Looking good in that helmet Barry. Photo taken directly from the episode via Screenshot. Photo content from The Flash Season 6 Episode 2 “A Flash Of Lightning”.
Please Keep In Mind That This Article Contains Potential Spoilers For “A Flash Of Lightning” and Events That Occurred Prior
This week’s focus shifted onto the upcoming Crisis threat—something that isn’t a surprise given how last week’s episode ended. Though poor Ramsey still got some screen time, even if it was only two awkwardly crammed in scenes that could have waited until next week.
When it came to the Crisis though, we pick up with Barry still dealing with the fact that he has to die to save everyone. To prove it for himself, he enlists the aid of our old friend Jay Garrick. It was nice to see him again, this time with the mirror image of Barry’s mother. Their whole experiment was fun to behold, and it’s further teases of what the Crisis event may hold didn’t disappoint. Anti-Matter threatening to destroy every world in every reality? Pretty big threat (though for those with comic knowledge, it’s exactly what we would expect).
Barry’s experiment into the future didn’t exactly go as he planned. It only resulted in him realizing that there was no way out of his death, leading him into another one of his hopeless spirals. It’s understandable that he feels this way, though the problem is that we’ve seen him deal with similar conundrums countless times. That said, by the end of the episode, it seems like most of his pouting has been done. He seems set to take action from this point on. Which is good. They have to strike the delicate balance of Barry still coping with this news/fate as anyone would, without it devolving into what we’ve already seen throughout the show.
Outside of what Barry was dealing with in/after his trip to the future, we also had to deal with a meta. One that can control radio waves! She, and her crazy corny cousin, were both extremely forgettable. The important part was the impact the episode had on Cecile, who had one of the strongest character arcs of the episode. Her powers once again came to blows with her professional life. This time though, it had an interesting conclusion. Instead of being a general DA, she decided to take on the legal system by focusing directly on Metas in order to help them. It’s a good direction for the character, as well as the story. The legal system clearly has flaws when it comes to handling Meta humans, and Cecile is a great pick to try to fix that.
Then there was Camilla and Frost, whose stories intersected due to Camilla’s big art show. I want to first give a little credit to the show for attempting to do something with Camilla. The character was haphazardly thrown into last season, and just kind of stuck around. As for Frost, we get the continued fish-out-water story. It’s not very interesting, or intriguing, but it’s another case of at least they are trying. I mean come on—you know that the resolution of all of the art hanging around the lab was beyond silly. Hopefully they can get a little more creative down the line with how they flesh out Frost and her life in the real world.
“A Flash Of Lighting” set-up a lot for the upcoming season. Currently we have Godspeed, Ramsey, and the Crisis coming up. On top of that, apparently there is a mysterious group training meta human assassins? This season sure does have a lot of stuff brewing. To be clear, that’s not a bad thing. But as I’ve mentioned a few times now, it’s all about how the show can balance and handle so many plot threads at once. Only time will tell, but we could have an exciting season ahead of us. Don’t let us down Eric Wallace!
Bonus Notes:
- In that brief glimpse of post Crisis, we see Cisco all suited up as Vibe. Are we to see a come back for his powers?
- Joe’s advice to Barry came into play during his confrontation with Esperanza, and it was key in defeating her. Though I wonder why they wanted to use Joe’s influence so quickly? It just felt odd—and a little wasted. I mean it all very clearly relating to his upcoming sacrifice.
- Speaking of Joe, he had some really good scenes when it came to helping out those close to him.
- ARROW 8×01 SPOILERS AHEAD: The end of the episode set up an interesting precedence. In Earth-2 has been destroyed, what of everyone we know and love from this show? Wells, Jesse, etc.
Special Note: We’ve had to resort to taking direct screenshots of the episode ourselves and/or repeated and unrelated Flash images due to the CW Network failing to provide adequate photos for proper coverage.
You can catch The Flash as it airs on The CW on Tuesdays at 9pm EST!
