Do you also have that problem when a one week hiatus feels like years? Yeah, I thought so, and with that said, it was a blast to have a brand new episode of The CW’s new hit series The Flash back last night as it introduced a couple of new DC characters with Bette Sans Souci (Kelly Frye) and General Wade Eiling (Clancy Brown).
The episode continues the series’ seed of introducing several meta-human DC characters, and this week we got to meet Plastique who is played by the talented Frye. While her character in the comic books has a villainous path, the TV show version was a whole different take. As someone who got introduced to this character on Smallville, I was completely in love with this version as she was much better written as well as performed. This Bette was a lot deeper and someone that you could take seriously with her military background, and you felt her pain throughout the whole episode. I pretty much look at her as Frozen’s Elsa, if Elsa had been given the power of exploding things.
One of my favorite parts about her was Cisco’s enormous crush for her because 1) Carlos Valdes is just adorable on so many levels and 2) Seeing Cisco getting all like that for a girl was absolutely cute. Frye brought a lot of great tone to Bette and even though I was hoping to see her use her powers a bit more, I was fine with it. The way she and Barry connected despite how different their powers were from each other was a great element as Barry was able to witness someone who couldn’t control herself. While we see her character meet a tragic end, this is a comic book show, and since we didn’t see her body blow up or anything like that, there is always the chance that she will be back. In other words: she will be back.
The episode also introduced DC villain General Wade Eiling who was played by the legendary Clancy Brown, who has a big place in the DC Comics family, having been the voice for Lex Luthor in animation for many years. This role was just perfect for him, and even though I couldn’t help but giggle (in a positive way) that one of my favorite Lex actors was in another DC show, he was a force to be reckoned with. I like the addition of his past with Harrison, though, as it expanded a bit more about what he is exactly up to and whether or not we should trust him. I hope we will see him again sooner rather than later because I kind of want to have him around as a recurring villain, which is most likely the plan.
There was a lot of focus on Barry and Iris in this episode and I’m all about the “Baris” ship so seeing them having more scenes is always a plus. As Joe wants Barry to get Iris to stop blogging about “The Streak” (trust me, that name will be gone real soon), Barry has to face Iris as the scarlet speedster. This part was one of the most comic book-y and best parts of the entire episode, as Barry demonstrates his way to disguise his voice by (apparently) vibrating his muscles in his voice. Something like that; I don’t get science or biology talk so just get used to it.
In the comics, The Flash has always been able to mix up his voice via similar methods and after having gotten used to Oliver’s voice changer over at Arrow, it’s nice to get something more fun. Can we all just agree that Joe’s reaction was absolutely priceless? Jesse L. Martin sure knows how to put a smile on your face. The dynamic between The Flash and Iris felt very similar to the Superman and Lois relationship when she didn’t know who he was. The only difference here is that Barry has to stay in the shadows a lot because the mask won’t cover his face enough if he was standing close to Iris. I was surprised to see everything that followed after that scene for those two because towards the end of the episode, Barry tells Iris – after having asked her to stop blogging about The Flash – that they need to take a break for a while. This just broke my heart, mostly because I didn’t know they were going to get an obstacle like this so early in the season.
What was more heartbreaking, though, was when Iris confessed to The Flash that she was blogging about him because she was trying to help Barry due to the fact that no one had ever believed in him and his view on the impossible actually being possible. That just showed what a wonderful character Iris is and why she is and always will be the perfect woman for him in his life. It will be interesting to see what happens next between these two in upcoming episodes, but I expect to see this conflict resolved before The Flash and Arrow crossover.
Let’s talk Easter Eggs and cool Flash moments! I don’t know what the size of their budget is, but I can’t believe that we got The Flash to both run up towards a wall AND seeing him run on water in the same episode. However, the biggest one was obviously what was shown in the post-credit scene with Harrison from five years ago as we get our first look at Gorilla Grodd. I knew we were going to get something Grodd-related with people from the show teasing about him in this episode, but I didn’t expect it to be that big. Harrison clearly has some evil agenda her, and once again, I can’t make up my mind whether I think he is good or evil. I’m almost willing to bet that he may have allowed Grodd to escape on purpose during the particle accelerator incident.
Overall, “Plastique” was another phenomenal episode that gave us good introductions to Frye’s Plastique and Brown’s General along with more teases about what our dear Dr. Wells is up. The performances were outstanding, especially with Gustin, as he continues to grow more and more into the role as the fastest man alive. We are also seeing great development in Team Flash as they are getting closer to each other. Patton also continues to blow me away with her amazing performances as Iris, who is easily one of my favorite new female characters.
The Flash airs on Tuesday nights, 8/7c on The CW.
Photo via The CW
Follow Us
