With a week off last week because of the presidential election The Flash returned with its most suspenseful episode of the season yet.  This episode the long term effects of Flashpoint focusing on the relationship of Caitlyn and Cisco along with Wally’s alternate life coming to realization.  While “Shade” offered some promise for the shows direction there were still some flaws that have consistently plagued this show since midway through the first season.  Here are some thoughts from last nights episode.

1.       Alchemy has proven that he is a villain worthy of the Flash and we got our first look at Savitar.  So far we have only seen snippets of this character on the show without any real backstory except for he knows about Flashpoint.   My theory of Julian being Alchemy continues to be going in the right direction when neither Joe nor Barry could contact him when they were confronting Alchemy.  The most exciting part of this episode was the reveal of Savitar. Finally we have gotten to the point where Barry has confronted the main threat of the season proving to be a difficult combo.  With the previous 2 seasons focused primarily on one main villain for Barry to fight against, this season looks as he will have to combat two villains at one time.  While very little was known about Savitar prior to his premiere last night it is easy to say that he didn’t disappoint.  The God of the Speedsters appears faster than anything Barry has confronted yet.  This looks to be the main highlight of this season.

2.       While Flashpoint early on was a disappointment the long term effects have proven to be the biggest impact to the team.  The person who was affected the most by Flashpoint was the last person to reveal her change.  It seems that Caitlyn Snow will indeed transfer into Killer Frost after we saw Cisco vibe her to see the future.  We also get to Cisco  in full Vibe mode battling Killer Frost.  This may be what’s in store for us during the second half of this season.  If so I am looking forward to it.  This show can only go on so long with the team working so well together.  Eventually there will be an event that will fracture this team and start a Civil-War.  It seems that Wally’s transformation to Kid-Flash is not going as well as he thought.  With the dreams and visions of his alter-life during Flashpoint getting stronger and stronger he thought it would be as easy as Jessie Quick getting her powers. 

3.       Another new meta-human comes and goes.  This is the biggest gripe I continue to have with this show.  The show has gotten to the point where it doesn’t even matter who the meta-human of the week is.  It has gotten to the point where the team can figure out a solution to stopping the Meta in a matter of minutes.  With this weeks’ meta-human Shade the audience did not get a back story or strong enough motivation for this character to kill or attack people.  While this show has done a great job developing the main villains this is its weakest factor.  There was literally 10-15 minutes of the show that had no major or minor impact to the team.  It seems that the writers and producers cram in a meta-of-the-week with whatever time is left after the main arc has been edited.  In order for this show to grow it needs to develop these minor villains with a little more care.  Another option would be to have some older villains from the first two seasons come back for cameo appearances.

Overall this episode made some great strides with the story line of Alchemy and Caitlyn but still gets caught doing the same mistakes over and over.  With the extra footage with Shade and Wally’s  desire to be a speedster not necessary for this episode and really could’ve been edited down to a thirty minute show.  With two more weeks until the big 4 part crossover event it seems that The Flash will be leaving us with a big cliffhanger going into the winter break.