This episode (Air date: 10/18/16) started with a new intro for The Flash and it was AWESOME! So many teasers and hints as to what the season will hold…starting with this episode and Alchemy as our main protagonist.
WARNING-SPOILERS AHEAD!
STOP READING NOW IF YOU DON’T WANT TO KNOW!
The episode starts again with the very curious character Julian giving Barry a hard time for trying to leave work two minutes early for his first “post-Flashpoint date” with Iris. What is bothersome is that he appears to be a jerk for really no reason besides not trusting Barry. Obviously this excuse is lame and just adds fuel to our speculation that there is more to this guy, and his dislike for Barry, then meets the eye!!! The guy is a complete tool and we can’t wait to get more backstory on why he hates Barry in future episodes.
Once Barry is officially off the clock (Julian made sure he was there for the full two additional minutes) we watch a very awkward first date attempt. The date starts in Barry’s quirky way of overdoing it, but gets interesting when Iris tells Barry she doesn’t want anything about the Flash coming up tonight; just let it be her and Barry. While this sounds sweet in theory, the result is an awkward encounter that ends with the date being cut short (thank god) due to the portal (breach) for Earth-2 opening at the lab.
Barry and Iris arrive at the lab just in time to see Wells and Jessie coming through the portal. But the absolute best thing (which was spoiled by the previews-stop doing that CW!!!) was Jessie came through the portal with her speed!!!
Wells explains that she must have gotten her speed from the blast at the end of last season and they wanted to come back to get help from them and run some tests. Of course later we find out that Wells is lying (shocking). I know he is actually there to try and dissuade Jessie from using her powers to become a superhero. That whole thing results in lots of father-daughter angst throughout the episode which we’ll address in a bit. But first, Cisco takes them to the speed lab (say what?) which is new as of Flashpoint. While Barry, Wells and Jessie are shocked to see it since it didn’t exist prior to Flashpoint, it is pretty sweet. It is fully equipped with a speed track and all the gear necessary to check a speedster’s vitals and run tests. While we are suitably impressed, all we can say is that they better still have the cosmic treadmill!!!
Another interesting thing to note about this scene is Wally’s reaction. He is clearly upset that Jessie has acquired speed and he hasn’t. Throughout the episode Joe, Barry and even Jessie try to talk to him about it and are met with sarcasm for Joe, jealousy for Barry (he asks Barry if there is only room for one speedster in the family) and pure ignorance with Jessie when he tries to mimic the conditions which lead to her speed force kicking in and nearly gets himself killed. Our biggest fear is that because he doesn’t have it that this may be setting the stage for Alchemy to twist Wally’s desire for speed and his jealousy for Barry into something darker in the future! What will Wally do when he finds out he was a speedster in Flashpoint? Would he be willing to join Alchemy in order to gain speed? I guess we will see as the season unfolds.
The main metahuman foe of this episode is Frankie, a foster kid who clearly is living with a piece of crap, abusive foster father. You see her other persona, Magenta, come out after her foster dad comes home from work spewing hate and intimidation. Magenta has the awesome ability to manipulate metal and sends a light pole barreling in to take down her foster dad (score one for all those who have ever been abused). Unfortunately, as happens when giving into the dark side (yes, we went there), Magenta has no ability to reason and ends with her lifting a battleship into the air and intending on dropping it on the hospital her foster father is in to finish the job. While Barry tries to create a wind tunnel to keep the ship up, they quickly realize he needs help and Wells turns to his daughter and tells her to go. What makes this scene awesome is not the corny emotional music, but when Wells says “Run Jessie, Run” as he always has to Barry in the past. While Jessie keeps running to keep the ship up, Barry heads down and amazingly talks sense into Frankie who puts the ship down and admits she just wanted her foster dad to stop abusing her. What is surprising about this is that every time Barry tries to talk someone down, it always backfires on him…but not this time. What gets even stranger is after all this girl does (attempts twice to kill her father, attempts to kill Julian, throws a police cruiser in the air with a cop in it, and threatens the safety of hundreds of people with a ship over a hospital), she gets to go live with a “good” foster family which Caitlin arranges for her without having to answer to any law enforcement agency for what she has done? Not sure that is very realistic but I guess every once in a while we gotta give some of these metas a happy ending and a chance to be reformed (especially since none of this would be happening if Barry had not caused Flashpoint).
Our episode ends on a high note as Jessie gets her new costume from Wells. But at the end credits, we see the same scene from last week’s episode where something is zooming around the cell killing Rival. While we can’t be sure who the speedster is on the film since they are so fast you can’t make anything out (we think it might be Godspeed from the comics). It would be interesting to see how that would play out since we know that at this point in Barry’s development he is not even close to being up to facing someone at his level. One thing is certain, we are sure glad that the Flash has Jessie Quick there to be by his side to face whatever was in that cell in the coming episodes!
Our final two words on this episode: Jessie Quick
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The Flash returns next week (10/25/16) with and all-new episode: “The New Rogues” (3×04) introducing the world to the Mirror Master and seeing the return of Captain Cold!
The Flash 3×03 “Magenta” Sneak Peek – Barry (Grant Gustin) and Team Flash are thrilled to reunite with Earth-2 Wells (Tom Cavanagh) and Jesse (guest star Violett Beane). Wells confides to Barry and Caitlin (Danielle Panabaker) that Jesse has all the powers of a speedster and has been saving people on his Earth. He is concerned about her safety and wants them to talk her out of using her powers. Meanwhile, Magenta, (guest star Joey King) a new meta who can control metal, terrorizes the city. Armen V. Kevorkian directed the episode written by Judalina Neira & David Kob (#303). Original airdate 10/18/2016.
