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| "Let slip the apes of wrath!" |
We begin where we left last time, with Central City completely safe
from any threat of gorilla warfare.
Grod's declaration of disillusionment comes in the form of a
mind-controlled Gypsy popping up in the middle of STAR Labs and blasting at
people until Harry zaps her with a ray gun, because Harry. When she has no idea
what happened since she was in Earth 2's Africa looking for a fugitive, they
realise what must have happened, and that whoops, they haven't stopped that
headline coming true after all. Still, they've got three speedsters to work
with, plus Cisco and Gypsy, so how hard can this be?
Well… pretty hard. First of all, Gypsy won't get involved. Then when
Cisco vibes the site of the attack, it turns out to be a decoy while Grod
kidnaps a general with access to nuclear missiles (which is some next level
chicanery from old Grod.) Barry begins to entertain the idea of taking Grod's
life. Iris tells him that it is his mercy, his humanity that makes him great
and Harry backs her play in this. No-one mentions the good half-dozen or so people
that Barry has indirectly or directly killed over the years – especially all
those Earth 2 metahumans in the first half of Season 2 – because apparently
each one of those involves a loophole or something.
 |
| "Hey hey we're not monkeys..." |
Jesse tells Harry that she wants to stay on Earth 1 with Wally and he
pretends to have a terminal illness so Wally will feel bad and call off the
arrangement. Meanwhile Team Flash tap into the flashes of Grod's memories which
fed back when he briefly controlled Joe to identify the general in time for
Barry to disarm a nuke. As Flash, Kid Flash and Jesse Quick(1) prepare to battle
an army of super-intelligent, telepathic apes, Barry takes heart from Harry's assurance
that he always finds another way. He sends Cisco to find Gypsy, reasoning that
Grod must have used her to remove the one obstacle to his power over Gorilla
City, and so enabling Cisco to introduce Solovar into the equation.
Solovar defeats Grod (apparently Solovar, Grod and Barry have this
rock, paper, scissors thing going on,) and reclaims rule of the gorillas. Barry
persuades him to let Grod live, handing Grod over to ARGOS while Solovar takes
his army back to Earth 2. Barry proposes to Iris as a gesture of his faith in
their future. Jesse remains on Earth 1, but when Wally runs out for burgers, he
encounters Savatar just itching for a cliffhanger.
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| This series is seriously going to need to up its villain game. |
That ending makes me wonder if it was truly Barry that Savatar saw as a
threat, since it's been put forward quite strongly that Wally has more
potential as a speedster (in which case the joke's on Savatar, since he only
got his speed thanks to Alchemy's Flashpointing shenanigans.) I also wonder if
this isn't a past version of Savatar who hasn't been imprisoned in the
Philosopher's Stone yet. Previously, Savatar said that Barry trapped him in the
Stone, so it might make sense that their past meeting is one that Barry hasn't
had yet. It is also possible that future Savatar came after Barry and this one
is after Wally, although that would make alchemying him a little dense.
Anyway, 'Attack on Central City' was… almost all I could have asked.
The absence of gorilla supertech is a bit of a blow, but I can't be too angry
with anything including this much roaring Grod and speedsters getting slapped
around, however laughable it is that anyone moving that fast would get slapped
around by gorillas. Points off for use of the loaded word 'friendzone', even if
Cisco didn't really seem to mean what is usually meant by it, and in general
for trying to make Cisco look lovelorn in time to throw Gypsy back into the
mix. As well as Lisa Snart, there was that whole thing where he was dating
Hawkgirl for half a season, before she left him (admittedly for terrible,
terrible reasons(2) that would likely do a number on your self-esteem.) To
summarise my position, rather than going off on one, single desperate geek has
never been Cisco's look and trying to shoehorn him into it for effect is a
mistake.
*drops mic*
(1) Jesse appears to be breaking one of the rules of superhero names
'don't choose a superhero name which includes your own name.'
(2) Hawkgirl was terribly characterised in this and Legends of Tomorrow, most notably in the
way she kept returning to Hawkman despite a near absolute lack of chemistry,
shared interests or mutual knowledge. He'd be all 'What up? Hawkman in the
hizz-ouse!' and she'd be all 'Ta-ta, guy who actually kind of gets me and gives
a flying fuck what I want out of life.' Justice
League's Hawkgirl betrayed the planet and I kept rooting for her
redemption; this one was tooth-gratingly loyal to Hawkman in all his guises and
I just wanted her to stop clogging up the screen time.
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