FLASH SPOILER Review: Episode 2×22 – “Invincible”

The Flash (2×22) – “Invincible”

Written by: Brook Roberts & David Kob

Directed by: Jesse
Warn

Oh yeah!
With all the Speed Force craziness of last week, I almost forgot Central City
was on the brink of the kind of beat down usually reserved for Gotham
City. Fortunately, Central City’s finest
are… getting their asses kicked. Take
Two: Fortunately for Central City’s Finest, the Flash is on the case.

Unfortunately
for Barry, upon returning to STAR Labs having literally put out all the fires
everybody decides that self-confidence is the new word for recklessness. Isn’t that just like these people? Barry
shows some competence and energy and they turn all Debbie Downer. Tell them to take a hike Barry! We’ll start a new Team Flash with Patty,
Linda, evil Melissa Benoist, Black Jack and Hookers!

On the bright side,
Caitlin is back! Looking pretty much
like the poster-child for PTSD (The real kind, not the Tumblr kind) and she’s
full of good news! By “good news” I mean
that she thinks they’re all gonna die.

Speaking of
good news, the good people of Mercury Labs are hard at work scienceing the crap
out of stuff and Laurel Lance has decided to visit. Bad news, she’s evil Laurel Lance from
Earth-2. Laurel is apparently from a
more comic-compliant universe because she doesn’t need a choker to scream, and
she’s pretty much a beast judging by the way she levels Mercury Labs.

Barry gets
the call and he manages to save the people still inside, including Doctor Tina
McGee. Tina proves that she’s a pretty
smart cookie when she says “Thank you, Mr. Allen.” Barry takes her to STAR Labs and she makes
the goo-goo eyes at Henry while telling them that Mercury Labs has a “black box”
and she thinks Harrison Wells did it.

Meanwhile,
some random couple is walking down a dark alley when they’re mugged by a random
Meta, who himself is stopped by a not-so-random Wally West. Wally himself is saved from the Meta by Joe
and the two get into an argument about it but Wally has graduated from
gratitude for the Flash giving him a second chance to doing something with it.

Back at STAR
Labs, Jesse has asked Caitlin to check her for super-powers when Wells finds
them. Wells thinks she’s fine (probably
not) and they need her help (probably true) because she’s super smart
(definitely so.) Meanwhile, Henry comes
to find Barry and gives him what could easily be described as an anti-pep talk. You know who won’t give anti-pep talks,
Barry? The new Team Flash with Patty, Linda and evil MB!

Guys,
listen: Barry’s got some closure and it
gave him a sense of hope and optimism, he’s not hooked on cocaine. Before this can really be resolved, the gang
calls Barry and Henry up to the hub to show Barry Zoom’s remodeling of the
Police Station. A giant, fiery lightning
bolt. Subtle as a brick, that guy.

Barry
decides, “Hey you know what we haven’t had in a while? A hero-villain stand off
and posturing session!” Then he heads off for just that. Jay’s posturing topic is: “We’re alike, you
and I and I’m going to prove it by destroying everything around you.” That’s a good one, Hunter follows it up with
another really good one: Having his
hench-woman level another building so Barry can’t fight!

Barry
returns to STAR Lab for a planning session and everyone is so helpful with all
the “The End is Nigh!” sentiments. Barry
drags Cisco and Wells almost kicking and screaming to a plan of using the
frequency of matter from Earth-2 to their advantage before sending everyone on
their way. However Joe needs to talk to
him, but first it seems Cisco has himself a serious vibe problem. He’s seeing visions of birds dying all around
him, which is the international sign of bad news.

Barry and Joe have themselves a talk about Wally. Joe needs Barry to give Barry the “let the
professionals handle this” routine he tried to give Wally unsuccessfully
earlier in the episode.

Later on,
Cisco is trying to solve the frequency problem with Caitlin but she’s
constantly seeing Zoom lurking in the shadows.
She tells Cisco that she’s worried she’s broken and Cisco does his best
to comfort her.

Across town,
Barry finds Wally listening in on the Police scanner. He tries to warn Wally off but it’s clearly
not working. Wally is too far down the
road to sidekick-town and Barry has to deal with Zoom’s hench-woman. He
learns that it’s Laurel Lance and she helps remind me that Laurel is dead over
on Arrow. (I honestly forgot.) She then
gives him a taste of a real Canary Cry, and it’s as pleasant as you might
expect. However, before she can finish
him off Wally gives her a taste of his rear fender and they make their escape.

While
Caitlin is taking care of Barry’s ears Joe decides to read him the riot act for
not convincing him to give up. (Wally’s
in college so I assume he’s at least eighteen so what’s Barry supposed to do
when an adult listens to what he has to say then replies “lulz, nope?”) Joe storms off and now it’s Iris’ turn to try
and get Barry to stop being all full of hope and optimism and really start
embracing fear… while somewhere this man gets a pleasant little tingle running
up his spine.

Down in the
breach room, Cisco and Wells have finished their frequency emitter and explain
it to the others. The emitter will give
off a very specific frequency that will only effect people from Earth-2, Barry
will enhance it by running around the city causing the signal to bounce back
and this will eventually knock out everyone from Earth-2 except Jesse and Wells
thanks to some noise-canceling headphones that Wells cooked up.

But before
they can use it, Laurel is on the attack.
Wells is still ready to do it, but Barry doesn’t want people to keep
dying so Cisco has a solution to buy them time:
Cosplay! He and Caitlin confront
Laurel dressed as Reverb and Killer Frost.

Their plan
actually works for a while since Cisco is basically repurposing the “Cloud City
Vader” routine to convince her to turn on Zoom.
Unfortunately, Laurel has a test.
See, things are flipped on Earth-2 so if a person on Earth One is right
handed, on Earth-2 they’d be left-handed.
She uses this to out Cisco and Caitlin and Cisco have to run. Laurel corners them and much like Reverb told
Cisco back on Earth-2, he is more powerful than he knows. He lets loose a blast that stuns Laurel, unfortunately,
Cisco can’t replicate it and Laurel’s pissed now.

Good news
though, Barry and Wells have the emitter ready to go and it takes care of
Laurel for them, along with every Earth-2 meta save Zoom (he somehow creates a
breech and escapes to Earth-2.) It also
starts to hurt Jesse when her headphones fail, so Wells gives her his instead
and he is rendered unconscious. All that’s
left is for Barry to do a round-up.

With Laurel
and the other Earth-2 Metas locked up in the Pipeline, Barry and Cisco finally
have to time give Caitlin some good old-fashioned hug therapy which gets her on
the road to feeling better.

The next
morning at the Police Station, Joe tries to get Barry to talk to Wally but
Barry refuses. Wally is too much like
his father not to try to help people if he believes he can and maybe Joe’s
going to have to learn to accept that.
Joe does curse Barry though, the worst curse imaginable: “The curse of
the kids you deserve!”

That night
at the West Home, everyone gathers for a “Welcome Back to Central City/ Land of
the Living Henry and Barry” dinner!
Everyone, including Dr. McGee, giving her and Henry another chance to
flirt. Seeing this, Barry and Iris
decide to actually give dating a try. It
seems everyone is having a great time, but every party needs a pooper. This time it’s Cisco with another dead bird
vision. He gets to see what’s killing
them though, looks like Earth-2 is being torn apart, literally. Cisco is witnessing the end of all things… on
Earth-2.

Another
thing every party needs is a crasher, enter Zoom! He kidnaps Henry and Barry gives chase, right
in view of Wally.

Zoom leads
Barry back to the Allen home and calls back to his posturing from earlier. They are the same, but where Barry was
shielded from the death of his mother Hunter wasn’t so Hunter has a solution:
He’s going to kill Henry while Barry watches.

Barry begs
Hunter to kill him instead, while Henry tries to comfort his son even with his
dying breath when Zoom plunges his hand through Henry’s heart.

I… Am… Dead…

Good God! That was another really, really strong episode
with a lot to unpack. First and foremost,
Barry’s new found confidence is refreshing.
Sure he was never the dark brooding character like Oliver but Gustin has
done a very good job of playing Barry with a missing piece all along so now
that we finally see him with that hole mended he feels like a new man.

That kind of
change absolutely would scare those who love him, but like I’ve been hinting at
they’re not going to be able to understand Barry’s transformation without him
explaining what happened and I doubt he could put it into words. How do you explain meeting God, after all?

The Joe and
Wally stuff was great (But when have you watched an episode and said “Boy the
Joe storyline really stank on ice, y’know?”
That’s right you haven’t!) I like
that Joe is uncomfortable with Wally’s soul searching, not just because of the
danger but because it means his son is far closer to being a man than he
probably wanted to admit. I also liked
how Wally found out, but I have to wonder why Berlanti and Kreisberg are so
against the concept of a secret identity, they seem to shed them as quickly as
possible.

Then there
is Cisco’s visions. What is he seeing?
This has to mean something, and while I’m not sure that the CW shows will get
to play with Crisis on Infinite Earths and the Anti-Monitor as I’d think that’s
something Geoff Johns would want to keep in his back pocket for the Films I’m starting
to have second thoughts. Could this
vision combined with season one’s “Red Skies” newspaper headline actually be a
Crisis? What would that even look like?

I think I’ll
start referring to episodes like this as “psych episodes.” Much like “Enter Zoom” this episode felt like
it was telling one story and that it was told to completion before they yank
the carpet out from under you in the final three minutes and you realize that
the story was completely different. I
was left feeling sucker-punched when Hunter brought Henry and Barry back to the
Allen home and watching John-Wesley Shipp say his final words was painful. (Side note: I always like it more when the
person’s final words are cut off like this episode or Rachel’s final words in The Dark Knight. I feel it more.)

Lastly, can
we stop pretending it’s Earth-2?
Everyone’s doppelganger is evil, there’s no heroes and now the left-handed
thing: This is Earth-3, all that’s
missing are Owlman and Superwoman. (Also, Earth-3 was the first earth we witness being destroyed in Crisis on Infinite Earths.)