Barry Allen meets a classic DC villain on The Flash this week… as he squares up to Gorilla Grodd.
Let’s be honest – Barry has a lot on his mind at the moment. Harrison Wells turned out to be a time-travelling meta-human from the future who killed his mother. Unfortunately he escaped and has taken Iris’ boyfriend Eddie hostage.
To add more to the plate, this week, Iris finds out his secret. If that weren’t enough, just to make things interesting, a psychic gorilla named Grodd appears on the scene.
Let it never be said that this show doesn’t do thing daringly. It says a lot for the fact that the characters in this show can seriously discuss the existence of a psychic gorilla and not bust a gut laughing about it (maybe in the outtakes?). Having said that, I much prefer Grodd as a villain to say, the Rogues (who will be appearing again next week *sigh*).
In other news, Eobard Thawne is acting crazier than a… really crazy person. Keeping Eddie tied up whilst building a new particle accelerator has the ‘you’ll never get away with this, villain!” feel to it. I’m not sure if it was a wise thing to have. Then again, Thawne flat out tells his ancestor how things are in the future, quite possibly setting up conflict between Eddie and Barry for the next season? Who knows, the show hasn’t made it clear if the future is set in stone.
So in between the Reverse Flash and Grodd related activities, a lot of time this week is spent on Iris and her reaction to finding out that Barry and the Flash are one and the same. I’m not going to lie, I’ve dreaded this moment. Iris is reminiscent to Laurel in season one of Arrow when it comes to secrets being kept. Hopefully the worst of it is over, with more pressing concerns and presumably her and Barry’s future together still assured means it won’t be dragged out.
That being said, Barry doesn’t exactly acquit himself well here. Whenever he tries to explain/apologise, he winds up making some semi-impassioned speech about how he always wanted to tell Iris and how he has feelings and bla bla bla. I say that because unfortunately, while this is familiar ground, it’s necessary in every super hero property because you can’t skip over it. Then again, I can’t remember the last time it didn’t make me bored.
So, onto Grodd. Having a large, sentient gorilla as your villain is expensive. For a budgeted show like Flash, it could be very easy to get wrong. Thankfully, this is not the case here. Using the old adage of ‘less is more’ and some funny pop culture references from Cisco, Grodd is one of the more formidable villains we’ve had so far. There are one or two shots that don’t come up to standard, but ultimately this is a foe you feel is alive in the universe.
Special props to Joe for acting terrified of something that isn’t really there.
I’ve not been particularly kind to the amounts of filler this year, but this week’s was all right. I don’t mind filler as long it’s entertaining and contributes to the main arc in some form. Here, the team is trying to find/rescue Eddie whilst dealing with a villain that they believe Reverse Flash has set on them. At any rate, Flash is certainly doing a better job of boosting things up for the finale than Arrow is. Also with the promise of more team-ups in the last two episodes, things should get really interesting.
Will Grodd attack again this season? Will Eddie turn on Barry? Let us know what you think in the comments below…
