Television

FLASH SPOILER Review: Episode 7×15- “Enemy at the Gates”

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The Flash (7×15)- “Enemy at the Gates”

Written by:         (Teleplay by) Thomas Pound (Story by) Joshua V Gilbert

Directed by:           Geoffrey Wing Shotz

This week opens in Barry’s in CCPD, he’s hard at work when his daughter Nora appears before him with good news; Everything’s going to work out.  The pair have a hug before Barry wakes up from the dream, still in his lab but Nora is nowhere to be seen.  He calls Iris and tells her he thinks she might be pregnant.  Well that’s certainly an interpretation!

The next morning, Barry’s gathering up some samples from Iris and explaining that meta-DNA could make a pregnancy test unreliable so he’s going to drive them over to STAR Labs (since using his speed could pollute the samples) and run them with the superior equipment there. As he reaches the door, Cecile’s arrived to talk to Iris but it seems Candice Patton has this week off too “Iris isn’t feeling well” so he runs interference for his wife.

At STAR Labs, Frost is “painting” when Chester arrives to tell her that Mark is on the loose and confirming his story about trading testimony for early parole. Frost freaks out because she’s Tsundere because Mark’s totally plotting something and she’s going to stop him and put him in jail. When Chester points out the obvious (that’s weird and stalkerish) she storms out.

At the Police Station, Joe shows Kramer everything he’s found out in the last week about Operation: Griffin and apparently he’s accomplished more in a week than she has in years. Which is either suspicious or impressive, I haven’t figure it out yet. Joe has a serious question, Adam used five anti-personnel mines that should have killed everyone but not only has Adam survived that she did too. That’s just suspicious.  After they discuss the night he wiped out her unit again they hit upon Adam’s love of being on the water so like all men of Joe’s age he starts looking up boats.

Unlike most of them, he’s not looking for fantasy purchases but registrations that would fit with the time Adam disappeared and found one using Adam’s callsign “Rasputin” in Midway City.  Kramer starts to storm off to murder Adam but Joe reminds her of the difference between vengeance and Justice before the pair leave.

Somewhere else in Central City, Godspeed arrives on the scene and he’s brought back-up in the form of another Godspeed. That’s probably not good. Probably not good at all.

Barry arrives at STAR Labs to run a souped-up pregnancy test but since he wants to keep it secret still comedy hijinks ensue. First he encounters Chester who’s very inquisitive asking unreasonable questions like: “What does the Flash need with a car?” And “Why are you carrying around a bag of blood and urine?” Then he tells Barry that Caitlin’s talking with Allegra and Ultraviolet in the medlab so Barry decides to use his lab at CCPD instead.

Speaking of Caitlin, Allegra and Ultraviolet… In the Medlab, Caitlin explains that Ultraviolet that Black Hole introduced some medical problems that create a dependency on her mask and the software it uses.  Now that Black Hole is gone, she won’t get those updates so sooner or later her mask is going to stop working. 

However, despite being there to listen to what Caitlin has to say when she could have left at any time Ultraviolet totally doesn’t want any help.  Uh-huh.  Caitlin leaves and Allegra tries to talk her cousin into not dying. I’m not sure how well it went though.

Speaking of things not going well, Mark’s getting his ass kicked by three generic looking tough guys.  Snitches get stitches, my man.  Good thing Frost shows up to scare them away but the damage is done. Literally. Mark’s been stabbed and needs a doctor but that’s not Frost’s problem because she’s not going to help him. Baka.

After Mark establishes that he’s as popular with Central City’s medical community as he is with its criminal community she relents and takes him to STAR Labs.

At the CCPD, Barry’s finally running the tests on Iris’ samples when Cecile arrives for lunch.  Barry tries to hide what he’s doing but if you’ll recall, Cecile’s empath and since Barry’s putting out more excitement than the guy that finds a PS5 for fifty percent off at a random Walmart she quickly puts together what Barry’s doing.  Before Barry can stop her from squeezing like a high school girl long enough to explain a sonic boom shatters the windows of the lab.

The team gathers at STAR Labs and quickly figure out that they’re dealing with the pair of Godspeeds from earlier when they attack different areas of the city simultaneously before they disappear. Barry decides to head out on patrol which Chester works on a way to decode the weird language the Godspeeds use to talk to each other.

In the STAR Labs lounge, Mark is trying to pump information out of Caitlin in the hopes of getting a date with Frost but she’s not exactly interested in helping a sketchy guy date her kind-of twin sister so she blows him off. Frost arrives to catch Caitlin up on the system but in addition to being a criminal and a horn dog, Mark is also very smart so he figures out that the most likely cause of a bunch of sonic booms at street level in Central City is spelled G-O-D-S-P-E-E-D.

He guessed it right but all that earns him is being locked in the lounge while Caitlin heads down to start the surgery on Ultraviolet while Frost heads out to help with the Godspeed situation.

Barry finds Godspeed at the Power Plant but not only does it turn out to be a trap. Oh no, there’s not just two Godspeeds running amuck.  There’s six.  Now normally I’m a big fan of six clones but I’m usually thinking of Tricia Helfer and/or Grace Park…

Barry runs back to STAR Labs while ordering Chester to lock the place down and arrives just as the force fields are put into place.  Unfortunately, this is only buying them about an hour since the Godspeeds are working in tandem to bring it down.  They can’t even evacuate since Caitlin’s in the middle of Ultraviolet’s surgery.

Barry tries to call Iris and as he’s leaving her a voicemail Chester overhears him talking about the baby and gets excited. The two discuss it and Chester points out an interesting question: Is Barry’s knowledge of his future daughter messing up the timeline and changing the outcome?  So what’s more complicated than time travel? Parenting. What’s more complicated than that? Both of them together. No time to worry about that, they’re under siege. 

Speaking of that, Chester has a plan. The Godspeeds are coordinating their attacks in order to force a predictable outcome from Barry… So Chester, are you saying?

 This didn’t work out that great for the Cylons if I recall correctly.  As for Team Flash, their best option is to make it harder to coordinate so they can become unpredictable by interfering with their communication.  Unfortunately, since it’s a good plan it’ll take time to get it working and that’s time they don’t have since the force field comes down at about that same time.  Barry takes one of the Godspeeds while Frost and Mark fight two more and Chester heads to the Time Vault which is now a panic room. 

He uses Gideon to get Chester’s plan going which allows Barry, Frost and Mark to fight back but for those keeping count that was only three of the six Godspeeds.  A fourth shows up outside the Time Vault to crack it open and stop Chester’s interference.  This leaves Barry no choice but to lead the Godspeeds away from STAR Labs.  They corner him and start stealing his power when six more Godspeeds show up but it seems there’s more going on than originally thought since the new Godspeeds attack them and they wipe each other out.

Back at STAR Labs Barry and the team recap what they’ve learned and when they look at what happened it’s pretty obvious that there’s some sort of Godspeed Civil War going on and they’re in the middle of it.  I’m sure it’ll be fine.

No… Really. It’s probably nothing.

Up in the lounge, Mark and Frost have a nightcap and a little romance talk before the drinks Mark prepared blow up the decanter and Mark escapes out the window.  It’s a bold strategy, Cotton.  Barry returns to his lab at CCPD to finally run the pregnancy test.  Cecile shows up to talk to him about being a father and how excited he is to be having a kid.  So he’s pretty disheartened by the negative result.  He wonders aloud if something’s gone wrong with his and Iris’ future.

There’s a stinger scene of Kramer and Joe staking out Adam’s address.  While Kramer muses on what’s changed about Adam Joe notices something in the rearview mirror and the pair have enough time to dive out of the car before some sort of blast destroys it.

This is better.  This is much better. If you’ll recall the last review I have become pretty worried about the show this season particularly the last few episode.  This was a stronger episode.  Perhaps it was enough to merely put Barry front and center again, I’m not sure but this episode felt stronger all throughout. 

There’s also hints of something going on in the future that the team might have to deal with.  I doubt linking an episode hinting at some sort of Speedster war in the future with the story of Barry and Iris pregnancy woes was co-incidental.  I also believe this is hinting that despite Crisis already happening the fact that the Godspeed civil war in the future keeps spilling back on the present that this is pointing to the future disappearance of Barry may still be coming.

I also liked the implication that while Barry believes that their child will be Nora that his knowledge of what is coming could change the future enough to derail that.  How much of that is me assuming because I know Bart Allen is coming and Bart’s father is Barry’s future son, Don Allen? I’m not sure. But it’s also a pretty standard time travel trope.

In the more immediate sense, the Kramer/Joe/Adam stuff was also pretty good considering it was only two scenes.  The Mark/Frost stuff is pretty standard CW fare.  Right down to Mark’s obligatory shirtless scene. You can take it or leave it as far as I’m concerned.

I will also commend the show for showing Chester’s growth. I’m sure you’ll recall that I had been becoming very concerned the character would need some sort of “The Power was in you all along” speech every week so he’d rise to the occasion but it looks like they’re going the better route instead.

All said and done, this was an improvement and I hope it’s a sign of things to come and not an aberration.

Things We Learned:

  1. Meta-DNA can make detecting pregnancy more difficult for commercial pregnancy tests.
  2. Adam’s callsign was Rasputin.
  3. The Godspeeds seem to be at war with each other in the future.
  4. It’s possible that Nora still exists in the timeline or at least could be brought back into the timeline.

Questions:

  1. Was Caitlin’s surgery on Ultraviolet successful?
  2. Is there some sort of issue preventing Iris from getting pregnant or was it merely a “try again” situation?
  3. Why did the second group of Godspeeds attack the first?
  4. Is Nora connected to this?
  5. Since it’s obvious whatever is going on in the future is spilling back on to the team in the present does this mean that Barry is still fated to disappear?

Just another guy on the internet.