'The Flash' Recap: 'Run, Iris, Run'

Written by John Edward Betancourt

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

​Let’s be honest, while it started out in lighthearted fashion, season four of The Flash has overall been a pretty grim affair, all thanks to Clifford DeVoe. Because this powerful and vicious villain has managed to not only defeat Team Flash time and time again, he’s made all of their lives a living hell in some sort of capacity and they truly have spent a better part of this year, chasing their tails in an effort to outthink and outwit him in their nearly desperate hopes to defeat him and his still to be revealed master plan.
 
Which is why last night’s episode, ‘Run, Iris, Run’ was such a proverbial oasis storytelling wise for season four, but you wouldn’t have guessed that at first, because this episode opened up with everyone at one another’s throats. The conflict in this tale came about from the fact that there was no unity on the team revolving around Harry’s plan to create his own thinking cap to gain a little leverage over DeVoe and the fallout from that put Dibny in a sour place, because every second that The Thinker it out there, puts his life in jeopardy and when Iris tried to calm his fears, he instead snapped at her and pointed out that she never has to experience such emotions since she always keeps herself safe at the lab while others put their lives on the line.
 
But that all changed when a man named Matthew Kim entered the picture. Because this young man, also a Bus Meta, was armed with the ability to rob a Meta of their power and transfer it to anyone he made physical contact with and after a tense encounter with Joe and Iris, wherein Barry was forced to get involved, The Flash’s powers were transferred to Iris, meaning she would have to take over the city’s superhero responsibilities for a bit. And while this at first seemed like no big deal because hey, Iris leads this team and has seen first-hand all the things that Barry can do, Iris simply wasn’t ready to take on the responsibilities as a Speedster.
 
Eventually though, with a little encouragement and belief in herself, she was able to pull off wonders and save the day and of course, Mister Kim eventually transferred Barry’s power back to him and even agreed to help the team with DeVoe. But what matters most about this tale, is that Iris went on a complete journey, one where she even admitted that after dealing with Savitar last year, she went into protection mode mentally and in essence, stopped living her life out of fear and this little incident, brought the old Iris back into the limelight and it was just wonderful to see her find her strength once again, and inspire Dibny to let go of his fear as well. 
 
As an added bonus, the team eventually found unity once again since Cisco did step in and help Harry with this own thinking cap and the end result of that, ended up being quite wonderful in its own right. After all, Team Flash now has the names of the final two Bus Metas, putting them ahead of DeVoe at last. Whether or not that will pan out has yet to be seen, and we will have to wait until April 10th to find out since the show is back on mini-hiatus. But in the here and the now, this was simply a wonderful episode. It was basically vintage Flash through and through and I love that Iris was given a quality standalone episode where she got to show herself, exactly what she’s made of. Until next time. 

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