The Flash 1.03 “Things You Can’t Outrun”

Episode Three and I’m still into the show. Had a couple of fun Easter Eggs, a new villain, a tease to the origin of a new hero and some more mystery from Harrison Wells (Tom Cavanagh).

Gonna admit right now that I’m biased toward this show. The comic book nerd in me can’t help it. I’m going to geek out whenever that lightning covered, red streak blasts across Central City. Sure, the show has a few flaws, but so far I’m entertained every week. It’s pretty formulaic; a new villain arises, a flashback ensues, someone has a crisis of conscience, then the wrap up with a tease from Wells. I don’t mind knowing what I’m getting into every week as long as the show remains fun and entertaining.

Here’s this week’s plug and play into the formula — the villain is Kyle Nimbus (Anthony Carrigan), The Mist — the flashback deals with the particle accelerator accident and the death of Caitlin Snow’s boyfriend, Ronnie (Robbie Amell) — Cisco (Carlos Valdes) and Barry (Grant Gustin) both have a crisis of conscience as Cisco remembers leaving Ronnie to die and Barry gets his butt kicked again — Iris (Candice Patton) suffers from her inability to deal with her Dad’s possible disappointment – Well’s reveals that he was aware that Barry’s accident would occur and installed a camera in his lab.

The plot points were all good and, at this point they are all driving the overall narrative forward. We’re learning some new stuff about every major player and setting up new stories as we go along.

Caitlin Snow (Danielle Panabaker) talks about her relationship with Ronnie, saying that they were opposite, “… like Fire and Ice.” Clever. No real spoiler here since you can look this up on IMDB but Ronnie will become Firestorm, a character originally created during an act of nuclear sabotage. Seeing Ronnie sacrifice himself was a good move up for the potential character, since the original comic book Ronnie was duped by a bunch of terrorists. But I’m sad to see that he was the only one in the room when the accident happened. When Ronnie’s big episode comes around, I’ll talk more about that.

One of the many villains in Firestorm’s gallery is called Killer Frost. Hmmmm. Caitlin SNOW. “Like Fire and ICE.” Time will tell.

The Mist was an interesting choice for a villain. Once again, this series is going with a bad guy not usually associated with The Flash. The Mist has, traditionally, been one of Starman’s rogues. His addition into Flash’s pantheon is wonderfully random and I’m glad to see that character brought to television. The twist on his origin, becoming the gas that was used in his execution attempt, was delightful. Now that he’s housed in a makeshift jail underneath STAR Labs it should make for some nice future drama.

So, how does The Flash lose in a fist fight against a guy with normal speed ever?? That’s really my only quibble with this episode.

The Wests. It was good to see Detective West (Jesse L. Martin) actively seek forgiveness from Henry Allen (John Wesley Shipp). Iris West, however… Ugh. Look, it’s 2014, let’s give one of our female leads something other to do than worry about the guy she’s seeing and how her Daddy will react. Sick of it. It’s childish. Things may be looking up since she’s taken a professional interest in following The Streak. Please, oh please, let her do more than fall in love and get kidnapped.

Had a few fun Easter Eggs this week. The marquee at the movie theatre advertised two movies, Blue Devil II – Hell to Pay and The Rita Farr Story. Both are characters from DC Comics. Blue Devil is a fairly obscure character from the 80’s while Rita Farr was Elasti-Girl (not that one) from the group Doom Patrol. To make the references even more cheeky, both characters worked in show biz, Rita was an actress and Blue Devil was a stuntman. Nice.

I would like to score this episode higher but the hackneyed portrayal of Iris West as a woman defined by men is going to take points off. Do better, Flash.