'The Flash' Recap: 'The Present'

Written by John Edward Betancourt

THIS IS THE EMERGENCY SPOILER ALERT SYSTEM...YOU ARE ADVISED TO READ AT YOUR OWN RISK...

Season three of The Flash has been setting us up for quite the incredible battle. Week after week, Savitar and his mad plan to restore the powers of Metas has slowly been coming to fruition and well, I think it is safe to say that we expected his evil machinations to continue to build as the season chugged along, leading to an epic showdown between he and Barry in the season finale. 

But rather than wait an entire half year to deliver a big battle royale between good versus evil, last night's episode, 'The Present' decided instead that this would be the proper moment for these two to square off, but rather than give us an hour long explosive fist fight this particular showdown played out in fascinating and unexpected fashion. Because the blows that came out of this episode were more psychological in nature, but equally as devastating in a story that saw Barry making peace with Julian at last, while learning everything and anything that he can about Savitar and recruiting a little bit of help from Jay Garrick on Earth-3 in what turned out to be a stunning midseason finale.  

In fact, this episode wasted no time in hitting the ground running, with Barry and the gang turning their attention to Savitar once again following the events of 'Invasion!' and after doing a little bit of digging on the Speed God, the team came to discover that Julian had done a little work on the stone that Savitar uses to create Metas a few years back, searching for it on an expedition that according to Julian, was a grand waste of time. Knowing that Julian was going to continue to be a dead end, Barry made a trip to Earth-3 to talk with Jay, helping the elder speedster with his world's version of The Trickster (complete with an awesome Mark Hamill cameo) in order to get a little information and a little backup when it comes to this powerful creature.

As it turns out, Jay was able to provide both to Barry with no problem. He shed plenty of light on Savitar's history, specifically that he was one of the first speedsters to ever exist and that he saw Barry as a threat and felt the need to challenge him in every way possible and Jay's arrival could not come at a better time since shortly after learning all this, Savitar made his move to convert the last of the Metas, leading to a brutal but brief battle that saw Julian captured and Savitar banished for the moment and now was a fine opportunity for Barry to interrogate his former partner at the CCPD, allowing for us to learn even more about the mysterious Speed God. We came to find out that he is tied to the stone he uses to change humans into metas, that he loves to prey upon fear and pain, using it to twist humans to do his bidding, and he was also happy to provide the team with a dark vision of the future filled with betrayal and death.

It led to Barry getting a little more help from Jay and Wally to open up a rift to the Speed Force, so that Barry could toss the stone (and Savitar) into what was in essence the eternal void of space and time and while his plan was a success, an unexpected pit stop into the future gave Barry the most chilling vision of all...his future self five months from now, begging for Savitar to spare Iris' life...something the Speed God refused to do, killing the woman Barry loves. It was a vision that left Barry beyond rattled and he had to be reminded by Jay that the future has yet to be written and while this episode ends on quite the happy holiday note, let's be honest...this was also quite the dark and foreboding episode because regardless of the fact that the future is yet to be written, no doubt Savitar is going to do his damndest to make that sure that he leads Barry down a path where Iris dies and he suffers meaning that Barry is going to be in for one his greatest challenges yet, facing his flaws when the show returns in January. Until next time.

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