The Flash: Potential Energy

The Flash returned to us tonight with “Potential Energy”, and overall it was a great episode, though it did involve a few infuriating components. Let’s get into it.

The… Turtle?

The Turtle was an intriguing villain with a power that’s the complete opposite of Barry’s. The Turtle has the power to slow down time to the point that it seems like he’s  going fast,when in fact everybody around him is just going slow. Cool concept, but when it really comes into play is how they can use Turtle’s power to stop Zoom.

It didn’t hurt that he was portrayed by Aaron Douglas of Battlestar Galactica fame. This villain was much more intimidating than I imagined. He was portrayed as more of a serial killer; a man who keeps his victims in cases as trophies.

I liked this because with a villain like this it could be easy to  drift into camp territory, especially when he makes the comment “killing is to quick and messy, I like to do things nice and………..slow.” It would have been easy to laugh if he wasn’t surrounded by the preserved corpse of his wife.

However

One area in which the show made me actively groan in frustration was in Barry’s inability to tell his awesome and gorgeous girlfriend that he is The Flash………….again. Patty needs, and deserves, to know. Watching Barry constantly ditch her to go do Flash stuff is kind of heartbreaking, due to Patty being so sweet.

What truly infuriates me about Barry not telling Patty is the superhero bullshit about how their loved ones will be targeted  and killed to get to the hero. This is a reasonable concern, but I’d like to point out that NOT ONE of the people who know Barry’s identity have been killed. Maybe with the exception of Eddie Thawn, but I’d argue he killed himself to defeat the Reverse Flash. Iris, Joe, Cisco, Caitlin and a few others are all still alive and for the most part doing fine. Barry knows he is capable of protecting the ones he cares about, so stop being a knucklehead and do it. It’s a stupid plot device to simply build friction.

What About Wally?

For me, the Wally West stuff hasn’t quite clicked yet. He was just introduced so soon that I felt we didn’t get enough time with him.

You have a hit show guys, don’t introduce everybody all at once. The scene of Wally drag racing was entirely unnecessary in my opinion. that was all time that could have been spent with Barry and Patty, I understand that it was used to give Jesse L Martin a little meat to sink his teeth into and don’t get me wrong watching him do it is always a pleasure, he is hands down the best actor on the show but I feel the drag racing scene was typical “I hate my dad” teenage angst bullshit, Jesse L Martin needs more to work with.

No Zoom

Unfortunately we didn’t get much development on the Zoom front. He didn’t even make an appearance, but we did see the ramifications of his last little visit.

Harrison Wells has been thrown into desperation mode to get his daughter back from Zoom, and has put his own end game into motion. That resulted in the return of Eobard Thawn, the Reverse Flash. He arrived in the current timeline while Harrison experimented on The Turtle. Arewe gearing up for a return of Harrison Wells as Reverse Flash? Is he gearing up to steal Zoom’s speed and Eobard’s body again, or does he simply plan to steal Eobard’s speed and suit and use it against Zoom and Barry?

Maybe  Flash, Reverse Flash and Zoom are all on a collision course, a super powered Mexican standoff to decide the victor of season 2, and the world we’ll be entering in season 3.

In Conclusion

“Potential Energy” was a great episode of The Flash and more than a worthy opener to bring us into the second half of Season 2. It was shaky in some parts as I discussed above, but that by no means makes the episode a bad one. In the end The Flash is almost always a joy to watch, and one of the television highlights of my week.