Episode: Power Outage
Original Airdate: 11-25-14
The Flash comes back after a fairly weak episode in a return to form. There’s a lot more speculation about who Dr. Wells really is and what his ultimate goal will be as he has a moment to show his true colors to Barry Allen. And yet instead of turning him away, it actually accomplishes Wells’ goal to convince Barry to push himself and his speed further so he will eventually be fast enough to break into the Speed Force and gain the ability to travel through time, or something along those lines. The villain of the week is Blackout, and I read quite a bit this week about how some people think that this show handled the being with electrical power much better than the Amazing Spider-Man 2 did with Electro. I’m not quite sure if I would go that far with it, though I did appreciate how well it looked with the lower budget effects. There is something that can be said for doing something as simple as having the lights turn on or off when he is near, or having the car be unable to start. I will say that while I did like the subtlety of the effects, the personality of Blackout as a villain left quite a bit to be desired. He was essentially personality-less, he was just a slowly walking force of nature with a singular purpose to destroy Dr. Wells due to the fact that Blackout blames him for the particle accelerator accident and the deaths of his friends. What did make this episode great were the other moments, like when Wells breaks out the metal bully from last weeks episode in order to create a diversion, knowing that he wouldn’t be able to do anything to stop Blackout himself. There’s also a great B-story with the Clock King who takes the police station hostage, including Joe, Iris, and Eddie. There’s a lot of great tension on that side of the story and I appreciate the fact that it didn’t completely spell out what happened, aside from the fact that Iris was able to get the upper hand with the Clock King and neither one of them had to die. There’s also, like I mentioned, a bit more intrigue into the ultimate plan of Dr. Wells and his connection to the Reverse Flash as Blackout was able to siphon Flash’s power, though it seemed like he wasn’t able to use it. I also loved the great moment of comic relief with the broken mug, as well as Iris’s callback to how much Barry liked it.
Channel: Superhero 