The Flash did a bit to set things up last season. One of those things being Jessie and Wall getting hit by a wave of Dark Matter. And tiny bits of exploded Barry Allen. Can’t forget that part.
Barry and Iris’s first date gets interrupted by Cisco; he tells them that a breach has suddenly opened up. It turns out to be Harry and Jessie; Jessie sprouted powers after a little while, and Wells wants to run some tests. Wally’s obviously less than thrilled about it, but that comes later. Harry, however, is quick to the punch when it comes to calling Barry on his time travel shenanigans when they get led into a room that didn’t exist before; the speed lab.
Harry’s plainly not nuts about the idea of his daughter whizzing around and pulling the Barry Allen routine. That’s the overprotective father in him at work. There’s a reason Tom Cavanaugh remains one of the show’s darlings. Part of it is his ability to turn on a dime, emotionally. He does that here; snarky with Cisco and Caitlin one minute, and torn up over the possibility of letting his baby go into the world the next. It always gave him an edge on screen.
Wall, on the other hand, is totally bummed out. He’s watching people win the superpower lottery all around him, and he’s left out. Joe has a sit down with him in an attempt to help him realize that it might not even happen. Even then, as an engineer, he could change the way in the same way, if not on a grander scale. But that really doesn’t do the trick. Like you really think it would.
Harry eventually pressures Caitlin into talking to Jessie about the use of her powers. Jessie’s a bit too quick to fall for it, however genuine Caitlin was actually trying to be. She assumes she was put up to it by Harry. Wally decides to take it from there. He had an ulterior motive, though. He asks her how she found out that she had speed; she tells him she was almost hit by a car. So he decides to play in traffic. Literally.
Jessie save him from himself, there, and gives him a piece of her mind on it. There’s no real fallout from it, though. That pretty much resolved his immediate attempts at jumpstarting his powers.
On the flipside, you have the episode’s namesake. Frankie seems like a mostly nice girl stuck in the foster system with a shitty family. But she’s also emblematic of the fact that Dr. Alchemy’s not just working his mojo on the willing, like Clariss. She has a split personality, and Magenta is the one that has and uses the powers. And she’s focused on killing her foster father. In this case, not quite finishing the job with an entire lamp post.
To be fair, her foster father is an unrepentant asshole. That being said, Magenta is an incredibly unstable personality. When Julian figures out she was the one who put Asshole Dad in the hospital thanks to the husks, he tries to confront her. Why he’d think that was a good idea is beyond me. Nine out of 10 metahumans seem to be unstable lunatics, and the one that isn’t tends to be emotionally damaged. Either way, she gets away to try her target again.
Iris happened to check in on Asshole Dad, in doing so figuring out why she’d want him dead. Obvious reasons aside, Iris figures it out just a bit too late. Magenta plans to drop the tanker on the entire hospital; Iris uses her emergency button (something new thanks to Flashpoint). Barry’s able to keep the tanker from dropping, but he can’t do that and stop Magenta, creating a stalemate. Harry finally relents, and sends Jessie to help out. Barry’s then free to talk Magenta down and Frankie into control.
They offer Frankie some support, finding her a better foster home. And they’ll be there if she needs them, as well. No clue if Alchemy will come for her like they found out he went after Clariss, though. Harry also gives Jessie his blessing in the form of a suit. On the condition that she keep in mind that he’s still her father, and therefore always worried.
The Flash has set a few things into motion. Not the least of which being Dr. Alchemy. And his love of killing those who fail him.
Final Thoughts:
- Julian continued the proud tradition of smart characters doing stupid shit in this one.
- I still can’t figure out the whole husk thing.
- It was surprising that Iris actually called Asshole Dad a dick. I was pretty sure you still couldn’t get away with that on broadcast television.
4/5
“Great”
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