After a couple of MEDIOCRE weeks of The Flash this episode brought the series back to its roots.  Special guest director Kevin Smith (Mallrats, Clerks, and Yoga Hosers) returned for a second time and didn’t disappoint.  Although Smith admits his job is really easy with not a lot of work the two episodes he has directed easily rank in the top 10 overall of Flash episodes. With the focus on the episode on Caitlyn Snows transformation into Killer Frost this episode showed that the team is struggling with the effects of Flashpoint.  In a role reversal from previous episodes it was the team that went against the advice of Barry to try and solve their problems.  From Joe West going against the advice of the team and cutting Wally out of the cocoon before the team could figure out a safe solution, to Caitlyn going after Alchemy and his disciples to reverse the effects without the help of Barry or Cisco.  This episode easily brought the season back in the right direction.

 

1.       This show had heart.  If you ever listen to Kevin Smith talk about this show the main reason why he loves The Flash so much is it has heart.  Joe’s struggle to separate his feelings as a father saving his son and being removed from the situation provided an emotion that Joe hasn’t experienced yet on the show.  Then the strained relationship that Killer Frost brought between Caitlyn and Cisco really showed a side of those two that we thought would be unbreakable from the first season.  Every scene this episode carried an amount of tension where you could see the team break under their different stresses.  This is due to the amazing acting this cast has created and also Kevin Smith bringing out the raw feelings that a true comic fan could only do. 

2.       Once again the forecast of who was Alchemy remained true to be Julian.  While this show never has made it out to be a suspense show revealing the main villain this season wasn’t very difficult to figure out.  Now that we know that Savitar is controlling Julian as Alchemy this only leaves the audience to try and figure out the connection Julian has to pre-Flashpoint.  While Alchemy has not been as impactful as Reverse-Flash, the inclusion of Savitar makes this duo a worthy adversary for Barry and the team.  Alchemy brings a great balance between the speedster villain of Savitar and something new that we haven’t seen on the show. 

3.       The producers and showrunners need to notice that the episodes that don’t have a throw-away meta-human tend to be the best episodes.  The past three weeks featured episodes with Meta’s that had no significant impact to the story-line or the team.  This resulted in mediocricy because of time wasted on the team dealing with an insignificant meta-human.  This took away time from focusing on the struggles the team is still going through with the effects of Flashpoint.  The scene where Killer Frost is confronting Barry and exposes the truth to Cisco about Dante being alive before Flashpoint was the most emotional scene yet of this season.  Without a meta-human to try and squeeze into the episode it allowed the character development to go deeper than what we have seen in the past.

Overall this was the best episode of the season hands down with Flashpoint a distant second.  Although Kevin Smith admits that he doesn’t do a lot of work on the show he is two for two on his episodes.  Maybe Kevin can clear his schedule and direct the second half of this season.