'The Flash' Recap: 'Untouchable'

Written by John Edward Betancourt

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

I have to give it to The Flash. This whole Savitar-potentially-killing-Iris storyline has done wonders for the show, allowing for the characters to expose their deepest and darkest fears in fascinating fashion and it would seem that this particular push in its storytelling is showing no signs of slowing down, because last night's episode, 'Untouchable', provided us with more of the same, taking the characters down a dark road as a potential future without Iris is more or less starting to push Barry and his friends to the breaking point. 

At the same time however, this episode also served as a Flash throwback if you will, bringing back the feel and vibe of the first season, where new meta-humans showed up on a regular basis to challenge Barry Allen and he tried his best to fully understand his abilities and it accomplished part of that by bringing forth one of Alchemy's meta creations, a man named Clive Yorkin, who was apparently humiliated by Joe West and a few other C.C.P.D. officers in the alternate timeline, and his ability as a meta, was that he possessed a terrifying touch of death. Anything the man touched disintegrated into ash, and the fact that he was coming after Joe, is what led to the team facing down death and the horrors that come with it once again.

Since Clive couldn't get to Joe right away, he went after the next best thing...his daughter, and it became a race against time to save her life and that's where the darkness settled in. Caitlin for example, had to once more walk the line between good and evil since her powers were the only way to slow the spread of Clive's evil touch and there was quite the scary moment where Killer Frost made an appearance and if it wasn't for Julian, who knows how far down the evil rabbit hole she would have gone and speaking of Julian; he also grappled with the harsh reality that Clive existed because of his actions as Alchemy and when all is said and done, it was downright fascinating to see these characters struggle with the darkest parts of their psyche and while they eventually were able to conquer it all to help save Iris, I like that the show is exploring the consequences of their actions, or in this case, potential future consequences as well.

As for the rest of the throwbacks to season one, I made mention that the show once more explored just what a speedster is capable of and that came by way of Wally and Barry's relationship and the fact that Barry was now the mentor in the hopes of teaching Kid Flash to be fast enough to save Iris' life and well...what made this so cool and fascinating was that Barry more or less stumbled and stumbled hard at being a teacher. Sure he learned from the best, but in the end Barry has always figured everything out on the fly and that's what it took to finally see Wally achieve wonders, trust, and once he put his total faith in Kid Flash to do what must be done to save the day, young Wally achieved amazing wonders and managed to stop Clive and in the process save his sister.

But despite the happy ending, there is a sense of impending doom that continues to grow week after week on this show. It's clear now that despite the promises being made, the team and more so Barry, haven't a clue as to whether or not Iris can be saved and the uncertainty is starting to break all of them bit by bit, and considering the fact that Luigi's Restaurant, another piece of the puzzle to keeping Iris alive, fell into place last night...I'm starting to have my doubts as well, especially when you consider that ending, with Jesse returning to Earth Prime to ask everyone for their help regarding another prediction from the future...Grodd and his Gorilla City; and it should be interesting to see this iconic villain's return come next week and what kind of influence will come from the team facing off with Grodd once again, when it comes to saving Iris from Savitar. Until next time.

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