The Flash (Out of Time) Review Spoilers

Detective Joe West (Jesse L. Martin) coming face to face with Mark Mardon/Weather Wizard (Liam McIntyre)

Time Travel Say What!

The Flash “Out of Time” should have ended with the Huey Lewis and the News song “Back in Time”.  The episode was a great setup episode for the remaining 8 or 9 episodes for the season. The Flash hasn’t only been a successful in entertaining the core fan base but really successful with word of mouth buzz from non comic book fans in general.  The internet will absolutely love the ending of the episode because Barry does break the time barrier.  That’s not even the icing on the cake because the audience learns about Dr. Wells identity and his true intentions.

Detective Joe West was pursuing Mark Mardon and his brother on the night the Particle Accelerator exploded.  The brother shows up in the first episode and Detective West shoots him. West assumes his brother died in the plane explosion caused the Particle Accelerator. Mark Mardon shows back up and seeks revenge on Joe. His plan is destroy everything that Joe loves which includes Central City, Barry Allen, and Iris, his daughter. Cisco finally comes face to face with the Reverse Flash and pays for it dearly. Linda and Eddie have issues between the way Iris and Barry act with each other.

Malese Jow as Linda Park and Grant Gustin as Barry Allen share a moment at the bowling alley together

Before the Time Travel spoiler talk about Dr. Wells, the relationship between Iris and Eddie and Linda and Barry was a predominantly featured in this episode.  The two couples are hitting potholes in the road. Personality, Barry and Linda have great chemistry together as two characters possibly in love really and it makes the episodes much more enjoyable. However, the elephant in the room is The Flash has a 70 year comic book character with a large baggage of history. Barry and Iris get marry in the comics.  Barry’s relationship with Linda is storyline filler. However, Iris at the end of the episodes finds out who Barry is and that he loves her.  The kicker is that she won’t remember because Barry breaks the time barrier.

This is a screenshot taken from the TV trailer. Cisco learns all about Dr. Wells

Barry breaks the time barrier at the end of the episode and travels to a few days before Weather Wizard can destroy the city. This confirms that Dr. Harrison Wells is a criminal from the 25th century called Eobard Thawne. He is the Reverse Flash and has the ability to create mirror images of himself. He reveals that he needs to use Barry’s powers to return to his century. He did kill Nora Allen but was trying to kill Barry. He kills Cisco and Caitlyn Snows knows about his secret too. He doesn’t kill Caitlyn because Barry travels back in time. Barry can alternate the timeline by traveling back in the past. Cisco isn’t going to die because he does show up in Arrow promo. My opinion is that Eddie and Doctor Wells are the same person. The time aspect has always been hinted at and glad they finally got to it.

Overall, The Flash “Out of Time” was a great episode. Every character had a purpose and no one was wasted. Doctor Wells kills Cisco for the moment and reveals himself to be the Reverse Flash. Barry travels back in time.  This episode gets a 4.5 for introducing the time travel power in a clever way.   It was a really fun episode too.

The Flash (Revenge of the Rogues)

Wentworth Miller as Captain Cold (left)
Dominic Purnell as Heatwave (right)

Captain Cold is back with a friend!

Captain Cold is perhaps the Flash’s most formable foe.  His power to freeze all objects nullifies the Flash’s powers.  However, in the first meeting, Captain Cold did best the Flash. Captain Cold was intrigued by the Flash and now wants to kill him. He is the most vicious and cunning of all of the Flash’s foes that he has faced.  The Flash episode, “Revenge of the Rogues” introduced a new foe for the Flash, Heatwave!

Captain Cold and his partner, Mick Rory, return to Central City to kill the Flash. They break into a warehouse with expensive foreign cars to provoke the Flash into stopping them. The Flash declines their invitation and decides not to fight both criminals. Barry Allen is more concentrated on training to stop the Reverse Flash.  Reserve Flash is the priority for the Flash team. However, Captain Cold and Heatwave take the initiative in provoking a fight with the Flash and capture Catlin Snow.

Rick Cosnett as Detective Eddie Thawne

The best moments of this episode was the interaction between Captain Cold and Heatwave. Both actors brought great charisma and had chemistry as a team on the small screen. Purcell as Heatwave had a temper and had sarcastic tone.  He was a fun character but was overshadowed by fellow actor, Wentworth Miller. Miller is spectacular as Captain Cold. The way he plays Captain Cold is so fantastic. He is cold, cunning, and malicious.  Miller’s presence on screen comes across as he enjoys playing his character in a sadistic way. Cold wants to kill the Flash. He doesn’t care how he will does it or who he uses to achieve his goal. He actually might be the closest villain as a representation to the Joker on the either the Flash or Arrow.

Overall, this Flash episode was fun and entertaining. It was enjoyable and the villains were entertaining. The love story between Iris and Eddie needs to be cut down. It takes away from the screen time of the Flash. The Flash “Revenge of the Rogues” gets a 3.5 out of 5. The villain story showed up but the love story between Iris and Eddie went out for coffee.

The Flash (Pilot Review)

Flash using his super speed

The Flash is considered to be one of the best comic book characters according to fans and people in the comic book industry. It’s not surprising that The Flash would get his own television show after the character appeared on Arrow (non super powerless).  The Flash will have a very comic book tone and not really a grounded feel like Gotham or Arrow. Arrow and Gotham are grounded in crime fighting while Flash is pure entertainment and using science to get superpowers. The character himself is lighthearted and sees the world mostly in black and white. The Flash pilot was a good start to the new series but not great a start.

The pilot begins with young Barry Allen, The Flash, witnessing his mother’s murder. Consequently his father is convicted for the crime while Barry is taken in by Detective Joe West. Detective West is Barry’s best friend’s father, Iris West, and Iris is the love of Barry’s life.  Barry is a forensic investigator for the Central City Police and always investigate strange crimes in the world.  Barry claims a yellow ball of lightening kill his mother.  His fellow officers think that he is weird but love him as a person.  Barry is very quirky. humorous, and intelligent character.  He loves science and his main goal is to work at Star Labs. However, Star Labs built a particle accelerator that would allow them to study subatomical physics  and it explodes.  The machine creates a huge red cloud of unknown energy that causes a lightening bolt to strike Barry. The lightening strike causes Barry Allen to gain superpowers such as his super speed, super intelligence, and super healing like Wolverine.  The pilot had a lot of great aspects that made it a good start for a potential series.

(Top L-R) Chief Creative Officer of DC Entertainment Geoff Johns, producers Greg Berlanti and Andrew Kreisberg, and (Bottom L-R) actors Carlos Valdes (Cisco Ramon), Danielle Panabaker (Caitlin Snow), Tom Cavanagh (Harrison Wells), Grant Gustin (Barry Allen/Flash), Jesse L. Martin (Detective Joe West), Candice Patton (Iris West), and Rick Cosnett (Eddie Thawne)

The strong acting in the first episode was the most positive aspect of the Flash pilot. Grant Gustin is a great Barry Allen.  Rick Cosnett and Jesse L. Martin were the bests of the pilot. Martin nail his character’s overly protectiveness as a father for Barry and Iris. Martin gave Joe West a lot of depth and emotion as a television character.  His performance will get better each episode and it will continue to make the show awesome. However, Rick Cosnett, was a great Eddie Thawne.  Eddie is a complete dick!  He’s arrogant, thinks highly of himself, and also banging his partner’s daughter. He’s already jealous of the friendship between Barry and Iris. Thawne is super important to the Flash lore. Martin and Cosnett are scene stealers.

The pilot had a strong story to it and the special effects were spectacular. There’s a scene where Barry sees time slow down to the nano second and knocks the crap out of a thug who about is to shoot a cop. He’s does this in the police station too. His powers have unlimited potential and it will be interesting how the special effects team for the show create the needed scenes to make the Flash super cool. The other great part of the show is the fanboy easter eggs.  There are a lot of nods to the Flash universe and Andrew Kiesberg and  Geoff Johns wrote into the episode.

The biggest negative about the pilot is the predictable of the episode. Arrow was unpredictable in it’s pilot. It drew in your attention immediately but Flash just like any other pilot. There is no mystery or suspense to it. The show felt like it was all scripted to be by the book and not wanting to capture the audience’s attention for more.  The show runners will improve on this each episode.

Overall, the Flash pilot was a great start to the Flash series. It did lack suspense and felt like it was following the standard plot points of introduction. Martin and Cosnett were spectacular in the pilot and command the television screen in each scene that they were in. The show has potential and it will get better each episode. The Flash pilot receives a 4/5.

Side note: Arrow comes back on tonight in the US and I will review that tonight. Arrow and Flash will have a crossover in a few weeks.

Flash Pilot, what did you think? Comment below and let me know.