Recap
You seen Star Wars? Yeah it’s pretty much that.
Muggle Musings
Not a lot to say this time as this episode had SO much meta humor and shout outs laced throughout it that it’s hard to talk about anything else.
By far the biggest ordinary reveal is that evil Flash didn’t just pick the name “harrison wells” but stole it and the entire identity from a real person that (it seems) would have been a great guy. One kind of hopes that if time travel shenanigans change the timeline again (or back to whatever is normal) that maybe we could see the REAL Harrison Wells be a true friend and ally of Barry.
I did think the fight at the start was a little cheesy and the computer graphics for it quite poor. One wishes they had figured out some way to accomplish it practically so it would hold up better. I’m also slightly disappointed about the graphic death of real!Wells. I’ve heard from several other fans that they like to watch this show with their families and graphic, close up sights like that is what tends to get the rugrats crawling into their parents bed at night after a nightmare (leading to less sleep for the parents, the parents getting cranky, etc etc).
Though the timing of Barry revealing himself to Eddie when just the previous episode they had a fight and forgiveness is… disappointing. I liked that moment at the end of the previous episode where Iris and Eddie “forgave” Barry after the cover story Caitlin told and it seems pointless now that half of it is undone.
Also, I really did laugh at Mark Hamill’s line: “That wasn’t very sanitary.” Yeah… that always bugged me in these shows. I mean I know the confines of storytelling and all (proper sterilization can take a bit) but man, sometimes you have to wonder if in these shows STDs aren’t more rampant just because gangrene is killing off people before they manifest.
Metahuman Musings
Wow, what WASN’T a meta moment in this episode?? Mark Hamill who played the Trickster in the 90s Flash show (which I will resume reviewing during the summer hiatus) – in fact they even use a picture from that show in this one. John Wesley Shipp later dons the very same lab coat he wore all those years ago. Not to mention that throughout the episode Mark played the role with his Joker voice. Though I was disappointed with the show turning the Trickster into a knock-off Joker. I’m sure there’s a comic arc where he is like that but in a lot of the things I’ve seen and read, he always was more of a… silver-age Joker. One who was unintentionally malicious and violent. The drive to turn almost any similar villain of a hero into a thinly-veiled Joker tribute is a trend that I grow weary of in comics.
Of course Flash is a legacy hero and in this episode we have legacy villainy passing on from father to son while on a meta perspective the first Barry Allen plays the father of the current Barry Allen and officially passes on the mantle upon seeing the reveal of his “son.”
Time travel continues to make even less sense now as previously when Barry went back in time… “something” happened to his past self, while at the beginning of this episode we see that Barry going back in time did not do anything that instance to his younger past self. Unless that’s what happens with future!Barry after the opening is that he merges with child!Barry or… something.
All in all a very enjoyable outing on both storylines and well done by all involved with the emotional impact of this episode. Though you could just tell Mark has had a lifelong dream to tell someone he is their father.
