“The Flash” runs towards the end of its Red Death arc with an okay conclusion to the story.
SPOILERS AHEAD
Story
This episode titled, “The Mask of the Red Death, Part 2”, follows the aftermath of the previous episode where Barry temporarily loses his speed and seemingly loses Chillblaine.
As predicted, Chillblaine is not dead and is being used as bait to lure Team Flash into a trap. When Barry tries to do the hero thing by rescuing Mark, things go sideways and Red Death attacks Barry and his team.
Red Death shows Barry that Gorilla Grodd is helping her take over the world because Barry abandoned him after Crisis. Barry and Joe have a great one on one and Barry reminds Joe the value he has in Team Flash. Barry then goes to Grodd and convinces him to help and Grodd also returns the spark of speed force energy given years ago by Barry.
Barry has his speed restored and confronts Red Death in their final battle. Barry finally defeats her with a little help from his Rogues and Batwoman.
The episode ends with Joe getting ready to move out of Central City with Jenna, Chester and Allegra actually getting together, and Barry and Iris finding out they are pregnant.
The Good
This episode was good because it concluded the Red Death storyline and didn’t drag it out. It actually ended in a cool battle regardless of the CGI being a little underdeveloped at times.
Red Death using batarangs at Barry was a really cool nod and kind of hinted at Batwoman’s entrance which was actually badass.
Bringing Grodd back for the final season was a great choice and shows how far his journey with Barry has been.
The conversation between Joe and Barry was definitely a highlight and takes you back to the good old days of “The Flash”.
The Bad
As noted multiple times before, Javicia Leslie’s performance as Red Death is absolutely horrible and shows no actual intimidation. However when she showed up as Batwoman, her acting was not a problem proving that it is more the writing of the show than her fault.
The first half of this episode was unbearable and boring and only started to grab my attention later in the story.
The visuals were not great in this episode and some of the story was just bland or underdeveloped making it feel like a generic plotline.
Review
While this episode was not amazing by any means it wrapped up the Red Death storyline with an interesting final confrontation and did not drag its story throughout the season. Episode 5 is 4/10.