Arrow - Recap: Introducing Barry Allen a.k.a. The Flash a.k.a. The Best

Episode 8 of Season 2 of Arrow, “The Scientist,” finally set the spotlight on Barry Allen (Grant Gustin), a somewhat mysterious "CSI" from Central City with a particular interest in the most peculiar case Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell) and his team have ever faced. It seems Sebastian Blood’s (Kevin Alejandro) little science experiments have paid off. Well, at least for him. In the meantime, Moira Queen (Susanna Thompson) dealt with the residual consequences of getting sprung by Malcolm Merlyn (John Barrowman), while Roy Harper (Colton Haynes) and Thea Queen (Willa Holland) helped Harper’s buddy Sin (Bex Taylor-Klaus) look for a missing starving artist. Here is the Recap and Review of Season 2 Episode 8 of Arrow, “The Scientist”! It was Part 1 of the midseason finale!

The CW "Arrow"

Episode 8 opened with a break-in at the applied tech division of Queen Consolidated. Remember the earthquake machine that nearly swallowed the entirety of The Glades? This is a place that houses equipment like that. Oliver and his crew were mostly clueless to begin with. Analyzing two dead bodies and sifting through a massive warehouse full of technology seemed more tedious than anything. That is, until Barry Allen made his grand debut. Hailing from Central City and meandering his way to Oliver’s side through a torrential downpour, Barry came complete with his own score! As in, I’m pretty sure the kid has a composer musically narrating his life for us already. It kind of reminded me of Danny Elfman's work in all of those Tim Burton movies. Felicity was immediately smitten by her male counterpart, who came complete with a ton of information regarding the break-in, including the exact piece of equipment that was stolen. According to Allen, a centrifuge was lifted and swiped by one single man.

The CW "Arrow"

From the get-go, it seemed Ollie was aggravated by Allen and furthermore concerned with his true intentions; however, Diggle (David Ramsey) subsequently picked up on the fact that Oliver had more weighing on his mind than the threat of an easily lovable CSI who seemed smitten by Felicity. While Oliver graced us with his signature “gaze off silently and refuse to fill Diggle in” stares out the window of the offices of Queen Consolidated, Felicity and Barry go to work analyzing sediment samples left by the thug’s footprints at the crime scene. This is where we, as viewers, began to be clued in to Allen’s true purpose in helping out with this specific crime. He’d come to Starling City claiming to have worked on a similar case back on his home turf, but his particular fascination with the vigilante seemed to cloud any sort of awesome actual forensics work he was performing. Felicity, obviously made uncomfortable by all of Allen’s questions regarding her city’s half-hero, did her best to avoid the situation all together. Quite honestly, it was pretty easy to do so considering the fact that Felicity’s new crush seemed to charm her with his every mention of a chemical or sediment.

Soon enough, Felicity had the perfect first date dropped in her lap. Oliver, looking to refurbish his mother’s tarnished reputation, was warned by Isabel Rochev (Summer Glau) to keep Moira as far away from the company as possible. Queen Consolidated has been floundering, and the return of Moira Queen would not bring strength and support along with her. Ollie, banking on his love for his mother, defended Moira, and with a little help from Thea, managed to convince the woman who’d just barely evaded prison to allow him to host a party in her honor. This was all fine and dandy, but what is most important to note here is that this gift wrapped Felicity the perfect excuse to take her flirting to the next level by inviting Barry as her plus one. No real dancing required, so the boy accepted. I feel obliged to refer to poor Barry Allen as a “boy” because of all the jabs Oliver took at his presumed age during Episode 8. Actor Grant Gustin is actually twenty-three. Redemption! He can buy his own booze.

Felicity and Barry also managed to link a sugary substance found in the criminal’s footsteps to a particular factory and its particular choice in make of trucks. Thus, they had their first real connection to the thief’s connections in the outside world. Oliver’s woes only grew stronger as the two also managed to connect the stolen truck used in the heist to a massive blood bank robbery in the area. What this eventually led to was Oliver’s first bit of face time with the superhuman who’d jacked his company’s centrifuge, which, if you were wondering, is used to separate liquids. Do you readers realize how confusing it was this week to attempt to use the centrifuge of my mind to pluck any truly necessary knowledge from the conversations between Felicity and Barry knowing that I was required to write this recap? Basically, The Arrow’s attempt to thwart the driver of the truck in all his superhuman glory was a bust. He did, however, manage to yank a tissue sample from the thug’s thigh with a quick stab of an arrow. A blood sample, “courtesy of the Starling City police department,” would certainly prove useful to Barry’s further analysis of the crime.

This is probably a good time in the recap to bring up the entire island flashback sequence of Episode 8. Tracking down the Japanese submarine containing Ivo’s miracle serum, it seemed Oliver, Shado (Celina Jade), and Sara (Caity Lotz) only had a mere hours before our good buddy Slade (Manu Bennett) would pass over into, well, I’m not sure where. The island is Hell, obviously. Slade’s a brutal killer, but he’s our brutal killer, you know? Pray for Slade! In any case, the crew managed to haul themselves onto the submarine quite effortlessly considering that it seemed to me to be pretty far out in an inland body of water. Here’s the catch, the serum required a sedative to work properly. We’re guessing, at this point, it’s because it would be incredibly painful to become a weapon of mass destruction in the flesh, though they weren’t necessarily privy to that side effect yet. Thus, it was a matter of allowing Slade to die in quite a bit of pain versus injecting him without a sedative and chancing that he’d die in a massive amount of pain. The crew chanced it at Slade’s request, but by the time his eyes had oozed the blood we’d witnessed during so many of Sebastian Blood’s experiments, it seemed the old dog had finally kicked the bucket. Nice try, Arrow, but I’m fairly certain there’s no way Ollie and the two ladies are making it off of that submarine now that Ivo’s men have them cornered without the help of a superhuman Slade.

Back in the present, Diggle had done his digging. It seemed Barry Allen was no CSI at all. An impostor in our midst! Allen was a mere assistant who’d skipped out on work in order to help out with the investigation. Prior to this confrontation with Oliver in the offices of Queen Consolidated, Barry had opened up to Felicity regarding his love for The Arrow. Having lost his mother to a murderer who’d never been caught at age eleven, Barry found solace in the idea that a vigilante could have saved her, like Ollie has helped so many more fortunate people in Starling City. In truth, Allen fibbed. His father had been sent away to prison for life, wrongfully blamed for his mother’s death. Little Barry witnessed the entire ordeal, including a whirlwind of an individual swirling around his home at a super speedy rate (A Flash reference, Arrow. We love you!). Little Barry ended up about twenty blocks away in the blink of an eye, but the police team investigating his mother’s death never believed his farfetched story. Allen left Oliver’s office ashamed, leaving Oliver to look like the worst. That’s it, just the worst. Poor Felicity never got the chance to dance with the boy with two left feet.

Speaking of that party, Oliver’s event was a total bust, but Moira handled it like a pro. She mingled with the five or so guests who’d actually had the audacity to show up to a gathering in the honor of a probably-murderer. Oliver, regretting his own blindness, shared a shot with Isabel Rochev, who offered her signature icy yet intriguing brand of consolation. I still like this one, you guys. I’m ready to hate her at any given moment, but Episode 8 of Season 2 was not that moment. Still, I’m ready to loathe her as fast as it would take the future Flash to run a lap at the local gym. Moira’s personal disdain for Rochev hasn’t done much to quell my fears.

Speaking of Moira's enemies, Malcolm Merlyn popped up a few times during Episode 8 in all his awfulness. Pestering Moira to introduce him to his daughter, Thea, Merlyn further threatened the woman he'd freed from murder charges. Honestly, this Malcolm is looking substantially tamer than last season's Big Bad. He just wants to know his daughter? Can that really be it? Moira, unwilling to ruin Thea's life like that, did some digging after Merlyn continuously ran his mouth regarding how powerful he is. In the end, Moira Queen managed to make a connection that was devastating for Malcolm… Ra's al Ghul, the leader of the League of Assassins and the man on the hunt for Malcolm's head! Too bad, so sad, Malcolm.

The CW "Arrow"

The CW "Arrow"

In an effort to make nice with Felicity and right his wrong from earlier, Oliver wrangled Barry back into the picture before he could leave town. The two shared a dance that was really more of a “hold hands and shuffle” kind of a moment, but it had just enough perfect awkwardness to make this one of the best scenes of Episode 8. What do we think about this, Ollicity fans? Unfortunately for Barry Allen, every Cinderfella has to deal with the clock striking midnight, and his angry boss demanded his return to Central City. The pair said their goodbyes. Barry whiffed his chance at a kiss (but that would have been too easy and too soon, anyway. I know. You hate me.), and left for the train station.

Roy Harper got all snazzy just to have Sin phone in with some bad news. Thea and Roy had previously helped Sin search through her missing friend’s tiny apartment. Amidst the rotten pizza and brilliant artwork, the trio managed to uncover a flier for one of Sebastian Blood’s blood drives, an event that matched the date her friend went missing. Outside, a crooked cop alerted Blood to their snooping, prompting him to deliver the corpse of Sin’s body to a pile of garbage somewhere in The Glades; a drug overdose that appeared very much so in the vein of a failed attempt at injecting the serum. Roy snapped a quick pic of the corpse with his phone, and I couldn’t help but think that any bystanders probably thought he was just some freak looking to set his cell background as the “cool corpse” he’d seen during that random night out. Too far?

The CW "Arrow"

The CW "Arrow"

The CW "Arrow"

Recap Aside: I originally planned on using only one of those screenshots, but why would I when Colton Haynes' secret talent is giving great snarly angry face. Roy's been pretty docile lately. I'll give him his midseason finale glory!

Well, Roy caught The Arrow’s attention just before he could head out on his final mission to stop the superhuman thug from collecting the last piece of Blood’s puzzle required for completing this serum’s formula. Oliver, recognizing the side effects of the serum used on Sin’s friend in the photo Roy took, commanded Harper to stay away, sending Roy into a bit of a tirade regarding how he’d sat out of crime fighting long enough. He’d meddle whether The Arrow liked it or not, so Oliver landed an arrow clean through his leg, leaving him collapsed in the dank alley behind Thea’s club. All bowtied up and nowhere to go, Roy.

The final showdown between Oliver Queen and his first Starling City encounter with a successful serum candidate did not go well at all. Having tracked the location of the sedative used in the experimentations to a warehouse of medical supplies owned by ARGUS, Ollie’s attempts at combat inside were futile, eventually landing him in hot water. After taking a nasty tumble through a box of chemical-filled syringes, The Arrow was left to die. Storming the scene after the assailant had left, Diggle and Felicity struggled for an answer. Diggle nearly exposed Oliver's secret identity to save his life, but Felicity thought of one last-ditch effort to rescue their leader. From the train station, lone waiting passenger Barry Allen was covertly sedated with a dart from a distance. Waking up in the Arrow Cave, Allen stirred to find Felicity desperate, and Oliver’s identity exposed.

The CW "Arrow"

What did you think of Part 1 of the Midseason Finale of Arrow, Season 2 Episode 8, “The Scientist”? Was Barry Allen everything you’d hoped for as the future Flash? Team Barry or Team Ollie in the quest for Felicity’s heart? What’s up with Isabel? Did Roy deserve that? Is it too early to start shipping Moira Queen and Ra’s al Ghul?

Thanks for reading my Recap and Review of Part 1 of the Midseason Finale of Arrow, Season 2 Episode 8, “The Scientist”!