‘The Flash’ season 3, episode 2 review: Meet the new Vibe, Killer Frost
Barry Allen arrived back to his world on Tuesday night’s “The Flash,” and what he quickly learned in the process was that no matter how badly he may have wanted to restore the timeline to what it once was, it was utterly impossible to do that.
Through his first trip into the past, here’s some of what he changed: Iris and Joe West now hate each other, Cisco is mourning the loss of his brother Dante, and even over on “Arrow” John Diggle now has a son (also named John) as opposed to a daughter. Interestingly, we wonder if this could change Connor Hawke a.k.a. the future Green Arrow who we first saw in “Legends of Tomorrow” last season. There is also the arrival now of Tom Felton as Julian Albert, the new CSI expert who Barry is stuck with — and they hate each other.
Oh, and apparently The Rival remembers what happened in the other world, and with the help of Dr. Alchemy, he’s got some of his old powers back. After a conversation with Jay Garrick, presumably on Earth-3 back in the 1990’s, he realized that there was no way for him to travel through time without ruining things in one way or another. Therefore, he decided that rather than trying to fix things in the present, he would have to come clean about what he did in the past. Not everyone was altogether happy to hear all of that — namely Cisco, who could not understand why Barry would go back in time for himself, but not for him.
Luckily, Cisco turned around in time as Iris led the charge to the group, telling them that they should all come together. It was Cisco showing off his Vibe powers that caused the day to be saved against The Rival 2.0, who got an assist from Alchemy in the process. Unfortunately, he is still out there, and there’s another person with powers lying in secret: Caitlin Snow, who doesn’t seem to have told anyone just yet that she’s getting the powers of Killer Frost.
In the end, the day was saved! Also, Barry and Iris are seemingly an item! This is your great news after the episode; the bad news is that Alchemy apparently doesn’t want to give The Rival a chance to ever speak his truth. Also, not even STAR Labs could contain this guy if they find him. Episode Grade: A-.
Next week – Be prepared to see Magenta as the villain, and the return of Harrison Wells and Jesse — who will be very different than when you last saw her. For some more news on that, head over to this link. (Photo: The CW.)