FLASH SPOILER Review: Episode 7×02- “The Speed of Thought”

The Flash (7×02)- “The Speed of Thought”

Written by: Jonathan Butler & Gabriel Garza

Directed by: Alexandra La Roche

This week opens with a memorial for all the Wells, they even went to the trouble of Time proofing the memorial because… Well, Barry’s go-to move is changing the timeline so I’m betting Cisco’s time-proofed most of his stuff at this point. Speaking of Barry, he’s starting to realize that wearing your heart on your sleeve is not the best course of action for a superhero.

Over at the Newspaper, Allegra is mourning Nash when she gets a notification on her computer. Probably Discord because that program is relentless.

You can uninstall it, hell you can burning your computer and buy a new one but those Discord notifications will still come! Even though dimensions it seems, because this is from Iris in the mirror dimension trying to plan something with Singh and Kamilla. Goddamit, Iris! Can you start a private chat instead of spamming the group!

Back at STAR Labs, Cisco is showing Barry some of the stuff he got from Atlantis to help them free Kamilla, Singh and Iris but like most things introduced in Act I it doesn’t work. But that’s okay because it seems Cisco and Chester have been work-shopping the problems so he’s going to catch Barry up on what they’ve figured out but Barry goes into a trance and comes out of it with the solution before he gets very far. That’s a little weird but always a risk when you’re Techno-babbling. Power through, Cisco. Cisco tries again with the same results. Once is strange, twice could just be coincidence. When Allegra comes in and explains her weird experience Barry does it a third time and as we can all guess by now, three times is an emerging problem.

Over at McCulloch Tech, Eva’s not taking the revelation that she’s a mirror clone all that well. She’s watching the video on a loop hoping that some tiny detail will change everything. She might have a future with a YouTube “Theory” channel… Here’s what you do, release the video. Put together a thumbnail, the image of you hitting the mirror, highlight something with a red circle and in big white letters write something like “This Changes Order 66!”

(I’m just kidding, I’m a loyal subscriber to Star Wars Theory! If by chance you’re one of three people that reads my Flash Reviews, you’re great!)

But enough about that because Sunshine comes in and explains that they’ve killed a lot of Carver’s people and have a lead on more. Eva asks if she’s been acting a little strange lately and Sunshine says no before pointing out that asking people if you’re acting strange is itself, acting strange so now she’s got her eye on you, Eva! Good work, I see panic plans aren’t your strong suit. You might want to practice this: “Smash that like button, Subscribe and Hit the bell icon to join the Notification Squad!”

Back at STAR Labs, Cisco has figured out what’s going on with Barry. The ASF has allowed for Barry to think at unbelievable speeds, to the point that it begin to feel like precognition. They even show it off with a Cisco-tech ball that Cisco is about to market judging by how hard he works to protect the patent.

So now that Barry knows what happening he really leans into it with a new plan to siphon off some of the unique particles created when Eva got through the mirror dimension still on her. In about thirty seconds. He’s also acting a little less like Barry and a little more calculating.

Over in the mirror dimension, Iris finds Kamilla tagging the hospital and after she reassures her they’re getting out they head off to find Singh.

Back in the regular dimension, Cisco and Barry find Eva hard at work murdering Black Hole thugs and it’s time to collect some particle. Barry’s even called in Killer Frost so it’s just like old times! A fight scene breaks out and Barry uses the distraction to siphon the particles from Eva. Shortly after, Eva gets the better of Frost but something weird happens. Barry had an opportunity to save Frost from Eva but he clearly chooses not to and Frost gets injured.

Back at the Lab, Frost is dying before Barry creates a cure, and he’s definitely acting weird but I’m sure it’s totally fine that a really compassionate guy is suddenly a graduate of the Doctor Manhattan School of Logical Thinking with a degree in “Being Ice Cold.” Even better, he’s figured out Eva’s a mirror duplicate and he decides to use that information a weapon and outs Eva while she’s being interviewed on live television. Which causes the emotionally unstable villain to pay tribute to Dr. Manhattan herself with a public freak-out.

Yeah, something’s gone horribly wrong with Barry’s brain.

(As a tangent… The actress playing the television host… Hooboy! ACTING!)

To prove how far gone Barry’s become, he goes to Gideon to crosscheck his calculations and after he re-writes her computational programming she and he determine that the longer you’re in the mirror dimension the more energy to it would take to get you out and they don’t have enough power to pull Iris, Kamilla and Singh. So they have to choose between Kamilla and Singh or Iris. Barry decides that he can’t trust the others with that information and he prepares to sacrifice Kamilla and Singh for Iris.

Back in the Mirror Dimension, Kamilla and Iris find Singh and he’s on the brink of death because he was pulled through with the mirror gun and not by Eva’s powers. Iris explains this to Kamilla and they have just enough time to figure out how Iris knows this before Kamilla follows Singh onto death’s doorstep.

Back in the regular world, Cisco decides to confront Barry about his behavior before they make their rescue attempt. He’s been doing some research of his own and unsurprisingly, the way they set up the ASF has suppressed the processes of Barry’s brain that govern emotion and it’s turning him into a high-speed sociopath.

Case in point, he’s about to pull Iris out. Not because she’s important to Barry but because she has Intel on Eva and he lied to them not because he doesn’t want to choose against Iris but because he doesn’t want to deal with their emotions.

Fortunately, Cisco had a Plan B to stop Barry, it’s a bad plan that requires Cisco, Allegra and Frost high on Velocity X to take on Barry and despite a cool Frost vs Flash chase scene it goes badly for them. Barry uses the portal to pull Iris out despite her protests and the shock of it leaves her dying as well. Barry has a moment of clarity and disables the ASF and he’s left (seemingly) powerless.

Back at McCulloch Tech, Eva’s reverted back to full on crazy but now she’s got a plan. Judging by the final scene of a random Central City police officer being attacked by her reflection I’m guessing it’s a doozy.

Did I say final scene?

Because there’s one more, starting with a flashback to the night that Thawne stole Earth One Wells’ body and buried him in a field. Sometime later (presumably present day) Wells’ body reconstitutes and he seems to be alive again…

This was something else… Starting the season in the end of season mad dash is taking some getting used to and if I stop to think about it, we’re probably going to get something of a mid-season crash as a result but in the meantime let’s just live for today.

Really good episode, I liked the idea of Barry’s powers messing with his brain because it’s been an issue that Flash writers often deal with in the comics. Some writers have described Barry’s life as living in a series of photographs and he has to work incredibly hard just to interact with us. This is flip side of that coin, by thinking at the speed he’s capable of he could easily become ruthlessly cold. Having Cisco, the person who usually out-thinks the problem the team is in, to act as a counterpoint to Barry was a smart choice.

The McCulloch stuff was fun, and I’m interested to see where she’s going with it. I’m also very interested to see where they’re going with the return of Earth One Wells as I always assume that was going to be the Wells they went to in the show’s final season.

Still, good episode especially as a set up to what I assume is the Season Six Finale only in Season Seven that we’re about to get.

Things We Learned:

The ASF’s design was based of Thawne’s Negative Speed Force which had an emotional component.
The world at large is aware that Eva is some sort of meta-human posing as Eva McCulloch.
Iris has been rescued from the mirror dimension but Kamilla and Singh have been left behind.
Barry has disabled the ASF and seemingly sacrificed his powers.
Eva has a new and likely more destructive plan.
Earth One Harrison Wells has somehow been resurrected.

Questions:

Or has he? Is this Earth One Harrison Wells?
Is Thawne connected to his resurrection?
What is Eva’s plan?
Why was the lightning that came out of Barry white instead of gold? Is that important?
What happens to Iris, Kamilla and Singh now?
How badly were Cisco, Frost and Allegra injured?
We didn’t talk about her because she was only in one relevant scene but are Cecile’s powers growing after her encounter with The Top last week?