It’s been a while since we heard from The Flash’s best villain. The show doesn’t like to oversaturate us with Grodd, fearing (rightfully so) that he would make all the other bad guys look inferior. Or because the CGI makes him one of the more expensive villains to feature. It’s definitely one of those reasons. Even so, Grodd’s presence makes everything better. Remember when he showed up on Legends of Tomorrow and tried to kill a college-age Barack Obama? Best episode of that entire series, if you ask me. Now, he’s back on The Flash, allowing the series to ask that age old comic book question: What if the superhero had to team up with the bad guy?
This episode is all about changes, and Barry struggling to deal with them all. The episode opens with him searching for his parents’ graves, only to find a road where the cemetery used to be. He gets a meta attack alert, and runs down Broadway, where a train nearly hits him. Apparently, Central City has always had a rail system now. When he finally gets to the jewelry store robbery, he finds Pied Piper, who’s a full supervillain now. And it appears that Team Flash did something pretty messed up to him that Barry doesn’t remember. It’s exciting to see one of these shows really digging into everything that the Crisis changed. As Flash later discovers, there are trillions of changes. It’s a wonder shows like Batwoman and Black Lightning haven’t seen more.
Tom Cavanagh as Harrison Wells and Grant Gustin as Barry Allen — Photo: Bettina Strauss/The CW
Not all the changes are purely Crisis-based, though. With Cisco out of town for… reasons, and Ralph following up on the Sue Dearbon case from last week, there’s a whole new team supporting him. Kamilla and Chester are now the only ones on comm, which is especially weird considering Chester only learns that Barry Allen is The Flash after the Pied Piper fight. The core team is changing, and this episode aimed to get both Barry and us used to that. It also makes Chester into a full-fledged member of Team Flash, which is a very welcome development. He has a totally different nerdy energy from Cisco’s, and every scene he’s in becomes more fun for his presence.
Chester tries to help Barry reprogram Gideon to deal with all the Crisis changes, and Barry snaps at him. Because this is one of those episodes where Barry outran his brain somewhere in the opening moments. When he tries to use the mind-syncing earpieces to interface with Gideon, they spark and Barry ends up unconscious on the floor. Inside his mind, we see him in a cage with Caitlin Snow and the Thawne version of Harrison Wells standing over him. Stranger still, they’re talking to him like they can’t understand him. Slowly, he figures out what’s going on. He’s in Grodd’s body.
Grant Gustin as Barry Allen — Photo: Bettina Strauss/The CW
It turns out to be more than that, though. When Chester adjusted the earpiece, he increased the range far enough so that Barry connected with Grodd in Argus. Grodd put Barry inside the cage to demonstrate the situation he’s been in since the Gorilla invasion episodes. Grodd explains that he’s changed. That as he had to build his intelligence back up from that of a normal gorilla, he was unable to lie to himself for a period of time. That’s when he realized that his actions hurt people. He’s changed, and now all he wants to do is go back to Gorilla City and not be in a cage anymore. It’s a reasonable request, but Barry isn’t the brightest of bulbs on a good day, and this is not a good day. He punches Grodd the first chance he gets.
Barry tries to escape Grodd’s mind, but runs headfirst into Solovar. Remember him? He’s the guy that overthrew Grodd in Gorilla City the first time he and The Flash had to sort of team up. Solovar is the gatekeeper the Argus device planted in Grodd’s mind. It keeps Grodd from using his mental powers to escape. Barry tries to punch Solovar, but is immediately defeated. That’s when the world around him starts breaking apart. The device can’t handle two minds at once, and is starting to fail. If Barry and Grodd are both still inside, they’ll both die. That leaves Barry with little choice but to trust Grodd. To his credit, he does actually believe Grodd has turned over a new leaf.
Grodd — Photo: The CW
We get to see another psychic gorilla fight, and it looks… Listen, these shows don’t have the biggest budget. I’m not gonna say it looks like it fell out of a PlayStation 2 cutscene, but I might say it looks like it fell out of an Xbox 360 launch game. But we don’t come to these shows for their fantastic CGI. It’s what they do with it that counts. And they give us a damn cool gorilla fight. The Flash merges his mind completely with Grodd’s, allowing Grodd to access his speed and reflexes, along with Grodd’s strength and intelligence. Even then, it’s a hard fight against Solovar, but it’s one of the better ones so far in this half of the season.
Grodd’s not the only one who gets a second chance here. Back in the physical world, Chester’s been beating himself up for his upgrade sending Barry into a coma. He’s ready to walk out of S.T.A.R. Labs before he can break anything else. Killer Frost, now the elder statesman in the room, has to chase him into the can-I-talk-to-you hallway and tell him that this team believes in second chances. If it didn’t she wouldn’t be there. That’s what makes this episode work so well for me. It has a central idea that it wants to get across, and every major scene and character interaction supports it. Chester accepts the offer just in time to save Barry. As Barry and Grodd defeat Solovar, Chester reprograms Gideon to separate their minds at the very moment they exit the device. Grodd and Barry both wake up alive, and Chester is officially a member of Team Flash.
Danielle Panabaker as Caitlin Snow and Tom Cavanagh as Harrison Wells — Photo: Bettina Strauss/The CW
This was a standard villain of the week episode, but Grodd’s involvement and the introduction of Chester to the team, made it feel bigger and more fun than its formulaic structure would suggest. Especially since the villain wasn’t Grodd or Solovar so much as it was Barry’s unwillingness to accept change. It was cool to see Barry learn to move forward and accept any changes the future may bring without someone having to lecture him in the hallway.
The episode even moved the overall story forward a little bit. We learned that Allegra is this world’s version of Nash Wells’ maybe-daughter, or at least an assistant he cared for a lot. He’s also been seeing different figments of other Wellses, which means Eobard Thawne is coming soon. That could cause some interesting trouble. Meanwhile Mirror Iris is still out here doing… something. This episode, she breaks into her dad’s computer to steal confidential files. This would all be more impactful if we had any idea of what she was building towards.
Candice Patton as Iris West – Allen — Photo: Dean Buscher/The CW
What’s more interesting is the reveal that she and Eva McCulloch are working together. Iris comes up with a plan to escape the mirror world, but Eva insists it won’t work. When Iris questions her, she demonstrates, sticking her arms through the mirror and ending up with burns. She sends Iris away for bandages, and immediately drops the act. She goes to the mirror and apologizes to fake Iris for burning them both. You know? I never trusted this woman. Someone had to pull Iris into the mirror in the first place, and there’s been no evidence that it wasn’t her. This was a fun twist, and one of those moments where shouting “I knew it!” at the TV is the most satisfying feeling in the world.
The Flash airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. on The CW
Previously on The Flash:
- The Flash Season 6 Episode 12 recap
- The Flash Season 6 Episode 11 recap
- The Flash Season 6 Episode 10 recap
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