The CW’s new hit series continues to run at all the right places as last night’s episode of The Flash was another stellar episode that featured the introduction of Robbie Amell (cousin of Arrow’s Stephen Amell) as DC Comics’ Ronnie Raymond a.k.a. the future Firestorm.
The show dives into flashbacks again in this episode as we get to see what happened the night the particle accelerator exploded and we see it from the perspective of S.T.A.R. Labs with Harrison, Cisco, Caitlin and Ronnie. I was hoping for a few more scenes between Ronnie and Caitlin, but this is just the beginning so I can remain patient for now. Amell and Panabaker really clicked and had great chemistry between each other so much that it hurt even more when they were separated.
I’m onboard with Amell’s portrayal of Ronnie who is someone that I have just started to get familiar with, from a comic book perspective. I know that in the Firestorm comic books, he was just a jock who wasn’t too bright, but I dig that he is an engineer instead on the TV show. It will be great to see him when he returns in future episodes and from what has been said, it sounds like we will see him before 2014 is over.
What this episode really accomplished was getting into the head of Caitlin, a character that I’m starting to invest a lot in as she is a tortured character that lost (as far as she knows) her fiancée. Panabaker is such a strong actress and to see her character finally open up and let her guard down was a deep moment that got to me. I’m glad that the person she opened up to about Ronnie was Barry as these two became closer friends as they can relate to each other.
The monster of the week was the DC villain, The Mist, a character that I have never been familiar with from the comics. I wasn’t heavily invested in this villain, I think I was so deep into the things with Caitlin that the Mist sort of slipped my mind. The effects for him however were remarkable and it keeps up with the great visuals we have been getting so far. My favorite sequence with him was obviously at the end when Flash fought him and defeated him. I’m glad they didn’t kill him off though because I would like to see some of these one offs come back in the future.
Something that also satisfied me this week was seeing Rick Cosnett have more scenes this time as Eddie and even though it was mostly with Iris, we do get to learn more about him as an individual character. I almost thought they were going to break up, temporarily because of Eddie’s complaints about having to hide their relationship from Joe. But eventually they do tell him and it’s revealed that Joe had known this whole time because after all, he is a detective. I should also add that Patton and Cosnett definitely have a great dynamic with each other.
Barry and Joe have a lot of great scenes together and to me, I find their relationship as one part of the heart of the show. Martin is so phenomenal in the role and so is Gustin in his role and the moments they have on the show, is a nice layer to The Flash as a whole. To see this non-powered character be able to understand and guide Barry is a strong theme and something that makes Martin’s character an even bigger player in the team.
It would be foolish by me if I didn’t talk about the scene between Henry and Barry in this episode. It’s impossible to not cry whenever they have a scene together because Shipp is always able to bring such an emotional performance and more than ever, do I want Henry to get out of prison. It was also good to see Henry and Joe finally meet after such a long time and we do get a hint of what their relationship was like before Nora died.
Is it just me or does anyone else also think that the post-credit scenes for this show will always feature Harrison? If that’s the case, I’m perfectly alright with it as this week, we get another piece to the big mystery puzzle. We see from his perspective in the flashbacks that he was witnessing Barry getting hit by the lighting that night from that secret room of his. I still don’t know if I’m ready to say that Harrison is a bad guy, but so far, I love Cavanagh in the role. You don’t know whether to trust him or not and I hope that this will be something that will go on up until the season finale.
Overall, “Thing You Can’t Outrun” was another solid episode as we got a good introduction to Ronnie Raymond and we also got to understand Caitlin a lot better as a character. Since the show has now been picked up for a full season, I can’t wait to see what else this show has in store for us, especially in next week’s episode where we will meet a certain captain who has a thing for the cold.
The Flash airs on Tuesday nights, 8/7c on The CW.
[Photo via The CW]
Follow Us
