‘The Flash’ episode 6 review: The talents of Harrison Wells
The crazy thing about “The Flash” is that despite so many of their characters coming from the world of the DC Comics, one of the most interesting ones is actually the guy who is a creation for the show itself in Harrison Wells.
Tuesday night’s episode “The Flash is Born” is one of the few genuine opportunities that we’ve had to actually crawl inside this guy’s mind for a couple of minutes, and what we found within there was somewhat interesting. Here is a character who had a difficult past, and moved to Central City to reestablish himself following the death of his wife. He’s got a likable air to him (thanks largely to the wonderful performance by Tom Cavanagh), but at the same time, there is still something simmering underneath the surface that makes it clear he knows far more than he is letting on. For example, Grodd! When is that going to come back into the mix here?
Wells’ relationship with Joe West is an interesting story to watch now, and we wonder if Joe visiting STAR Labs was the impetus for the shock at the end of the episode, where the mysterious “streak” (sorry for bringing up that word again) came and snatched all this evidence away of what really happened to Barry Allen’s mother. Just when there was progress, that seems to be all completely washed away, and this still appears to be the ultimate villain at the center of the show.
Meanwhile, Barry this week had to deal with a decent villain-of-the-week in Girder, who had a history with him dating back all the way to high school. This whole story was enjoyable, but not entirely surprising. Barry dealt with bullying in school, and he had to find a creative way to beat the bully with the help of both Cisco and Caitlin.
Then, there is Iris, arguably the weakest part of the show by a mile. Right now the series is so intent on making sure you know that she is the chosen one for him that it is not actually allowing them to build a friendly chemistry before anything else. That’s why there are some fans gravitating more towards Caitlin as a ‘ship: Their relationship is more natural, and less forced-upon. We feel like there’s plenty of time for Iris and Barry to develop something better, but you need to take things slowly. Also, this whole dynamic between her and the Flash, who was officially coined this by Barry to Iris late in the end, is starting to mirror too much the Sam Raimi “Spider-Man” films.
In some ways, this is a show still working to figure every little thing out, but for the time being we’ll continue to say that we enjoy it. We just hope that the producers really that they have time, and we’d rather see them develop more potential villains now, and don’t feel pressure to rush any of the relationships. Oh, and more Harrison Wells please. Grade: B.
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