The Flash had its mid-season finale last night. It featured a number of excellent points, one of which stood out among the rest. Also, it featured time travel, as per usual.
Barry decides to get Jay into the mix on the whole Savitar thing. Which legitimately leads to one of the best parts of the episode; Jay fighting Earth-3 Trickster. Everything, from the decor to the filter used on the camera screams early 90’s. It’s probably the closest you’ll get to seeing the sort of old comic book cheese on the show.
Jay has, somehow, heard of Savitar before; how he’s heard of him is a matter for another time, though. What he’s heard is nothing good; he’s the first speedster, and every time he appears, that world is destroyed by him. Jay surmises that if Savitar has appeared in Barry’s world, he clearly views Barry as a threat. He decides to stay and help Barry face down with Savitar.
On the Wally front, his training has come along nicely. He quickly surpasses Barry’s progress within the same timeframe. So of course, he blows it by mentioning it to Joe while Barry and Jay are gearing up for their fight with Savitar. Joe and Iris are incredibly unhappy with HR about it, but Wally takes all of the blame. They accept that maybe he is ready once he saves Barry from Savitar later on in the episode. They even give him his suit as a Christmas present at the end.
They decide to track down alchemy through the stone. They quickly find that Julian literally wrote the book on the thing. Barry goes to question him about it, but doesn’t wind up getting the full story that time. Cisco finds out shortly after that Julian had been the lead on an expedition to India to find it… and the only one to return from said expedition alive. They don’t have much time to deal with that, since Alchemy attacks just in time. When they get on the scene, Jay decides to take on Savitar while Barry deals with stopping Alchemy. Jay mostly gets worked over; Savitar is well aware of him as well. Jay is saved when Barry knocks out Alchemy and sticks the stone in the box that fell out of Alchemy’s robe. No idea how he knew it would work, just roll with it.
Cisco’s been seeing Dante around all episode, and thanks to Julian, we find out why. Savitar can’t do anything as long as the stone is in the box, with the exception of manipulating people to let him out. Once the stone’s in play, they’re his puppets. He does that by using the image of a dead loved one, convincing them that opening the box will bring them back. In Cisco’s case, it’s obviously Dante, and Savitar nearly kills Wally and Barry before Caitlin convinces him to close it.
They use the dream state headset to induce a trance on Julian to talk to Savitar without opening the box. He’s about 75% arrogance and 25% rage aimed at something Barry has yet to actually do. He reveals that one of them will die, and that one of them will betray the others. They realize that they need to get rid of the unearthly box, and the stone inside. I would’ve bet on a deep hole beneath STAR Labs filled with cement (just ask Jimmy Hoffa) but no. Jay suggests throwing it into the Speed Force, and offers to help Barry reach the speed necessary to do so.
Their attempt is successful, but has an unintended consequence. Barry gets flung into the future by about 6 months. He witnesses Savitar murdering Iris while he’s helpless to do anything, before Jay pulls him back to the present. Jay tries to make him understand that the reason Speedsters don’t visit the future is due to the fact that it’s just a possibility. The decisions you make can change things in inconceivable ways. Barry’s not so sure, but takes Jay’s advice to spend time with his family while they’re still there.
Julian managed to stop Barry’s resignation paperwork, so he still has a job with the police. Which is good, because he got a new apartment he plans to move into with Iris. But he’s still worried about the future where The Flash is incapable of saving her.
Final Thoughts:
– Do, like, all of the other Earths just love zeppelins or something?
– You know that box is just going to boomerang right back to them.
– I liked how Jay just went home offscreen.
4/5
“Great”
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