Barry Allen, for all of his scientific smarts and being a professed science fiction geek never apparently watched Back to the Future or read The Time Machine. If he did he would not have made such a mess as he did during this episode. He would not have disregarded Dr. Wells’ sage advice to not change the past or their would have be huge ramifications.
During the Time Machine’s 2002 movie, something a young Barry would have watched as a child, he sees that the Time Traveler cannot save his fiance, Emma, no matter what he does or how many times he tries. As a result he goes into the distant future and is stuck there. Barry of course who is very emotional and at times only sees what he thinks is best for him, mostly does what he wants, with horrible results.
He uses past knowledge to capture The Weather Wizard before he becomes a major threat. This was greatly disappointing since Liam McIntyre’s Weather Wizard, in my opinion, has been the best Flash villain to date. The effect of this is Captain Cold and his rogues’ band return, and with a new female member. The trio capture Sisko and make him give up a pretty major secret that tips the balance into the rogues favor for the foreseeable future.
Barry also breaks up with Linda, who I honestly thought was a good match for him, to pursue his love for Iris. He learned last week that Iris had feelings for Barry and that of course made him act very irrationally. This backfires on Barry as Iris professes her love for Eddie and totally blows him off. As a result, Eddie punches out Barry. When he later asks Wells about why Iris rejected him, which made perfect sense, he has a hard time accepting the reason. Only a lame reason later salvages the Iris-Eddie-Barry status quo that has been the mandate of the first season.
Again, Caitlin Snow is nothing more than a chess piece this episode and Danielle Panabaker’s strong acting talents are totally wasted. The most significant thing for her this episode is being Cisco’s date to his brother’s party. The writers should be pushing her forward more with the Killer Frost angle. Panabaker confirmed over a month ago that her character would be going evil.
New episode of The Flash airs April 14th!
