The Flash 2x19 Back to Normal

[joyouslee]

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!?!?!?! The ending deserves an old school OMGWTFBBQ!!!!!11111111!!!111

Didn't you just go through an entire episode on the danger and destroyed lives resulting from hubris???? And you plan on recreating the explosion, which you were unable to control on E-2 AND WHICH. CREATED. ZOOM. Also, at least Eobard did it intentionally - this Harrison Wells caused the dark matter to be expelled by accident. On what Earth does that sound like a good idea? Even Barry "Never-heard-a-bad-idea-he-wasn't-willing-to-try" Allen looked like he was thinking it was a terrible idea, ffs.

*deep breath*

That was my immediate post-viewing reaction and I just had to let it out. Overall, there were things I loved and things I loathed, so pretty much my reaction for most of the S2 episodes. Maybe I've gotten more critical in S2, because I feel like watching S1 was just neverending squee. Other than the metas in the pipeline issue, and gas-lighting Iris, and... hm, maybe I'm just a critical person.

In the squeeful love column:
- WALLY!!! I loved that he just wanted to say thanks to the Flash, and adored his reaction to meeting the Flash. I just wanted to smish him! (I'm really hoping the show doesn't go toward a "betrayed" reaction when Wally finally finds out, but lets him just be happy to find out, and maybe say thanks to Barry.) I also loved that he said the shark attacked "our house" - I love his relationship with Joe so much.
- Barry's regular day vs his speedy day. That was hilarious and perfect.
- Barry being the hero he is and still going into danger despite losing his speed.
- Harry and his pain and self-loathing, his insomnia, all the indicators that he is actually grieving his part in creating the metas and Zoom on E-2 (which is why I don't understand him deciding to recreate the accident).
- Yay women in science! Caitlin McGyvering an escape, and Jesse using her biochem major to diagnose Grey.

In the WTF or sadly disappointed column:
- Harry and his need to find Jesse specifically so that he can protect her from Zoom. Um, why leave the breach open? They can open it at any time with Cisco's power, and they already know how to close them. Why not close it until they are able to try to save Caitlin? Why allow Zoom to come and go as he pleases? Also, wouldn't it be better to keep Jesse away, since Zoom's biggest target would be Star Labs.

- Why didn't Caitlin know about the man in the mask and his code? Team Flash needs to communicate more! I mean, I know Harry said not to talk about E-2, but that lasted like 15 minutes. Why wouldn't they mention the other prisoner and the code? It'd've been great if Caitlin made some mention like, Barry wanted to badly to come back for you, but the breaches were closed until now, and then he tries to say something, but it's a pretty slow code, and she gets distracted by Killer Frost. Then Zoom comes and says that if they try to communicate, he'll kill the prisoner or something, and then we'd be at the same point in the show, except that it'd show that 1) Barry hasn't forgotten about the guy, and 2) Team Flash actually talk to one another.

- Disappointing that Killer Frost tried to kill Caitlin, especially while still in Zoom's lair. She could've just pushed Caitlin off the cliff if she didn't want to waste time helping Caitlin escape (or just left her to make her own way down). Also, the last time we saw her she was sacrificing herself to let Barry and the others escape; why have her be the villain again? It'd make more of an emotional impact if she helped Caitlin and was killed for it, and Zoom could be the one that says he doesn't need her now that he has the real Caitlin. It didn't make sense that Killer Frost would jump to that conclusion, since presumably she didn't know about Jay and Caitlin's relationship, and Killer Frost was the one with the longer connection to Zoom. I hate that Zoom killed her at all, and would've loved to see her live to be snarly another day.

- The main plot was essentially a rehash of the S1 ep Power Outage, except that the meta is more sympathetic. I mean, this is a 16 year old kid who got hit by the particle accelerator wave, a kid who liked things quiet and normal and had a girlfriend (and probably a family) that loved him enough to publicize his disappearance. This kid most likely didn't use his powers much (it took a year and a half for him to age enough to have to run away), and probably not for terribly bad things since there were no other records of him. Maybe he even used his power to help people - all he said was that it was fun to have super strength. There's nothing to indicate that he's done anything bad other than kidnapping Harry.

He probably took Harry on an impulse - I'd guess he probably saw Harry drive by in the Star Labs van, and stayed on that road for the 15 minutes it took for Harry to drive back, and literally walked out into traffic. He threatened Harry, but I think his anger is pretty understandable.

He threw the barrels at people holding guns on him, but didn't actually hit them until Barry came close. He could've killed Barry the first time. Barry fired a weapon at him, yet all he did was knock him down and then run away.

So what does Team Flash decide to do? Not only does Barry have the idea to force him to use his powers so that he ages, but Joe actually makes a flippant joke about it. I was so disappointed.

Contrast this with Farooq, who had already deliberately killed someone and was trying to kill all of them, yet Barry still tried to reason with him, tried to offer their help.

Here, Barry only tries once to offer help, and that's after having attacked Grey. And then when Grey dies and turns back into an 18 year old kid (which, wow, made zero sense), there wasn't enough of a reaction from Team Flash to indicate that they were sorry they forced a kid to kill himself.

My re-write of the Griffin Grey storyline:
When they confront Grey, Barry offers their help, explaining that Grey needs to stop using his powers so that he won't accelerate the aging. Barry says that they need to do testing to find out if there's anything they can do to help him, and that it'd take time, but all of them are willing to try to help him. In my ideal world, he accepts the help, Jesse works with medical experts at Mercury Labs (Tina McGee owes Flash a favor for saving her life, but she would've helped anyway) and they eventually develop a cure and Jesse gets a job offer. In the show world, if they really need to kill him off, he could reject the offer of help and attack Barry out of anger because he thinks he's already too old, and die as he did in the show, but it would've been his choice and not Barry deliberately going into the fight intending to goad him into dying.

I'm not sure if they're intentionally paralleling Power Outage and trying to show Barry as being more cynical after Jay betrayed them, or if they just didn't realize how it looked to have Barry treating Grey as disposable.