New secrets of the past, present and future are revealed.
What They Say:
Tricksters – A villain mimics a criminal mastermind known as The Trickster – who has been imprisoned for 20 years. Flashbacks reveal how Dr. Wells developed the particle accelerator.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Having The Flash deal with time travel in a more overt way in its first season is definitely fun and welcome, since I’d imagine other series wouldn’t tackle it for a few seasons. What they did is tried and true in giving us big moments, only to wipe them away and give us a more challenging situation to follow from there, teaching Barry quite the lesson. The time travel aspect feels quite appropriate at this stage though, with what this episode does, in bringing back The Trickster – in new and old form. Having been a fan of the original Flash series, having Mark Hamill back after all this time in this very fun role, and to see behind the scenes photos of him and John Wesley-Shipp together again, it really does feel like I’ve gone back in time. It definitely shows that kind of passion and love the people involved in the series have in connecting the dots like these for fans though, and that just makes it all the more fun.
The cold open for this one takes us back fifteen years to the night Nora died, and it shows us more of what we’ve had glimpses of with the two Flash’s coming back in time with Barry chasing Wells and the kind of fight that happened in the house. While we got the flashes of it before with her in the middle, this one slows it down to a pretty intense fight and it totally ramps up our feeling of how it played out in a brutal and engaging way. It’s definitely something that elevates the show and gives it a different kind of power. But it also provides the connection in the present now that Joe and Barry are getting on the same page as they work together to research what Wells is really after, and whether it was him that actually made Barry into what he is. It’s definitely solid, and with the right kind of nudges to keep them from going after him right away since they realize that Wells is scary patient. With Joe being a very solid detective, his approach to all of this is spot on.
While we get the fun of that, we also get things shifting into the events of the week with the central area of Central City under attack by The Trickster as he takes aim at families. He’s pretty fun with his rhymes and the like, and I rather like that it makes it clear that Central City has a very positive and vibrant family aspect out there in comparison to Starling City. With some video to work with, the team starts in on figuring out what this guy is doing, but Joe also reveals that he’s a copycat of sorts as there was a Trickster that terrorized the city some twenty years ago as well, which lets them bring up some fun footage from the original Flash series. It’s also rather fun to see Cisco grumpy in not being able to name The Trickster himself, which is definitely a good moment.
Joe and Barry make their way off to Iron Heights to talk to James Jesse in order to see what they can get out of him and they play it in a kind of fun Hannibal way as we learn just how manipulative he can be. Hamill plays this beautifully here and has a real sense of menace about him that’s just a delight to watch. While he plays things to humor here, when he learns that someone has taken over his name, that sets him on a darker turn here, though one with some fun little theatrics as Joe and Barry try to see if there’s some sort of connection between them. There’s some very fun scenery chewing going on here and you just have to imagine that the actors are enjoying the time with him on screen. What James does offer up though is that the copycat has likely found his way into his original lair and provides them with what they need, but also hopes that when they do find him, they off this copycat.
So when they discover that the copycat has taken everything, it’s enough to push James over the edge and his intensity is great to watch. Especially when he reveals that he had a bomb in there that could destroy the entire city. But the level goes off the scale when he’s shown the video from the copycat about his intentions and all he sees is his legacy being distorted and destroyed by him. It’s a great bit of material that plays to the crazy. While The Trickster may be a copycat, he’s also working things in the modern sense here with how he’s doing things and he’s nowhere near as easy to trace as James might have been back in the day. This helps keep the others involved in it all, even though the Trickster himself seems kind of secondary in a sense, but there’s enough of a threat here for it to be taken seriously. But amid it all, we get some intriguing little threats and movements from others as well, especially with the teases to the past where we see our Reverse-Flash fifteen years ago isn’t who we thought it was.
The bigger play that comes out of all of this is definitely a treat to watch though as we see how James was playing an even bigger trick here in order to get out of Iron Heights. And he does it while grabbing Barry’s father as well since the father of a police officer seems like a smart bargaining chip to have. There’s some great stuff that goes on with the dialogue between them all, but Hamill takes the cake when he reveals to The Trickster that he’s actually his father, which naturally plays on a great cinematic scene he was involved in years ago. Naturally, having Henry being taken by James, that puts Barry into an even bigger funk than he has been for most of this episode as he has even more to struggle with. It’s all piling on him in a big way here and he’s struggling to cope with it all and the kinds of masks he has to wear in order to deal with the main issues at hand.
The father/son game that’s put into effect is simple, old school silly kind of criminal activity as he comes up with a way to extort a lot of money from powerful people with a great threat hanging over their heads. There’s an inherent goofiness to it, but the pair pull it off well and it ends up working out in a way that forces Barry to grow in his own skill set as when he gets there, James gets a bomb attached to his wrist that plays on the premise of the Speed movie. With him running faster than ever in order to keep it from going off, Wells reveals the trick to getting rid of it by essentially going so fast that he connects with the Speed Force and phases through a wall. Wells is beautifully intense here as he talks about the feel of the speed and his own connection to it, which adds to the layering of the character really well. The best part? When Barry saves the day, as he must, rescuing his dad has him revealing who he is under the suit as well, which is a great, if brief, bonding moment for the two.
This episode does spend some time in flashback mode, showing Wells when he was younger with his wife, Tess, and the initial concept and designs of the labs with the particle accelerator. It also takes us through Tess’ death as orchestrated by the Reverse-Flash for his larger machinations. It’s definitely interesting to see the difference in how Wells is portrayed between the two time periods, which makes sense with the amount of loss involved. All of that is naturally explained here as we get the truth of what happened on that bridge in the past, and its a sequence that again shows the series upping its game with the special effects to give us something truly twisted when it comes to Eobard Thawne, which is definitely required for the kind of intensely crazy personality he truly has.
In Summary:
The Flash has a pretty good episode here overall with what it wants to explore with Thawne, the events of fifteen years prior and the larger plan that he has in motion, but that’s something that feels secondary here. Yes, I loved the bits we get with it about the way it all connects and seeing how Wells is manipulating things in the present and providing small reveals, but the bigger deal for me here was all about the two Tricksters and just seeing Mark Hamill on TV again. It plays beautifully and has some fantastic sequences throughout that really drives it home well. Things like this can go pretty bad when you get down to it in making it too cartoonish, but the end result is a strong one that lets everyone shine. Of course, for a lot of people, the preview of what’s to come in the remaining five episodes of the season is likely going to be an even bigger highlight as it pretty much makes this show like a drug in just how much I need it and need it now. Very good stuff and very fun stuff.
Grade: A-
