Uncategorized

FLASH SPOILER Review: Episode 3×12 – “Untouchable”

The Flash (3×12) – “Untouchable”
Written by:         Brooke Roberts & Judalina Neira
Directed by:       Rob
Hardy
Okay, so I’m
a little late with the review. Sorry that I am an old man with responsibilities
and a full time job that can (not) literally (but figuratively) eat my time. I
don’t know why you’re getting mad, you’re not perfect either! Sitting there
reading this, in whatever state of dress you call that! Also, that coffee cup
is tacky put it down.
But everyone
makes mistakes, maybe we shouldn’t get caught up in who was late and just get
on with the review…
We start off
with a Flash vs Kid Flash race, nice and light hearted with banter and betting
and learning that Al Capone was Vice President on HR’s earth.  As the race plays out, we see that Wally is
faster in a straight footrace but Barry has all sorts of tricks up his sleeves
and wins the race by running through a building instead of over it like Wally
which puts HR out of a lot of money.
With that
finished it’s time to get rolling with a mysterious death at Luigi’s Restaurant
(hey, that’s a familiar situation!) and it’s definitely a weird death since the
guy was dead less than eight hours and looks more like he was dug out of the
Pyramids at Giza.  Well good thing Barry
and Julian have access to forensic equipment at… STAR Labs(?)  So Julian takes the body there.
Outside Joe
and Barry find Iris talking to Luigi, I presume and she looks a bit
spooked.  Joe ignores the “someone’s
leading a conga line over my grave” look on his daughter’s face to ask the kids
to come with him to meet Cecile’s daughter at Jitters.  After Joe leaves Iris takes Barry back to
STAR Labs and shows him what has her troubled. 
The death at Luigi’s Restaurant is on The List!  Which pretty much blows a hole in Iris’
denial that she’s on the clock with the Grim Reaper.
Barry wants
to tell Joe but Iris has learned all about how to deal with family problems
from watching the first two seasons of Arrow so that’s out of the
question.   Setting this aside, it’s time
to see how Julian’s autopsy is going, spoilers: not good.  Our dead body is now a pile of pencil
shavings.  At least they’ve ruled out disease,
speaking as someone that works with the supply chain, flesh eating bacteria at
one restaurant would kill every restaurant in town instantly.  No more Luigi’s, no more Jitters, no more Big
Belly Burger, nothing!
That night,
three guys walk out of a jazz club after what must have been a good set and one
of our musicians is a familiar face. 
Remember Julio aka “Captain Mendez” from Flashpoint aka Barry’s forensic
assistant from the 1990’s Flash show? 
Well in the regular current timeline he’s a musician with a
hipster hat!
He talks to
a not at all suspicious guy in an alley but it’s cool he just wants to shake
Julio’s hand and uh oh!  Looks like we
met our killer this week since Julio is dead. 
It seems our killer is on some sort of vendetta.
Back at STAR
Labs, Barry’s trying to teach Wally how to phase through things by making him
run through a wooden wall.  It’s not
going well, most because Barry’s has employed the “I’m an asshole” teacher
method.  You can’t just tell Wally to go
out and move “fast enough,” Barry.  You
have to give him a little more than that. 
Barry is
soon called away to investigate Julio’s death and that might be a big problem
because it turns out the first guy was also a cop in Flashpoint.  Someone’s killing cops from Flashpoint, even
better!  Julian and Caitlin are able to
get a DNA sample of the killer and Julian sees a chemical marker that points to
the killer being an Alchemy creation!

No time for
that however, we have to see how Joe’s date is going!  It’s not going too well, until we learn that
Cecile’s daughter Joanie has a crush on Kid Flash.  Which is music to Wally’s ears, he wants to
hear more.  But that’s going to have to wait
since Julian calls Barry with information on our killer; Clive Yorkin.  Just moments before he shows up in Jitters to
kill Joe.
Clive tries
to attack so Joe decides to put three in his chest, but there’s a problem the
bullets just decay away before they can do any harm.  That’s when Kid Flash shows up and chases him
off.
Back at the
Lab for a regroup and Iris is flipping out because she can’t keep the secret
anymore.  So she tells Joe about the
future and Joe reacts accordingly, restrained really, I would’ve done more than
yelling at Barry I would’ve decked him. 
After Hurricane Joe leaves, Caitlin talks to Julian and we start to see
that guilt is eating him alive as well.
Later, Iris
is at home working on the Yorkin story when Clive shows up to do the next best
thing to killing Joe, killing her.  Wally
arrives to help but he’s not quite fast enough and he manages to touch
Iris. 
Back at STAR
Labs, they have to work fast and the only solution for Caitlin to use her
powers on Iris’ arm.  Once Iris is
stabilized Barry and Wally talk about what happened.  Barry finally realizes he’s not being a good
teacher, he has to help Wally figure out he can do something instead of telling
him how Barry does it.
While they’re
having their talk HR and Cisco have hit on the idea of vibing Flashpoint to try
and see who Clive’s next victim is.  He
sees Clive’s perp walk and find the last cop, Laura Stone.  In this timeline, she’s a PI.  Joe finds her at the train station and
unfortunately so does Clive.
Back at the
Lab, Barry asks Julian if they have a way to save Iris yet but it seems they
don’t still Julian thinks that Barry or Wally could use their blood to defuse
Yorkin’s powers but their interrupted by a medical alarm.  Caitlin’s losing control of her powers and
has flipped the switch from good to evil so she’s decided not to save Iris
anymore.  Julian manages to talk her off
the ledge and gets her to help Iris again.
Joe followed
Laura Stone onto the train which is a problem since Clive just destroyed the
overpass they’re about to pass under.  So
Barry has to pull off the seriously cool trick of vibrating the whole train to
phase through the rubble.  The problem
with that it has pretty much wipe out Barry’s stamina and it’s up to Wally to
phase his blood into Clive.  Barry gets
to give the “Run Barry, run!” pep talk and Wally saves the day.
They use
Yorkin’s blood to save Iris and Joe lays down the law; if they have any hope of
stopping Savitar it will require all of them working together and being honest
with each other.  After that the team
splits up for the night, Joe asks Barry if Iris was the death Savitar promised
them and Barry believes so. 
Out in the
hall, Caitlin thanks Julian for helping her fight off Killer Frost and the two
leave to have a drink.  The rest is
pretty much recap, Joe and Cecile say goodbye to her daughter and Barry puts up
a new door at the apartment.  Wally’s at
STAR Labs practicing phase, you know the usual stuff no big deal… UNTIL Jesse
shows up from Earth 2 because Gorilla Grodd has attacked and kidnapped her
dad!  
Great
episode this time.  Credit where credit
is due, the show has been much stronger since they returned from the Christmas
hiatus.  If I ever have free time I
intend to revisit the early episode to see if I was missing something or if
they merely managed to find their footing and got to work.
Of course it
could help that this was more of an Iris/Joe/Wally centric story and truthfully
those are usually the most satisfying episodes. 
The Barry/Wally teacher-student dynamic took a step forward and they
dealt with the list again.  I also liked
the Julian stuff this week, the only real quibble I have this episode was
Caitlin’s story.
So really it’s
boiling down to powers make you evil and I just don’t find that compelling at
all.  I think a few minor changes here
and there and this could’ve actually worked. 
Instead of treating Caitlin’s powers like a switch or a split
personality it would’ve been more interesting to treat this like a slippery
slope.  Caitlin begins using her powers and
relying more and more upon them until she starts making mistakes and that’s how
she starts falling down and becoming corrupted by her powers.  The way they’re doing it is very Smallville
and I’ll go on record again; if they’re doing things the way Smallville would,
they’re doing it wrong.
But to bring
it all back around, great episode sets up for some hardcore two-part-episode-Gorilla
Grodd action!
Things We Learned
This Week:
1)     
Gambling is forbidden on Earth-19.
2)     
The attack that forced Luigi’s to close and reopen
has happened.
3)     
There is still one of Alchemy’s Meta on the
loose.
Three Questions:
1)      Who
is this Meta that Alchemy created?
2)      Did
they manage to make any adjustments to the future that affected Iris’ death?
3)      Is
Caitlin pretty much guaranteed to betray them now?

Just another guy on the internet.