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FLASH SPOILER Review: Episode 3×07 – “Killer Frost”

 

The Flash (3×07) – “Killer
Frost”
Written by:         Andrew Kreisberg & Brooke Roberts from a
Story by:              Judalina Neira
Directed by:       Silent
Bob
We pick up
pretty much where we left off with Savitar getting ready to use his official Assassin’s Creed hidden blade to kill
Barry Connor Kenway style! (Oh you like Ezio? That’s fine, but Connor’s my favorite.)  Luckily for Barry, Joe is able to fight off
Savitar’s lackeys and fire off enough rounds to distract Savitar so he takes
Barry on a run at his speed which also allows him to do some villain
posturing.  “I’m the God of the Speed
Force. I’m faster than you. I cannot be defeated.” The Usual stuff.
While the
team watches Barry a catch a pretty intense beating on the trackers they
quickly realize Barry can’t take him.  HR
hits on the idea of a team up, Cisco opens a breach so he and Caitlin can join
the fight.  Caitlin protests but Iris
begs her before Barry is killed.  She
relents and she and Cisco are able to chase Savitar off.
Back at STAR
Labs, Caitlin gives Barry a relatively clean bill of health before she leases
to check on Wally and try to keep her powers in check.  Meanwhile, Barry, HR and Cisco try to figure
out who Savitar is and why he’s so much faster than Barry.  They come up with nothing. 
Things aren’t
much better with Wally, Joe and Iris. 
Wally’s in some sort of cocoon and Caitlin has no idea how to get him
out therefore she doesn’t think it would be smart to try.  As a result, Joe is just filled to the brim
with self-recrimination.  He feels like
too many times he ignores his instincts in favor of the team’s advice because
they’re all scientists and this time it could cost him his son.  So rather than ignore his instincts again he’s
going to follow them and question the acolyte they captured the night before.
At the
Police Station, Joe gives the acolyte the “I beat the Good Cop into a coma before
I came in here” routine before playing the worst game of “I’ve got your
(broken) nose” ever.  Unfortunately,
Caitlin interrupts the game with news: Wally’s awake and asking for him.  Joe leaves Caitlin behind.  He also leaves the lackey unattended and it
seems Caitlin has some questions. 
She wants to
know where Alchemy is and she’s not afraid to go full Killer Frost to do
it.  When the cops come to check on the
noise she’s making torturing the guy she shows a shocking amount of control
over her powers and escapes.  It’s not a
clean escape though and she has to kidnap Julian.
Back at STAR
Labs, Uh-oh Joe! Caitlin lied!  Barry
races back to the Police Station to find Detective Patterson (Played by Heroes
alum, Greg Grunberg) is rallying the troops to go find Julian.  Caitlin meanwhile has apparently decided to
start her Super-villain by taking her hostage and finding a themed hideout. In
this case a frozen food warehouse.
The gang
gathers at STAR Labs to try and track Caitlin, HR hits on the idea of tracking
her by how much cold she’s giving off. 
At the warehouse, Julian has tracked down two Alchemy’s acolytes but as
soon as Caitlin is distracted Julian notifies the cops.  Barry arrives first and after knocking Julian
out tries to talk Caitlin down. 
But the
problem with when a member of the team turns heel is they know all sorts of
stuff.  For instance, Caitlin knows that
Dante was alive in the other timeline which takes Cisco off the board.  The SWAT Team shows up and Barry speeds them
out of the firing line but Caitlin stabs him in the leg and escapes.
Back at STAR
Labs, Iris and Joe bandage Barry up so Cisco can read him the riot act.  After that, Cisco looks up the two addresses,
he’s going to watch one while Joe and HR watch the other.  After HR namedrops the worst episode of the
series Cisco makes it clear he wants Barry out of this.
Across town,
Cisco has drawn the short straw as the man he is watching is visited by
Caitlin.  Since Caitlin’s now a
supervillain, she decides to give an evil monologue a try.  It’s a pretty good one but she gets none of
the information she wants.  To top it
off, it seems Alchemy and Savitar have already seen that Caitlin has a destiny
as Killer Frost, so it’s not likely they’ll help her get rid of her powers.
Out in the
street, Cisco calls Caitlin out.  The two
square off but since we’re still in Act Two, Barry shows up to cut the fight
off.  He knocks her down but Caitlin
decides it’s time for to tease the SnowBarry shippers a little with a killer
kiss.  This gives Cisco the chance to
knock her out and it’s off to the Pipeline. 
Once there, she and the team face off and we get some of the traditional
back and forth between a superhero team and the new villain that betrayed them.
It’s the
kind of confrontation where the new villain lands a devastating blow to just
about everyone.  Barry’s wallowing in
guilt for creating Flashpoint, Cisco is angry at Barry, Iris has to put Barry
back together but they’re all the opening act for HR and Joe’s BIG desperate
and dumb move. 
They cut
Wally out of his cocoon.
He’s not a
butterfly and he’s not really Kid Flash. 
His powers seem out of control and he runs off after blowing up the
Lab.  Barry heads down to the Pipeline to
try and get Caitlin to help, with the unorthodox tactic of letting her go.  All she has to do is kill Barry and leave.  She can’t do it though and she manages to
pull herself together enough to help Wally. 
Now they just have to figure out where Wally went.
Well, since
this episode has been about Caitlin trying to be a villain, Joe trusting his
instincts and Barry doing risky stupid stuff for his friends and family it’s
time to settle up plotline two.  Joe
realizes Wally probably went to his mother’s house in Keystone City.
Joe and
Wally find him outside the house and manage to get Caitlin’s cure to Wally then
back to the Lab.  The next day the gang
is testing Wally’s new powers while the gang welcome Caitlin back into the
fold.  Barry tries to talk to Cisco about
Dante and hopefully fix things but Cisco is definitely not ready so Barry has
to go fix the other problem.  The Julian
problem.
Julian is
awake and he knows exactly who kidnapped him. 
Barry begs him not to tell them about Caitlin and Julian is willing to
do that for him but at a price.  He has
to quit, since he is incapable to doing what needs to done to serve justice and
since the third theme of the episode is Barry doing anything for his friends he
agrees and heads to the station to pack up his things.
Later that
night, Julian is visited by Savitar. 
Only together can they make sure Savitar returns, only by Julian becoming
Alchemy again.
Hey remember when I said last week that this would be a fakeout?  Well as far as fakeouts go, it was a pretty
good one.  I liked what they did with
Caitlin and I like that despite what the rest of the cast may think it’s
probably not resolved.  What I didn’t
like is this rather simplistic view of “get powers=turn evil.”  Barry may have said that things aren’t that
simple but I’m not sure the writers agree with him.
There is one
thing about this episode I’m starting to wonder about.  Tinfoil Hat time: Did HR come to Earth One
because of Savitar?  I’m starting to
think that HR came to for a reason and that reason is to help with Savitar.  A big reason is if it really was the Hindu god
it would be “Savitr” and not “Savitar.” 
We’ll see I suppose but it might be an interesting twist of the Wells
character.
Kevin Smith
does a great job and bringing out the heart of characters so this was a welcome
return.  I liked the effects for Savitar’s
next level of speed and I liked the resolution of Wally’s “will I get powers”
arc leading into the next step of him and Barry learning to work together.
I really,
really liked this episode… Unfortunately they did the sting at the end.  Julian being Alchemy kinda defines him down
into just another secret Flash enemy pretending to be a friend.  Something they have done several times
already.  It’s annoying, it doesn’t hurt
this episode too much but it does dampen my enthusiasm for the Savitar arc to
be honest.
But anyway,
this is probably a good place to put things on hold since next up is the Big
Crossover.  Sigh…
I mean, Yay!
Anyway, TL;
DR Really good episode that could’ve been really great.
Three Things We
Learned This Week:
1)     
Savitar is much, much faster than Barry.
2)     
Cisco now knows that Barry killed his brother in
a very real sense.
3)     
Julian is Alchemy.
Three Questions:
1)     
Is Wally faster than Barry?
2)     
Will Cisco be able to forgive Barry?
3)     
How much, if anything, does HR actually know
about Savitar?

Just another guy on the internet.