“The Flash” continues its final season with an okay second episode.
SPOILERS AHEAD
The Plot
This episode sees Team Flash dealing with the introduction of the new character, Snow, who is played by Danielle Panabaker. We also see a new post-crisis version of The Fiddler who is hunting down iconic villain, Hartley Rathaway aka Pied Piper. It is revealed later that this new Fiddler is also working for Red Death and was after Hartley’s gauntlets. She and Captain Boomerang were able to steal them from Hartley at the last second and use them for Red Death. Red Death was only seen vibrating last episode but it appears it was not by choice as the gauntlets were able to stop it.
The Good
One of the best scenes in this episode was Barry and Chillblaine sitting down at the bar and Barry making it clear that he did not agree with Mark’s actions but he understood them. This conversation really showed Barry’s maturity and self awareness given his recent actions in the past seasons. Another great thing to come out of this episode was Hartley’s return. Bringing the character back for the final season was a nice nod to older fans of the show given he was one of Barry’s first rogues. Red Death is shaping up to already be an interesting villain. The character gives the same vibes from Zoom and their suit looks pretty good from the brief glimpse given. This episode also felt a lot more cinematic in it’s shots and it was noticeably different.
The Bad
The whole arc about this third Snow sister was completely unnecessary and ruins Caitlin’s character. They essentially killed Caitlin’s character who has been one of the main pillars of “The Flash” for the past nine seasons and no emotion was shown for it. The new character’s design is also so terrible and makes you question the effort that went into this arc. The Fiddler was also an uninteresting villain that seemed quite surface level. This could be because she is a pawn for Red Death but her character did almost nothing in her own episode.
Review
This episode was neither good nor bad but made some questionable choices. It is setting up an interesting Red Death arc and bringing back some favorite characters as fan service. Episode 2 is 5/10.