Tension mounts this week as Team Flash divide forces while dealing with the investigation of Harrison Wells alongside a recent crime-wave with a meta-human capable of turning into someone else.
I’m going to admit, with another meta-human plot featuring alongside a central story-arc, I was skeptic. Who Is Harrison Wells? manages to pull off both of its stories with a deft hand. Sure, there are some hiccups, but it’s a good episode of The Flash. The story-lines are oddly paralleled, both focusing on duplicity and someone pretending to be who they’re not.
Let’s talk about Hannibal Bates (two references for the price of one it seems), our shape-shifting meta-human. The plot follows some fairly predictable beats. Many characters don’t appear to notice how someone they know switches mannerisms entirely, which makes it a little befuddling that it’s ultimately a small detail that brings things to a close. That being said, if it were any other show, this plot would probably be pushing it a little too far.
The transformation effects are impressive, and Barry’s final showdown with the chameleon like man is fun to watch because of the forms he takes while the two duke it out. The story also brings Eddie/Iris into more bearable territory as the former is able to come up with a good and technically accurate reason for his absent-ness of late. Perhaps biggest of all is it gives the police their first proper look at a world of meta-humans. Could this mean more Flash working with the police than previously?
Onto the Wells aspect. Cisco and Joe buddy up again for a trip to Starling City. We get a double cameo from Captain Lance and Laurel, and it’s brilliant. Whereas Felicity and Ray’s appearance last week drew too much attention to itself, here it makes considerably more sense. Laurel and Cisco have some great scenes together that simply demand a chuckle.
Also, it’s brief, but we get to see what Wells’ does when he gets home. If anything, I wish that this could have been focused on more. Surely Wells doesn’t spend all his time plotting evil and giggling to himself (then again, he does have to pretend to be wheel chair bound and everyone in Central City dislikes him so he can hardly go out), it’s just a shame we don’t get to see.
Admittedly, Lance’s involvement focuses around them finding the original Harrison Wells’ body buried six feet under. It’s a decidedly eerie scene where they first find his remains, and a very dark turn for things as it now gives the group concrete evidence of Wells’ duplicity. Of course, they’re no closer to finding out who he really is, and it’s clear that he’s onto them so it’s only a matter of time before something happens.
With all the pieces finally moving into place, we now have only to wait and see how Team Flash will attempt to defeat Reverse Flash. Caitlin eventually seems to come around to believing it, though her actions have become a tad suspicious and with the show-runners promising an unexpected twist in the episodes to come, we’ll have to see how that pans out.
Once again, the stinger scene takes the gold, with Barry, Cisco and Caitlin discovering Wells’ secret room. Inside is plenty of damning evidence, though likely the security system will have logged their entry in some way, so they’ll have to move fast before Wells decides things have become too risky. As we’ve seen before, Barry can’t best Wells in a fight, so if Wells decides to start hurting people close to Barry, he might not be able to stop him.
Do you think anyone else is working with Wells? Can Barry and co. figure out who Reverse Flash really is behind the mask? Let us know what you think in the comments below…
