‘The Flash’ season 3, episode 9 review: Barry, Iris’ terrifying future (and romantic present)

After taking a week off in order to take on the epic CW crossover, Julian Albert took center stage in the early going for Tuesday night’s “The Flash” episode “The Present,” and for good reason. We just learned that he is Doctor Alchemy, and in a flashback in the opening minutes, we learned in the process that he uncovered the mysterious object otherwise known as the Philosopher’s Stone while traveling in India. Let’s just say that this did not go well.

It also didn’t quite go well when Julian was confronted by Barry about what he learned via Cisco: He had written a paper about the stone so many years ago. Unfortunately, his lies to Barry during said confrontation didn’t say secret for very long, as it was Iris this time who did enough digging to learn that there were several deaths back during that incident several years ago. (Hey, the show briefly remembered that Iris is a journalist!) This set up one of the night’s first big confrontations, which is something we’ll get into further later.

First, let’s talk Jay Garrick – We had a wonderful little cameo from Mark Hamill in this episode as the Earth-3 version of the Trickster, and John Wesley Shipp was able to bring back his version of The Flash to Earth-1 in order to help him in his battle with Savitar. Let’s just say that he proved to be a big asset, and a father figure to boot — this was a part of this relationship that still remains awkward to Barry, and we’re glad that the show is addressing this issue, especially since Shipp is fantastic at playing these emotional scenes. Jay’s never had a partner before, and there may be a part of him that wants to look at Barry as a son.

The great news is that the Jay / Barry team-up was successful in a pair of different ways. First and foremost, it allowed Savitar to be distracted long enough for Barry to retrieve the Stone! Not only that, but he also managed to capture Alchemy, and learned for sure that it was Julian under the mask.

Now, let’s talk Alchemy – As suspected by the ending of “Killer Frost,” Julian was not a willing subject of Savitar’s; as a matter of fact, he didn’t even know that he was becoming the character all. He was blacking out, and for whatever reason didn’t feel the need to tell anyone. This part of the episode should be known as “Why Did That Happen,” given that Barry was very quick to reveal his alter ego to Julian while elsewhere in STAR Labs, Cisco inexplicably fell for an illusion of his brother Dante, telling him to open the box so that the two could be together again. Instead, all this did was unleash Savitar back into the world.

We’re going to take the explanation here that the box was corrupting Cisco’s mind in addition to giving him those visions; we really cannot imagine any other reason why he’d be game for this. It certainly looked as though Savitar was about to kill Barry again, and if it wasn’t for Caitlin convincing Cisco that his brother wasn’t real, he probably would have. To offset this poor decision, Barry helped facilitate a smart one: Use Julian in order to set up a link to Savitar, given that it was pretty clear that Alchemy was just a vessel designed to bring that character around.

Julian as Savitar was … terrifying. He claimed to know everything about everyone, and made it clear that someone would die, someone would have a fate worse than death, and that someone would betray the remainder of the team. Apparently, Barry did something to trap him in the future, and he is looking forward to the opportunity to get his revenge now once he regains the necessary power. Barry and Jay conjured up a plan to throw the stone into the Speed Force, which ended up propelling Barry forward to the future — one even more terrifying than seeing Julian use Savitar’s voice. We learned in here that the God of Speed was going to kill Iris, which means that we’ve already got one part of the prophecy. This also means that someone’s going to be figuring out a way to bring Savitar back in the world … could it be Wally? That’s our theory right now.

The aftermath – So how did Barry try to recover from what happened? Well, in true Barry fashion, he tried to do everything that he could to keep the secret to himself. While he was doing a great job keeping the secret to himself, he put on a good face at the West Christmas party. Joe and H.R. officially got Wally his Kid Flash costume, and Julian, feeling a new-found sense of kinship, also turned up to engage in the festivities. We’re going to enjoy him being more on the same page as everyone, even if it is only for a while.

Barry’s Christmas present for Iris was a new place to call their own! The two finally have their own home, and to go along with that, Barry has his job back.

Overall – So long as you ignore that one HORRIFIC detail in the future, was this a nice ending? Probably. It does set up a rather interesting journey moving forward to see if Barry can change what is to come. Grade: A-.

Next week – If you want some other details regarding the future of “The Flash,” head over to the link here! (Photo: The CW.)