Posted in: Movies, TV | Tagged: barry allen, cw, entertainment, flash, jay garrick, television, wally west

Old Friends, Deep Fears And The Speed Force

This article contains spoilers for the Flash episode – Into the Speed Force.

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You can't bring back three character who have died (or are presumed dead) and not have a somewhat emotional episode and that is what we got last night with The Flash as he headed back into the Speed Force to rescue Wally West. Wally was trapped because Savitar tricked him into taking his place in a prison created by future Barry Allen. Yeah, it's a bit of a messy situation that I wonder if even the writer's have figured out.

There are three stories going on in this episode. Barry trying to rescue Wally, Iris trying to figure out how she feels about Barry's proposal and Jessie wanting to do something to help Wally. We'll focus on the Barry / Wally part first. The last time Barry went into the Speed Force, it tried to teach him a lesson and get him to be okay with his mother's death. He seemed to be, but then went back and saved his mom only to let her die again. The Speed Force wasn't happy about that, not was it happy that Barry kept trying to let other people be the hero instead of saving Iris himself. They brought this message across by showing sacrifice. First Barry comes across Eddie Thawne who gave his life to stop the Reverse-Flash. At one point, Eddie had everything Barry has now, but sacrificed it. Then we move on to Caitlin Snow and Ronnie Raymond. Caitlin is holding a baby, showing the life her and Ronnie could've had if he had not sacrificed himself. Then Barry comes face to face with Leonard Snart, who sacrificed himself to save the Legends. All of them did so because of Barry, because of what he inspires in other people. But that wasn't the end of the sacrifices. Jay Garrick arrives to help get Barry and Wally out, by taking Wally's place and letting Barry go back and finish things with Savitar.

The lesson Barry needed to learn was that he is the hero and has to step up. He can't count on Wally to save Iris or that changing the future will change the outcome. He needs to be Savitar himself. He also had to fight the Black Racer / Zoom… which was cool to see, but I'm not sure how that fit into the lesson.

This dovetails into the Iris / Barry story. She's not sure what to think after she found out Barry proposed in an effort to save her life. But when things go bad and she thinks she's going to lose him, she realizes that she just wants to be with him. So when he returns, she tells him that. But he isn't sure now… because drama… he proposed to save her and now he thinks they need some time apart, so he's gong to go stay with Cisco and think or something. If she had asked for time, I could understand it… but for him to ask seems out of left field.

Now, lets get to what might be the most important part of the episode, Jesse Quick vs Savitar. Though everyone told her not to, Jesse decides to use the piece that broke off of Savitar to find him. When they face off, he gets a good shot on her, but H.R. Wells figures out that if Savitar is wearing armor, it's because he needs it. Jesse stabs Savitar with the point of his own claw like thing… and hurts him, enough for him to run off. Meaning Savitar is not a god, but a man in a suit that can be hurt and defeated.

It was cool seeing all the old characters, though with Ronnie, no body no death in my book… and it was sad to see Jay sacrifice himself, but in this case putting Savitar back into the Speed Force would free Jay. Grant Gustin did a really nice job this episode showing us a Barry that is on the verge of being beaten down, but still trying. It seems like we have to be getting close to the reveal of who Savitar is, with only seven episodes left, but it won't be next week.

It seems kind of weird to go from such a heavy emotional episode to a musical, but from the trailer it looks like Duet isn't going to be just a joke. Music Meister seems to trap Barry and Kara in a movie musical without there powers and if they die in the movie, they die in real life. That seems to be a new aspect of the villains powers.

https://youtu.be/jzC0jta2nEM

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