SOME SPOILERS AHEAD.
For this entire season, The Flash has been reminding Barry of the colossal mistake he made when he created Flashpoint and I’m glad that we’re still seeing the consequences of that.
If there’d been no Flashpoint, there’d be no Savitar and if there were no Savitar, Iris wouldn’t be slowly creeping toward her death at his hands (and Wally wouldn’t be trapped in the speed force). Essentially, it’s Barry’s fault that Iris is going to die and that has to be the worst consequence of his actions for him.
If I were Iris I would have gotten upset about why Barry proposed as well. For once, I actually stand behind her reasoning. Fear is a terrible reason to get engaged to someone and you can’t base a marriage on that. I would have called off the engagement too. If it had been a case of him not knowing for certain if they will be able to save her and wanting to marry her while he still has the time to (which I thought was what he was doing), then that would have been fine.
I’m confused about the Barry not asking Joe for permission thing. Not the fact that he didn’t ask, but why both Joe and Iris made such a big deal about it. And especially why if Joe was holding onto the ring for Barry, wouldn’t Barry have needed to get it from him? In which case, couldn’t he have asked Joe’s permission then? Even if he didn’t, wouldn’t Joe have known automatically that he was planning to propose to Iris?
Another thing that confused me is why Team Flash hadn’t, until this episode, concerned themselves with figuring out how Savitar would return and didn’t make preventing that part of their plan to save Iris. Granted, as was explained in the episode, by tossing the philosopher’s stone into the speed force Barry had virtually given Savitar what he needed to escape it (and for some reason I thought that they already knew he was there), but they didn’t know that was what they were doing. So by all means they should have been looking into stopping him from coming back, instead of trying to change some headlines.
Which it seems isn’t working because when Wally vibed to the future, nothing was different. Why wasn’t that made note of? That’s a pretty big deal. It looks like their attempts have failed. The only take away from that scene was the real reason Barry proposed and it kind of trivialised the whole thing.
I did think that vibing Wally to the future was a good idea but I was worried about how it would affect him emotionally. I was far more worried about his Savitar visions, though. Especially since no one else could see him and it mirrored what happened to Cisco when the philosopher’s stone had first arrived at Star Labs. I thought that it was building up to Wally becoming the new Dr. Alchemy (which, surprise; Julian didn’t get repossessed by Savitar), but what happened to him was even worse; he took Savitar’s place in the speed force.
Can we just take a moment and be disappointed in Barry and his inaction in saving Wally? There was no stopping his being sucked into the speed force, I know, but Barry didn’t even try to save him! He just stood there and watched. He didn’t even reach out and grab his hand and try to pull him out or anything! Nothing! And no one at Star Labs seems to have noticed that he let Wally get taken away.
And Barry’s behaviour toward Wally went overboard when he basically fired him because he didn’t tell them about seeing Savitar. His excuse was that Iris’ life was on the line, but the fact that Caitlin took part of the philosopher’s stone and hid it from them is a far greater threat, in my opinion, and Barry didn’t get mad at her at all. He was so inconsistent.
I was madder at Caitlin (well, more like disappointed) than he was and so was Julian. Now my new favourite pairing seems to be crumbling. At least he got to kiss her. I was a little peeved that they made his hesitation to channel Savitar about Caitlin. His past relationship with Savitar is more than enough as an excuse. There was no need to make it all sappy.
Either Savitar is slower now that he’s out of the speed force or Barry got significantly faster because he was never able to punch Savitar, block a blow from him or put him in a headlock. None of which seemed to surprise Savitar when he did them.
They clearly saved the really good CGI for this episode because the sweeping shot of the two of them when they first started fighting looked very good. Savitar also looked like an actual person in a suit as opposed to completely CGI, which he never look like before to me.
I was excited when it looked like Barry was going to remove Savitar’s mask, but he wormed his way out of that. I’m wondering if he was saying “I’m the future, Flash.” or “I’m the Future Flash.” The word play there is very intriguing and now I actually care who Savitar is.
Random thoughts:
- So Wally wasn’t attacked or kidnapped by Savitar?
- Calm down Barry. There’s no need to be so upset with Wally.
- Why does Savitar still have acolytes? Didn’t Team Flash get rid of them?
- It’s okay Wally. Calm down. Don’t freak out.
The Flash airs Tuesdays at 8 PM on The CW.
