.
I told my wife that Smith should’ve cast himself as Silent Bob and done that scene with Jay and Silent Bob stepping out of the burger place.
She said that would have been way too much … she’s probably right Would’ve intertwined the Arrowverse and the View-Askewniverse. Would’ve been fun to have occasional throwbacks, though: Joe getting a soda from Dante’s convenience store. Felicity dealing with unhelpful coworker Randall. Brody offering Ray Palmer (he’s got a sweet tooth) some chocolate-covered pretzels.
Would’ve intertwined the Arrowverse and the View-Askewniverse. Would’ve been fun to have occasional throwbacks, though: Joe getting a soda from Dante’s convenience store. Felicity dealing with unhelpful coworker Randall. Brody offering Ray Palmer (he’s got a sweet tooth) some chocolate-covered pretzels.