Invasion! Review of THE FLASH S3 Ep8

THIS is how a crossover event show should be made. The second night of the BIG crossover event features our own Scarlet Speedster, in a game of “who do you trust?” Answer…apparently not Barry…but hang tight folks, there’s a LOT more going on in this episode of THE FLASH! Want to know more? Just follow us after the jump!

SPOILERS AHEAD!

This may be the second night of the crossover, but as far as storyline it is actually the first real chapter in the arc. Monday night’s SUPERGIRL was a regular episode except for the appearance of Barry and Cisco near the end, asking Kara to join them in the fight we see here. Still, they more than made up for that with tonight’s action-packed episode. Let’s get to some highlights, shall we?

  • Kid Flash is already up to Mach 2, but Iris and Joe are still in fear for his safety and want to hold him back. Wally is no dummy, and is seriously disappointed in how they are treating him.
  • By show’s end, Wally makes a major save, but is injured (though not seriously).
  • Wally gets a new trainer…HR?! Yes!
  • Barry gets the team together (Team Flash, Team Arrow, Team Legends, and, uh, Supergirl). And, they do manage to have a LOT of fun with the introductions.
  • We get a “danger room” type facility that looks suspiciously like the famous Hall of Justice – in this case a hanger owned by S.T.A.R. Labs, and incidentally…
  • We get the reminder that S.T.A.R. Labs is owned by Barry – guess we don’t have to worry about how he will pay the bills now that he is out at the CCPD. That does bring up the question…why did he live at the West house for so long, and why did he need to crash at Cisco’s place if he has all that money? Oh, well…
  • The Dominators appear…and they are apparently multiversal as they have supposedly gone to Krypton many years ago.
  • Just as the team is ready to go after them, Cisco finds that message from future Barry, the one we’ve heard parts of on LEGENDS. Future Barry tells them they can’t trust anyone…not even present day Barry.
  • Cisco forces Barry to tell everyone about Flashpoint. After that, only Ollie and Kara have any trust left for Barry…and they go off without Ollie or Barry to fight the Dominators and save the President (who has been kidnapped by the Dominators).
  • That may be for the best…as the Dominators have a device that takes over the minds of the away team. They all come back, looking to attack Ollie and Barry!
  • Wally saves Barry but is injured. While Ollie tries to take him to safety, Barry has a plan to destroy the device…
  • …by luring a mind-controlled Supergirl to the location and tricking her into breaking the device and its hold on our heroes.

At the end, the Dominators “collect” Sara, Diggle, Ray, Thea, and Ollie! Ready for ARROW? Yes!

NOTES:

  • This episode did a wonderful job in mixing the lighter tone of SUPERGIRL and THE FLASH with the darker tones of ARROW and LEGENDS. You could see the differences in the emotional reactions of the characters, and it made the show all the better for it. There were plenty of cracks that one would expect if your world had never had a Kryptonian around. I loved Kara burning her “S” into the concrete at the hangar. And, I loved Mick’s lecherous reaction to the idea of x-ray vision (it was SO Mick).
  • We are still dealing with the aftermath of Flashpoint. It continues to tear apart the lives of everyone. I can’t believe I thought it was being quickly addressed and dismissed at the start of the season…but here we are eight episodes in dealing with the emotional results. I’m glad it wasn’t dismissed so early, but I am in a way almost ready to move on…as long as the writers can find a realistic way of dealing with a resolution for Team Flash.
  • Future Barry’s message not to trust present day Barry actually helped out here…if he had been trusted to go with the team in that first battle, ALL the heroes would have been mind-controlled.  Was that the plan, or do we have more to learn from future Barry?
  • The action was outstanding in this episode! Do I need to say more?

SUMMARY: This really is how a crossover should be. No one character or team was allowed to completely outshine the rest. Yes, there was an emphasis on Barry, but it is his show…and even so, we got a LOT from Kara, Ollie, Wally and so many more.  The Dominators were a bit clunky at times as far as CGI goes, but the overall effect was still good for TV. This was a 9/10 for me – what do YOU think? Leave your comments below!

Share

3 thoughts on “Invasion! Review of THE FLASH S3 Ep8

  1. Scarlet_Speedster

    The big thing is – Barry isn’t responsible for the changes in the time stream – it was Eobard Thawne. When Barry released him to put Flashpoint right, it was Thawne who threw in the few interesting changes.

    Reply
  2. Golddragon71

    I came up with an idea about some of the tragedy’s that affected team Flash that are being blamed on Barry
    When Thawne dropped Barry off on his porch, he said that Barry would have to wait and see how things were different. Thawne knew a little too much about Barry’s altered life and how everyone else was affected. that leads me to believe that he was partially responsible. (after all why not put your arch enemy through a worse ringer than he’s in already by manipulating events so that his friends lose faith in him?)
    Dante’s death and Cisco’s resenting Barry for not going back in time to stop it, and subsequently being indirectly responsible for it is an easy enough starting point. now it’s possible that the Flashpoint Paradox’s “time-boom” might have had an affect on things like Joe and Iris’ relationship or Caitlyn’s suddenly having a metagene and even affecting the sex of lil sara/John jr. but on the other hand, it’s just as possible that Thawne used his renewed time traveling abilities to manipulate all of these events so that Barry would blame himself and his friends would lose faith in him or hate him.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.