It says something in the confidence a show has in their ensemble when the main character takes off for an episode and lets the various supporting characters take center stage. This has happened a few times on Flash now, and they pull it off pretty well.
This season of the Flash seems to be hitting more emotional notes than going for the fun adventure the show started out as. I didn’t care for the two part “Family Matters” story line with all its strained analogies, and then “Goodbye Vibrations” saw my favorite character leave the series.
When they do it right, a hero show is more than just a string of fights and strange things happening. I’ve been enjoying the Flash since Barry first popped up during the second season of Arrow (granted, some episodes and stories more than others), and I’ve grown to really like these versions of characters I already knew from the comics.
They’ve been really beating the metaphor to death of the “family” aspect of the new Forces running around on the Flash. I’m still not clear if they just possessed existing people, or recreated dead ones, or how this worked. Nora, for example, looks like Barry’s long-dead mother, but Psych has a recent backstory as a human.
The new “Forces” have been plaguing Flash and company since they turned up in Central City. Barry was stunned to find out that the Speed Force, wearing his mother’s face, wasn’t as nice as he thought, but was actually out to kill the other forces.
This week’s Flash felt both padded and overly soap operatic, and not at all “Timeless.”
The newest big threat to come out of nowhere for Team Flash is the governor’s special envoy, Kristen Kramer, doing her best to turn Central City against Frost. Due to her influence, Frost has been arrested and is now on trial in an episode that shows the CW writers, collectively, have not only never researched anything at all about the Criminal Justice system, they’ve probably never even seen an episode of Law and Order.
Life probably hasn’t been normal for Barry since he was a kid, and less so since he got his powers. Lately, it’s been even stranger, as the team clashed with Mirror Monarch and dealt with the aftermath.
After a somewhat rough start, trying to recover from the COVID complications in producing a show, Flash is settling in to their 7th season. It’s a bit odd not having a Wells around, although it’s been hinted that will change at some point.
Now team Flash has to figure out what happened and how to find, let alone beat, this new threat. But that’s only the start of their troubles in “Fear Me.”
