The Flash - Recap: Best Frenemies

This week's metahuman is a man named Roy Bivolo (i.e., Rainbow Raider), whose power involves sending people into a rage simply by making eye contact with them. With their emotions compromised, Bivolo takes advantage of the situation, whether it's robbing a bank or escaping the clutches of The Flash (Grant Gustin). However, Barry isn't investigating the case alone, as Arrow is in town to investigate the whereabouts of Captain Boomerang, resulting in a superhero team-up. Right off the bat, two things are interesting about this episode's approach: more so than in any other week, the metahuman here is merely a conduit for the drama. We never see or learn how Bivolo got his powers, nor do we ever see Bivolo committing any other crimes than the one that opens the episode. More perplexing still, we never even see him get taken down, as that happens entirely off-screen. One minute, Barry and Oliver are vowing to track him down, and the next, Bivolo is in the prison underneath S.T.A.R. Labs. It's a surprisingly fleet approach to the storytelling, but it had the benefit of opening up the episode for the other big point of interest in this episode: the theme of just how unprepared Barry is for all this.

Credit: The CW

My favorite scene of the episode is the one in which Oliver tries to train Barry by illustrating to him how shortsighted it is not to read his surroundings before running headlong into danger. He does this by getting Barry to come at him while he fires an arrow. Barry succeeds in blocking it, and begins to smugly gloat before a pair of automated crossbows behind him launch two arrows into his shoulder blades. Essentially, Oliver is right on the money in his assessment of Barry, and Barry's actions immediately following the encounter bear that out, as he goes to track down Bivolo on his own without doing any kind of prep beforehand. He gets taken off-guard by Bivolo's ability, and...well, Barry goes on a rage spiral that imperils every relationship he's formed. He tells off his Captain, he blames Joe (Jesse L. Martin) for his father's imprisonment, accuses Oliver of being jealous, and viciously attacks Eddie (Rick Cosnett) in the street while he's out with Iris (Candice Patton). It's this latter action that has the farthest-reaching consequences.

Credit: The CW

Iris had spent the better part of the episode trying to defend The Flash to Eddie, who asked the Captain for a task force to help track down the vigilante and bring him to justice. Well, with this attack on the street, Iris finally sees The Flash the way Eddie does. Despite The Flash's attempts to try and smooth things over later, the damage is done. Iris is no longer a believer, and she straight-up tells The Flash she never wants to hear from him again. But it's just as well, since Oliver has advised Barry to let Iris go anyway, for both their sake. "Guys like us don't get the girl," he says. In short, the story not only has the effect of illustrating how green Barry is at all this vigilante work, it also further details how much work Barry is going to still need to do if he wants to balance his personal life with his life as The Flash, since those two halves just can't make a whole. They need to remain separate.

Credit: The CW

But I guess I'm burying the lede here, a bit. The episode finds most of its strength in the big setpiece towards the end, as The Flash and The Arrow square off, one-on-one. It's genuinely great stuff, not simply from the perspective of fight choreography, but from how it contrasts the two characters fighting each other. Barry goes for brute force, showing just how terrifying an evil Flash could be. He zooms around Oliver, attacking him with a flurry of punches, and even tries to encircle him in flames. In one particularly shocking moment, he even severs Oliver's grips from the top of the building he's clinging to, sending Arrow falling to the cement below (and possibly to his death, had Oliver not had a backup). What I love about this temporarily evil Flash is that it allowed Grant Gustin to show different shades to his performance. Yes, Barry was a bit over-the-top in his villainy at certain points, but all of those grievances came from believable origins. His jealousy towards Eddie manifested in violence against him, his resentment towards Joe resulted in a public argument in the precinct, and his desire to prove himself to Oliver ends up bringing him to this fight, which is one he might have won if he'd actually listened to any of the Arrow's advice earlier.

Credit: The CW

Barry's brute force approach brushes up against Oliver's more deliberate, tactical fighting style, and the callback to the automated arrows was great, with Oliver getting Barry in the front this time. Ultimately, they square off, and Stephen Amell gets the chance to shine here as the desperation sets in. "I still believe in you, Barry," he says, and for a moment, you can see how much of himself Oliver sees in Barry. Oliver knows Barry will make mistakes, but he wants to help him in his growth process, even if Barry doesn't feel he needs the help, and even if Oliver can be somewhat of a hard-ass in giving it. Their conflict is represented in the difference between sense and madness, between recklessness and responsibility, and even between maturity and immaturity. These differences between Oliver and Barry give the conflict weight. Sure, maybe it's a bit of a cop-out to have Barry cured by flashing bright lights, but at least it brings Barry back down to Earth, and back to an understanding of his own limitations. That's keen insight for a character that can sometimes be too infallibly good for his own...well, good.

Credit: The CW

Ultimately, "Flash vs. Arrow" is terrific TV, and one of the better crossovers on TV this year. The Flash has more of a straight comic book feel to it than Arrow, but I love seeing the contrast between the show's very different worlds. And it looks like the show is going to be ramping up the big reveals, as we get a cliffhanger to close the episode: Ronnie, Caitlin's late fiance, is still alive. (And he's got fire powers!) I'm not sure where the story is headed, but at this rate, I'm already all-in with the show thanks to episodes like this.