After a very packed winter premiere, this week’s The Flash is an improvement with the return of Eobard Thawne (this time played by Matt Letscher after his debut in Season 1) as a.k.a. the Reverse-Flash as he comes back from a time before he killed Barry’s mother.
As much as I loved Tom Cavanagh’s Reverse-Flash (as Eobard Thawne being Harrison Wells in disguise), it was a blast seeing Letscher getting to play Eobard again, especially because he looks a lot like Thawne in many of The Flash comics out there (Look up The Flash: Rebirth and exclude the gray hair the comic version has, and it’s pretty much a resemblance) and we saw a lot of the more classic characteristics of Thawne from the comics in Letscher’s take. While the time travel-y aspects got a bit wibbly wobbly timey whimey for me (it took a few re-watches to get it completely), seeing a Thawne that hadn’t gone to Barry’s childhood just yet, was neat. As Harry points it out in the episode, this moment in time essentially became Thawne’s origin story and despite that Eddie shot himself in Season 1, I strongly believe this will lead to more appearances by Thawne in later seasons. The one thing that was silly (in a funny way though) was that once again, Mercury Labs got attacked – Tina McGee simply can’t catch a break!
While the circumstances were really tragic, it was sweet to see some West Family focus and we got a lot of great moments from each of the family members. Seeing Iris forgiving her mother as she is getting ready to leave this world, was powerful and it makes me even more sad that Francine won’t make it. But at least they bonded and for Francine to get forgiveness by Iris before she passes away, was something she needed. The other great scenes featuring the West members was between Iris and Wally as the two siblings start to bond and get to know each other. I love whenever Iris gets to give people wake-up calls that they truly need, which is one of her many great qualities, and in this case she gave it to Wally who needed to put his anger aside and see his mom before it was too late. Because this is the first time their dynamic is portrayed as brother and sister as opposed to nephew and aunt like in the books, I never know what to expect and I like that because it makes their relationship a bit of a mystery.
Then there is the plot that was Patty and Barry dealing with their complex relationship after last week’s event. It was hard to pick a side because while I think Barry’s behavior towards her in the start of the episode was a tiny bit cold (since he has had so many opportunities to tell her the truth), I don’t appreciate Patty tricking him to speed over to her train and claiming to be in danger. I respect that she was able to figure it out in the middle of the episode on her own, but her action at the end was just too much and quite selfish. It just portrayed her as someone who desperately needed to be right and have the last word before she left. Patty was a character I was heavily mixed on and while I’m open to see her return sometime down the line (preferably not as a love interest), I think it’s good that they wrapped up this arc.
Cisco stole the show in many ways in “The Reverse-Flash Returns from his banter with Harry (why isn’t there a sitcom in development for these two on The CW?), his “Bye Felicia” line to Eobard and him exploring his powers through the Vibe Googles (Cisco would totally name it like that). Although, how many times is this show going to play with the possibility that Cisco might die one day? Let’s just hope that it never happens because Cisco is one of the rarest characters in the DC TV Universe and losing him would be a bad move on the show’s part. Overall, despite the Patty/Barry plot, this was one of the strongest episodes of Season 2 and it had to do a lot with Thawne’s role in the whole thing. In addition, Hunter Zolomon (also played by Teddy Sears!) is on Earth-1: I would pay close attention to him for the rest of the season.
The Flash airs on Tuesday nights, 8/7c on The CW.
[Photo: Diyah Pera/The CW]
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