FLASH SPOILER Review: Episode 4×15- “Enter Flashtime”

The Flash (4×15) – “Enter
Flashtime”

Written by: Todd Helbing & Sterling Gates

Directed by: Gregory
Smith

Here’s the fun thing about this episode, the story can be summed
up like this: Barry has less than a second to stop a nuclear bomb that has
detonated already.

Done.

Bring on the ratings, things we learned and questions, right?

Not really, see eighty percent of that episode takes place in
that second and we’re treated with my favorite type of Flash Episode. The exploration of just what Barry’s powers are and how they relate to the Speed
Force! This calls for a celebratory overly-excited
anime girl gif!

(Bit more on the nose than I was expecting)

Truthfully, there’s a lot going on in this episode. We finally learn that the reason Jesse and
Harry are estranged is his inability to let go of the death of Jesse’s mother
and Tom Cavanagh and Violett Beane do a lot with this struggle with just a
couple scenes.

We also learn that DaVoe has been putting everything into place
for the past three years, which shouldn’t be too surprisingly considering
exactly how intricate his plan is turning out to be but leaves a huge question
that I’ll hold onto for the end.

But the biggest stuff we learn is that Barry’s connection runs
incredibly deep. Not only is he faster
than he knows, not only are his powers more versatile than even other
speedsters but there’s a danger in his powers that Barry may not realize:

Barry is so fast, he could live his life in the space between
micro seconds and we’ve seen that as the show’s progress his connection to his
powers has become more natural, especially since returning from the Speed Force
at the start of his season. That
deepening of the connection could continue and become more profound allowing at
best for Barry to become even more unbelievably powerful or at worst for Barry
to become lost to the rest of the world with no way of slowing down.

Barry would be forced to exist in a world of statues with no one
to talk to or exist with for an eternity.

But it still goes deeper.
Like I said, Barry can do things that shock and amaze even Jay who’s
been a speedster far longer than Barry.
He has a deeper well of powers than Jay or Jesse (and presumably Wally)
so it raises questions. So maybe it’s time to move into our unanswered
questions early and explore them a little more than we usually would:

Unanswered
Questions:

1) Did
the Speed Force allow Barry to leave at the start of the season?

Sure, DaVoe’s been
working on his plan since Barry was dealing with Thawne but lhere was no guarantee
that the clearly sentient Speed Force would co-operate. Yet it did, why? Is it because:

2) Is
Barry connected to or even creating the Speed Force?

Time to go out into
the deep water. It hasn’t been
established one way or another in the show but in the comics we learn that
the reason speedsters can travel through time so easily is because it’s
basically a dimension above time and space which means accessing it allows you
to travel through time in any direction so it’s possible that it hasn’t always
existed rather it began the moment Barry was struck by lightning in the lab. That’s why in the some of the comics Barry
creates (or even becomes) the lightning bolt that gives him the powers. So does that mean:

3) Did
Barry create the Speed Force everywhere? Would that mean that all Flashs,
everywhere in every Universe would be connected to the Barry Allen of Earth
One?

4) Is this deepening of Barry’s powers connected
to the “Red Sky” event we’ve known was coming since the Pilot?

Fun stuff, eh?

Well, I think it’s fun and I enjoyed the Hell out
of this exploration of Flash lore so to wrap it all up this was a great episode
and I think a lot of the things hinted at here will be explored until the Series
Finale.

Things We Learned
This Week:

1)
Barry is capable of perceiving events that occur
in a span of attoseconds. (An attosecond
is one quintillionth of a second. For a frame of reference, light can circle
Earth 7.5 times in a second, in an attosecond light can travel about the
distance the length of two hydrogen atoms.)

2)
Jay Garrick has retired as the Flash of Earth-3
and has decided to train his replacement, an unnamed woman. (It’s possible that
he’s referring to Jesse, but it’s just as likely he’s referring to his own
daughter and she could be considered the Barry Allen of Earth-3.)

3)
The mystery girl (still totally Barry and Iris’
daughter from the future) had a “chance meeting” with Harry and Caitlin.

4)
Some sort of Environmentalist Terrorist group
called “Eden Corps” is on the rise.