It’s always a dire moment when a hero loses their powers, but how will The Flash fare when it happens to him during a confrontation with an electricity wielding foe?
Power Outage continues the trend of meta-humans who gained their powers due to coincidental stuff during the accelerator explosion. The plot this week is fairly simple: a new meta-human with the power to absorb and shoot electricity appears on the scene, looking for Dr Wells.
During their initial fight, Barry apparently loses his speed powers. Meanwhile, Joe and Iris have their hands full dealing with Clock King.
Seven episodes into the show with the Arrow V The Flash episode just one week away, we know Barry hasn’t really lost his powers. That doesn’t stop the episode from being enjoyable. It’s certainly got enough tense moments to keep things on edge. Whether it’s Barry and co. hiding from this week’s villain, or Iris and her father being held hostage by Clock King.
If anything, the focus of this episode is on Dr Wells. His motivation is a little less sketchy now. We find out he’s been keeping a log on events since the particle accelerator incident, and constantly keeps checking the future to make sure The Flash is still a part of it. Whatever his connection to said future, whether he’s a time-traveller or something else has yet to be fully explained, but as we are still in the early stages of the program that goes without saying.
Initially there is some humour played from Barry’s loss of power, namely when Joe drops his favourite mug to see if it’s true. “I loved that mug…” Barry whimpers. “Barry loved that mug.” Iris observes a few seconds later. It soon becomes no laughing matter when the villain arrives at S.T.A.R Labs and Barry is unable to defend himself, or the rest of the team.
This week’s meta-human is almost nicknamed Blackout, so we’ll roll with that. He’s little more than a plot device to show Barry’s inner conflict and to remind the audience that Dr Wells’ hubris has caused hurt for a lot of people. Having said that, it does tie up a loose end from last week’s episode, as Barry foolishly revealed his identity to Tony, meaning there’s one more person who knows his secret identity.
It’s a little disappointing that the appearance of the man in the yellow suit from last week’s stinger isn’t properly addressed here. Obviously that will come up later, but it seems like Joe would be better off explaining what happened to Barry so that they could coordinate around the situation. I’m inclined to think that Dr Wells isn’t this particular man in a yellow suit, given that the motivations while similar, are different in execution. I’m not familiar as such with The Flash’s comic history, so the answers are likely readily apparent to more well-read viewers, though from what I hear a few things have been shifted here and there.
It’s nice to see Clock King again. Not nice in the ‘hey, how have you been?’ type way, but more for the continuity purposes. It’s nice to see that both The Flash and Arrow can share villains, as well as not always kill them off and thus have them reappear later on. Granted, his presence this week has little impact on things as a whole, though it does serve to see how regular people will deal with situations when The Flash isn’t there to help out.
With The Flash V Arrow episode on the way next week, it seems so close and yet far away at the same time. I must confess that upon hearing that we would be getting such an episode, I’ve been waiting for it since the first episodes of both shows this season.
Who do you think will win in next week’s bout? Will we see the man in the yellow suit before the year is out? Let us know what you think in the comments below…
