‘The Flash’ season 3, episode 5 review: Caitlin Snow’s warning — and Julian Albert bonding
Last week, “The Flash” introduced us to Earth-19 Harrison Wells a.k.a. H.R. and His Goofy Hat, while Caitlin Snow started to realize just how frosty she could be. She’s not Frosty the Snowman yet; instead, she’s more in the classic superhero archetype of the unwanted hero trying to figure out a way to dispose of her powers.
Tonight, Caitlin made her next move that was symbolic of how she was feeling: Rather than spend her time with STAR Labs trying to figure all of this out, she ran off to her mother Dr. Tannhauser, a woman she hadn’t spoken to in years. She was afraid in showcasing this new side of herself to anyone she cared about, and therefore she went and spent time with someone she really didn’t. While Tannhauser’s penchant for being cold was very clear in her scenes testing her daughter, we do see both sides here when it comes to the contentious relationship. The onus still does land on mommy dearest, though, to figure out a way to make Caitlin want to visit or at least speak to her more. That didn’t happen.
From a backstory component, it was important to learn that the relationship between Caitlin and her mom completely crumbled after her father died; apparently, it was so bad that Tannhauser didn’t even know about Ronnie and what happened to him. She did eventually apologize, but this only came after Tannhauser’s lab associate tried to threaten her and Caitlin started to show off a little bit of the Killer in Killer Frost. Just that small little glimpse gave us an awesome notion of what this Caitlin would be like as a villain. Yes, it’d be scary, but that’s almost the point of it. You want a villain that breaks your heart rather than one that twirls their mustache or has some stupid motivation for killing.
Caitlin returned to Central City, so we’ll pick up her story again in a bit.
Monster Mash – Back in STAR Labs, Barry Allen and company found themselves dealing with a wide array of strange circumstances. First, there was a literal monster roaming around the city like a wannabe Godzilla, only to instantly disappear without warning. The creature befuddled many, and the team banded together to stop it.
This storyline was where we started to get some insight into who this H.R. character really was, and so far, he’s almost like Your Friend’s Dad. He says a lot of goofy things to sound cool, and everyone laughs at him as soon as he leaves the room. The one twist here is that he’s got some sort of mysterious motivation for being around beyond just calling Cisco San Francisco … which he claims is because he’s some sort of novelist / scientist hybrid. He’s basically Richard Castle with a bowler hat … or worse, since it turns out that he may not be much of a scientist at all.
Eventually, the team deciphered that this monster was nothing more than a hologram, one being operated apparently by a kid who just wanted to cause some problems for the heck of it. (Kind of a lame conclusion, really.) At least Barry was able to view this as an opportunity to allow Julian to be a hero, letting him get the arrest after spending most of the episode hearing about how Julian hated meta-humans because he felt they made most of the police complacent. This perspective was great — refreshing for a superhero show, where cops often are bumbling idiots who would die repeatedly were it not for the person in the costume. Julian felt genuinely bad about the incident, and did see himself somewhat as the child, desperate to prove himself as something special and different. We learned about his backstory through his final conversation with Barry: He grew up in England as a wealthy, privileged young man, and he went to Central City to make a different name for himself. Then, the meta-humans arrived and he found himself searching again for a new identity.
Can we take a moment to praise Tom Felton? This was excellent work for him in this episode, and it reminds us just how lucky The CW is to have him in this role. We’re all about this Julian / Barry bromance.
After the battle, H.R. (despite being called a “con man”) negotiated a deal for him to stay despite him being a fraud, mostly in hopes of proving his worth. From here, Caitlin finally confided in Cisco about her mother — but not her powers. The cliffhanger came in the closing seconds. We learned that Caitlin’s powers will become harder to control every time she uses them — and then she does it again.
Overall – The monster story was a whole lot of nothing, but the excellent Caitlin storyline, coupled with Tom Felton’s greatness, lifts the episode considerably. Grade: A-.
Next week – Well, there’s no episode next week. However, you’re going to have a chance come November 15 to see “Shade.” Head over here if you’re curious in getting some more scoop all about it. (Photo: The CW.)