The Flash - Recap: On the Run

Barry Allen (Grant Gustin) is juggling his responsibilities at the precinct with his role as The Flash, while also doing his best to remain a good friend to Iris (Candice Patton), despite his objection to her ongoing investigation into "The Streak". But Barry is being crushed under the weight of his responsibilities and the promises that circumstances are forcing him to break. Those elements give weight to the narrative of The Flash, and makes "Plastique" a more substantive episode than it might have been otherwise. One of the things the show is doing really well is portraying Barry as a hero who's still learning how to be a hero. Some superhero stories have the hero come out of the gate as a fully-formed do-gooder who fights crime with the confidence of someone who's been doing it for years. But Barry makes mistakes. Occasionally, Barry fails. And that makes Barry all the more compelling. Because, whether fast or slow, Barry is still just one man.

Credit: The CW

The case this week centers on Bette Sans Souci (Kelly Frye), the metahuman known as "Plastique". Cisco (Carlos Valdes) has a pretty huge crush on her, even despite her ability making it virtually impossible for her to touch anything without causing it to explode. Bette is a war vet who was injured in a car bombing in Afghanistan, flown back stateside, and was in Central City when the Particle Accelerator exploded. Her DNA fused with the bomb particles in her body and cursed her with this terrible power. But what makes Bette a more fully-realized character is that she has no ulterior motives. Her powers don't suddenly exacerbate a preexisting criminal personality. She doesn't have the slightest desire to rob banks, terrorize civilians, or take over Central City. In fact, she wants nothing more than to be rid of her powers altogether. I was wondering when the narrative would start introducing us to other good metahumans, since it would strain credulity even for a show this outlandish to have every single person affected by the Particle Accelerator accident to end up a supervillain. This isn't to say that Bette doesn't have her darker tendencies, and that's where Kelly Frye's performance saves the character. Bette is someone who wanted to serve her country, and paid the price for that sacrifice, being inhumanely experimented upon, and made to suffer long after her tour of duty had ended. She's tortured not only physically, but psychologically as well, since Bette carries a huge weight on her shoulders from the realization that she'll never be able to have physical contact with another human being again. Frye helps illustrate the pain that goes with Bette's curse, to such a capable extent that it's not that unbelievable once the character goes from innocent victim to angel of vengeance.

Credit: The CW

In one of the darker moments of the series so far, Wells (Tom Cavanagh) convinces Bette to straight-up murder General Wade Eisling, the commanding officer who wants to use her as a weapon of mass destruction. That this decision ends in her death makes Bette's story all the more tragic: Barry is able to stop her before she crosses the point of no return and finishes Eisling once and for all, but in doing so, he gives Eisling the opening he needs to shoot Bette dead. Barry takes this failure onto his own shoulders, since he not only promised Bette that S.T.A.R. Labs would be able to cure her, he also did his best to get her admitted to their crime-fighting team once it became apparent that she couldn't be cured. Barry makes promises he can't keep, and it's practically the one big fault of all superheroes, that they all make promises they can't keep. Because you can't protect the people you love 100% of the time, and some people, in general, can't be saved. They can be helped, sure. But Bette couldn't be cured, and that set her on a dangerous path (well, with a little nudging from Wells). Barry's inability to save Bette causes him to be introspective about his own limitations, which dovetails into the B-story of the episode.

Iris won't stop looking into "The Streak," and gets even closer to learning the truth once she spots him rescuing a window washer from the side of a building. Joe (Jesse L. Martin) is livid that Iris is sticking her nose where it doesn't belong, since she could easily end up on the radar of criminal metahumans looking to get to Barry. So Barry tries to talk some sense into her by pretending he doesn't believe in the supernatural. But when that fails, Barry talks to her as "The Streak," in a desperate attempt to convince her to kill her blog. In general, I liked this scene for how inventive it was in allowing Barry to maintain his secret identity while also letting him talk to Iris in a more direct manner. Barry basically zoomed around Iris, always remaining in motion to keep her from getting a good look. He vibrated his vocal chords to make his voice unrecognizable, and vibrated his face to keep her from making out who he was. In short, it was all clever stuff. But where the scene ultimately fails is in how Barry never really says what he needs to say. He never argues the danger of what Iris is doing, nor does he warn her that she, or her father, or Rick, or even Barry, could become targets for metahumans. It's an argument that, given how the character has been written up to this point, probably would have worked on Iris. But Barry never makes it, because the story can't continue if he does. And that hurts the scene, to such an extent that I'd rather have not had it at all.

Credit: The CW

It's an issue that permeates the rest of the Barry/Iris storyline, as Barry ultimately decides that he can't see Iris as long as she insists on writing about "The Streak". And...well, I'm not sure what that's supposed to accomplish. Iris is still potentially at risk since she's going to keep writing her blog anyway (with her NAME attached to it now, for extra future-peril), and Barry is going to continue not telling her he's "The Streak". In essence, nothing is accomplished other than the end of a friendship. And for what? Because he can't bring himself to confess his feelings? Because it's too hard to be around her if he can't tell her his secret identity? Because he doesn't want to be there when he gets herself killed? None of those motivations would make any sense, but then, the episode never really tries to explain why Barry is bailing on Iris, other than to suggest it's residual guilt from having failed Bette. Yet that doesn't really pass muster, since Barry doesn't come across as the quittin' kind. That said, while I wasn't a fan of that particular story, the episode built up enough intrigue to create story momentum for future episodes, as the show-closing flashback reveals that Wells and Eisling were involved in the project that resulted in the creation of Gorilla Grodd, a Flash supervillain DC has been dropping hints about for this series. Hopefully, we get to see that pan out (and, with any luck, the show will have the budget to make the character believable). Regardless, even with the occasional shortcomings, I still find The Flash to be one of the best new network shows of the season. Even on an off-week, I have a lot of fun with the show, and it mostly boils down to the chemistry among the cast, and the show's confident demeanor. It doesn't try to be anything other than a comic book story, and in that respect, The Flash is damn good.