'The Flash' Recap: 'Enter Flashtime'

Written by John Edward Betancourt

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

​There’s a certain level of comfort that comes with watching superhero shows in that, we rarely get an unhappy ending. Our heroes know how to save the day through and through and it’s really become the status quo on these shows. But once in a great while, they suffer some serious setbacks in their mission, or nearly fail in their role and oddly enough, last night’s episode of The Flash, gave us an hour of storytelling wherein, Barry came incredibly close to failure for a change.
 
That little twist made ‘Enter Flashtime’ quite the unique episode to say the least. Because not only was it a far more intimate and emotional affair than we are used to when it comes to this show, it also changed up its storytelling style by giving us a tale that was free of Clifford DeVoe. Yet, it was still filled to the brim with harrowing moments because in this story, Team Flash was forced to investigate an attack on an ARGUS convoy and shortly after arriving to put the bad guys in jail, a terrible surprise was revealed to Barry in that…the cargo container in this convoy was carrying a nuke, and our villain in question, had just pushed the big red button.
 
This forced Barry to slide into hyper speed mode, or Flashtime as it shall be known going forward, in order to figure out how to potentially stop this bomb from going off and he definitely pulled out all the stops to prevent Central City’s destruction. He tried making use of Cisco and Killer Frost’s powers, to no avail, because they needed time to flow normally in order to do their thing, and he even recruited Jesse and Jay to help him out. But eventually, they too were unable to help dear Barry in his quest to save the day because they simply could not maintain that kind of speed for such a prolonged amount of time. 
 
Which quite frankly, left the story completely without hope. The explosion was growing moment by moment, Barry was wearing down and his only solid idea, to throw the bomb into the Speed Force, would likely cause more harm than good. But a moment of inspiration from Iris as Barry attempted to say goodbye and apologize for failing the team gave The Flash a fighting chance and a last minute jaunt into the Speed Force to retrieve the device that rescued him from it in the first place, so that lightning would zap the bomb and reverse the fission process, proved to be successful and once again, an exhausted Flash managed to save the day.
 
If anything, it was nice to see the show shake things up a little bit and put Barry in a tough place for a change and really, this episode handled one hell of a mess in magnificent fashion. You really saw the hope drain out of Barry’s eyes as the seconds and minutes progressed and for a moment there, it truly seemed like there was no stopping this bomb and really, this is how filler episodes should be when it comes to shows like this. Because not only was this a welcome break from the Thinker’s nonstop onslaught, this was an edge your seat affair and it still told a complete story and I really hope I see more thrilling transitional episode like this, as season four of The Flash rolls on. Until next time.

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