'The Flash' Recap: 'Abra Kadabra'

Written by John Edward Betancourt

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

It's been quite the interesting season when it comes to The Flash. Not only have we seen some of the darkest and most powerful storylines that the series has offered up to date by bringing Flashpoint to life, but we've also been forced to question exactly what kind of hero Barry Allen truly is when it comes to this story.

After all, Barry has made some wild decisions this year, starting with the selfish move that was Flashpoint, and while he's tried to slowly set things right in this new universe, he's continued to alienate those he loves and he's debated whether or not to commit the cardinal sin of murder to solve his problems. But despite the ups and the downs, slowly but surely Barry has started to find his calling as a hero and last night's episode, 'Abra Kadabra', finally gave us a heroic vision of The Flash in what turned out to be one harrowing and dark story. 

Because in this episode, Barry was faced with quite the conundrum. A villain from the 64th Century, known as Abra Kadabra, had arrived in Barry's timeline on the hunt for powerful technology in the hopes of returning home to his own century, and he made it known that he was armed with knowledge of the future; specifically in that he knew Savitar's true identity and that he could help Barry defeat him and save Iris in the process...all the Flash had to do is let him continue with his thievery. That's where the problem arose for Barry.  Let Abra go, and yes he saves Iris and changes the future, but countless people will die and more trouble will arise since Gypsy also returned to Earth-1 in the hopes of bringing Abra back to her world to face charges for similar crimes.

Thankfully, Barry finally answered the call of heroism, opting instead to capture Abra and let Gypsy take him back to Earth-19 to stand trial and likely be executed since making sure he answered for his crimes was the right thing to do. But in no way did that decision stop Barry from begging Mister Kadabra to tell him the information he needs to save Iris, to no avail, but to finally see Barry own the future and the uncertainty that comes with it was a big step for his character, as was the fact he was finally unselfish for a change and willing to look to new ideas to solve his problem, and now for the first time ever this season, Barry is looking forward and making plans to run to the future to get the answers he so desperately needs...

But while it seems as though this was quite the happy go lucky episode with an ending like that, I did make mention of dark overtones in this tale and well, much of that came from Barry and Joe's struggle to do the right thing since hey...this is Iris' life we are talking about. But the darkest part of this story came by way of Caitlin, who was horribly injured by Abra to the point where she had to undergo emergency surgery at S.T.A.R. Labs and despite initial success...an unforeseen complication put her life in jeopardy, forcing Julian to remove her necklace so her meta powers would heal her and alas...Killer Frost awakened in her stead. She symbolizes another thread of future continuity that could lead to the death of Iris and well, it's a shame that there was no other option to save her. Either way, Savitar's secrets and fate of Caitlin Snow will remain unresolved for a time since the show is on hiatus until April 25th and it should be interesting to see what we learn then when Barry travels to the future...until next time...

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