When Glenn asked me to guest blog and write a review about The Flash, I thought, what could go wrong? I mean, it’s about a guy who can travel at the speed of light… the show couldn’t be more than 30 seconds long, right? I should be able to hammer out a post in like a minute, then it’s back to obsessively reading 20 year old back issues of X-Men on my Marvel Unlimited app trying to figure out exactly how many times Jean Grey actually died. Find out what I thought about Central City’s Big Red blur after the break.
Episode three was another fun affair. As Glenn noted in last week’s review, this is a fun show. The cast is playful as a roomful of puppies, with a great working chemistry. In episode three, we’re introduced to “The Mist”; a former death row inmate who we later discover was executed the night of the particle accelerator incident. The same comic book quasi-science that gave Barry Allen super-speed gave the condemned Kyle Nimbus the ability to transform into a living cloud of cyanide gas.
The Mist sets off on a mission of revenge, first killing off all members of the crime family that turned against him, then the judge who condemned him to death, and finally going after detective Joe (Jesse Martin), who originally arrested the former hit man. Luckily, Barry (who had an early confrontation with the Mist) arrives to save the day, injecting Joe with the antidote whipped up by adorable STAR scientist Caitlin Snow (the equally adorable Danielle Panabaker). I had hoped Barry would defeat the Mist by doing some sort of centrifugal whirlwind thing, but ultimately he prevails by simply exhausting him until he couldn’t maintain mist form, and then knocking him out with one super-speed punch.
We also had a plethora of subplots, as each character revisits what happened on the day the of the particle accelerator accident, Iris and Eddie reveal their relationship to Joe, we get more hints – mostly super-villain smiles and menacing chuckles – that Harrison Wells (Tom Cavanagh) may not be on the side of the angels, and Barry wrestles with the idea of breaking his father out of prison (side note – I love how the current crop of superhero shows never fail to shout out to the medium’s past…John Wesley Shipp – who starred as the Flash in the ill-fated 1990s version of the show – playing Barry Allen’s father? Perfect!)
The series overall looks like it’s doing a great job mining the same gold that Smallville mined for the WB over a decade ago. The same forces that brought in the savoir also spawn a collection of villains, a young, beautiful cast of twenty-somethings works together to defeat evil as well as work through every day drama, and a young man slowly learns how to become a hero. All in all, an episode so enjoyable, it seemed to pass in a …(wait for it)…flash!
