In Review: The Flash – Marathon

Synopsis: The Citizen prints an explosive story, Iris’ life is threatened; refusing to hide from her attackers, Iris sets out to expose a dangerous organization; Barry must face consequences of the crisis and fulfill Oliver Queen’s wish for him.

Review: The post-crisis chapter of The Flash hits the ground running.

The Story

Everyone on team flash is struggling in some form or other with the fact that they are all now living on Earth-Prime. Cisco is having anxiety about the fact that there are so many new villains for the team to worry about, but he is also blaming himself for the fact that he couldn’t save certain people from the other Earths. Most notably Harrison Wells from Earth 2. Meanwhile, Barry receives a gift from the late Oliver Queen and goes off on a wild crusade with Diggle to Lian Yu to find what he believes to be a hidden stash of Mirakuru. Elsewhere, Iris and her team at The Citizen take on McCulloch Industries and find themselves targeted by a mysterious assassin called Dr. Light.

The Acting

We get a few great acting performances in this episode, but one of the standout scenes for me is between Diggle and Barry where Diggle tells Barry that Oliver in his way was probably trying to tell him to slow down and take time to appreciate what he has in life instead of running from one crisis to another. The line, “Life is a marathon and not a sprint” was quite poignant and cleverly worked in. Both Grant Gustin and David Ramsey did a fantastic job of selling this scene.

I also enjoyed the scene between Caitlin Snow and Cisco where she asks him if he had any regrets about taking the vaccine that removed his Vibe powers. This scene is really emotive in light of the fact that Cisco has been second-guessing himself and is struggling to figure out where he fits in. It’s also really good because it emphasizes how different Caitlin is to her alter ego of Killer Frost. Both Danielle Panabaker and Carlos Valdes do wonderful work here.

Overall

This was a great return to form for The Flash and hopefully the beginning of some fresh angles for the series to explore.

I really enjoyed the fact that we now have Iris in full on reporter mode and for me, this episode illustrated the potential that he storyline always had before she was made leader of Team Flash a few years back. Although it does not end well for Iris in this episode given that we see her get taken by a mysterious mirror person who we are yet to learn more about.

My only issue with this episode is that it seems a bit ambiguous with regards to what Harrison “Nash” Wells is hanging around for. We get a glimpse of a photograph of him with a young woman, but very little really. Other than the fact that he is a verbal punch bag for Cisco’s guilt. Hopefully, the role of Nash will become clearer in future episodes.

I also thought the effect used for when Dr. Light fired her weapon was pretty cool. Especially when we saw it slowly eat away at Iris’s evidence wall, that she was using to piece her story about Black Hole and McCulloch Industries together.

Overall. A pretty solid start.

Pros

Solid acting from most of the show’s leads and the fact that Iris has evolved into a full-on journalist.

Cons

The role of Harrison “Nash” Wells in this post-crisis earth seems a little cloudy. This makes him seem like a bit of a loose end given that he doesn’t really have any scientific skills like his predecessors.