A quick review of last night's “The Flash” coming up just as soon as I order a pineapple pizza…
By all rights, an episode like “Fallout” should have been too crowded to work properly, as it dealt with the ongoing Firestorm conundrum, the return of General Eiling, Barry learning about time travel, Iris beginning to investigate the STAR Labs gang, and our first real look at Gorilla Grodd, not to mention our first non-blurry look at Wells in the Reverse-Flash suit. Yet for the most part(*), everything clicked into place nicely.
(*) The one exception, unfortunately, was the Iris stuff, which again has her endangering Barry without realizing it, because everyone else is stupid enough to keep her in the dark on who the Flash is. This is a hardcore Will Tippin in “Alias” season 1-style mess, and one that feels like it's gonna get worse before it gets better.
Victor Garber and Robbie Amell had good chemistry with each other and their respective romantic interests, to the point where I could envision a Firestorm spin-off from this show just as easily as an Atom one from “Arrow.” (For all I know, we could get both if the CW embraces timeslot sharing and abandons repeats altogether.) The discussion of time travel was strong in moments both light (Cisco using “Terminator” and “Back to the Future” to explain different theories) and dark (Barry realizing that in the future, he'll fail to save his mother), and Eiling's anti-Flash tech was interesting.
And while the show still has to demonstrate that it can make Grodd work over the course of a full episode, that brief glimpse of him disposing of Eiling was just marvelous. This is Team “Flash” completely embracing the craziness of the character's long history – just leaning into the ridiculousness of a giant, super-strong, telepathic gorilla, because they know that's what the people want to see. Big smile on my face after that scene.
What did everybody else think of this one, and how are you feeling about “The Flash” as a whole since last we discussed it?