'The Flash' Recap: 'Cause and Effect'

Written by John Edward Betancourt

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

When it comes to dealing with a particular enemy in a superhero story, the plan to bring them down is usually pretty simple; figure out the villain's weaknesses and stay a step ahead of them and our hero will come out on top. But...if the villain knows what's coming, and can figure out our hero's every single move...is there a way that the good guy can ever win?

It is that notion that just so happened to be at the forefront of last night's episode of ​The Flash, and 'Cause and Effect' turned out to be quite the intense story because it wasted no time in giving us exactly what we wanted by revealing Savitar's origin story at last before setting into motion a plan for Barry to fight this darker version of himself...with some interesting effects to say the least. But, first up, let's take a moment and discuss Savitar's beginnings because that turned out to be quite the fascinating tale thanks to its sheer complexity and the outright tragedy it brings to the table.

Because as it turns out, Savitar is a Time Remnant, like the one Barry made to deal with Zoom, and he was created by the more brooding Barry Allen we met in the future to help fight Savitar. But once the battle came to a close, this 'clone' of Barry was still carrying around the pain of a life without Iris, and when he combined that with the new ache of not being accepted by those who created him, he turned to a life of vengeance wherein he would have to go back in time to hurt present day Barry Allen in order to exist in the first place. If that seems like an excessively detailed origin story, it most certainly is, in fact that basically means that Flashpoint has become a temporal causality loop, one worthy of ​Star Trek. But thankfully, the knowledge that Savitar is indeed a future version of Barry Allen gives Cisco quite the idea on how to possibly beat this vengeful foe.

After all, if Savitar/Barry has the real Barry's memories to help guide him through what comes next, why not stop present day Barry from making new ones, that way the team can put together a plan to stop Savitar and he'll never know what hits him. It's a sound idea, one that Barry goes along with, but sadly without the same intimate knowledge that Caitlin has about the human brain, their idea comes with some serious repercussions. Barry loses all of his memories and his identity and thanks to the causality loop, Wally loses his powers as well, leaving Juilan and Cisco, and surprisingly Caitlin/Killer Frost scrambling to set things right, and once you get free of the time travel stuff, of which there is plenty, this story quickly becomes focused on celebrating our past while pointing out the danger of letting our most painful experiences consume us and define us. 

Eventually though, Barry gets his memories back and while this plan didn't quite accomplish what everyone hoped for, our favorite speedster did find value in his pain for the first time ever and on the plus side...the Speed Force Bazooka is close to being ready to trap Savitar, it just needs one last thing to make it wok. Either way, I really did appreciate how this episode took the time to teach Barry another valuable lesson in no longer messing with the past and it was equally awesome to know that Caitlin still exists somewhere beneath that icy exterior and while this one didn't exactly push the plot forward, it was a necessary tale to explain what makes our hero and our villain such polar opposites, and that in way we truly do control our own fate, especially when it comes to which emotions we let rule our lives. Until next time. 

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