In Review: The Flash (S7 – Ep4) Central City Strong

Synopsis: In ‘Central City Strong’. The Flash must deal with Abra Kadabra’s sudden return to Central City. The villain is back with a vengeance and a score to settle. Meanwhile, Allegra deals with a tricky situation and Caitlin suspects something is off with Frost. Iris is forced to look at a dark moment in her past.

The Story

Barry and his friends from Starlabs help start an initiative to rebuild the city after the destruction caused by Mirror Monarch. But when a murder is committed on one of the sites by a vengeful Abra Kadabra. Barry finds himself having to simultaneously deal with his own trauma from recent events as well as try to reach Abra Kadabra before he does something terrible. Elsewhere, Iris is struggling to write an article about Mirror Monarch and the destruction she left in her wake. Indeed, it takes some pretty hard criticism from Allegra to help shake Iris out of her funk.

A new threat presents itself to Team Flash and it’s a biggie.

The Acting

David Dastmalchian puts in a fantastic performance as Abra Kadabra. Indeed, he gives a lot of nuance to the performance as he takes things beyond the typical mustache-twirling villain. The scenes where we learn why Abra Kadabra is so full of anger is pretty heartbreaking and allows for Grant Gustin to access the more caring and empathic side of The Flash. This makes Abra Kadabra’s final scene a lot more meaningful.

Kayla Compton continues to impress in her role of Allegra and I loved the fact that she got to deliver some harsh truth to Iris. Her inclusion in the series over the last couple of seasons has really added to the mix. It will be good to see Iris’s news outlet get a bit more airtime in the weeks to come so that Allegra and Cisco’s girlfriend gets a little more screen time.

Overall

As far as the story goes. This was fairly average in that it was pretty much setting up for the bigger threat. We get some solid performances and good character moments. In particular, the final scene where we see what has happened with Caitlin and Frost was fun. Less fun was the kitchen sink drama of Iris going to a support group for Mirrorverse victims. One scene of that would have been fine and enough. Two was overkill. But probably best to get all the trauma and such done and dusted so we can move on with the season.