The Flash Review - "Fast Enough" aka The Best Dang Hour of TV Ever!
I've learned over the past few days that writing TV recaps is hard when you start with season finales. Every single one I want to say "Wow! What an episode!", but that seems to diminish the future recaps. I find that to be especially true this week, as I saw probably the best hour of television (Daredevil aside) that I had seen in a while, and that was The Flash season finale. Honestly, this is the part where I would throw up "SPOILERS AHEAD" and move right into the review...
...Except that I can't. Last night's episode was so amazing and gut wrenching that I really do not want to spoil anything for anyone. So this review will be fairly light and spoiler free. First of all, I've never had a show play with my emotions as much as this episode did. There were times I was cheering at the screen, times I couldn't keep myself from yelling out "NO!!!!", in addition to times where I was thoroughly confused.
What I will tell you about this episode is that Barry finds out the details behind the Reverse Flash's "Plan" and has to make a choice whether or not he will use that plan to go back in time and save his mother from being killed. The downside is that changing the timeline will have unforeseen consequences on the future he will return to. The first half of the episode spends the time mapping out how and why all of this can take place, in addition to Barry debating with everyone whether he should even do this in the first place. While it is nice that the show took the time to show off Barry's internal (and external) struggle, this is the only part of the episode that didn't click very well with me. The show makes a few details seem super important without fully explaining in the cosmic timey-wimey nature why they are so important.
As soon as Barry makes up his mind though, the episode blasts off and doesn't stop until about 5 minutes after the credits have rolled. Seriously. I sat and looked at my TV, wondering what in the world I just watched, even going back and having to re-watch the ending because I couldn't believe it. There were several times that I thought I understood what was happening, only to have the rug pulled out from underneath me as the show went a very different direction.
FINAL THOUGHTS: I am super happy that this episode did not go the route that I feared it would, and I am very curious (and anxious) to see what Barry will be up to in Season 2. The Flash is definitely made itself be the top show on my DVR, one of (if not the best) shows on network TV right now. Do yourself a favor and go watch the Pilot episode, you'll be in on a super fun ride.