One thing I always critique genre shows is when they do stuff they obviously don’t have the budget for. One example would be Supernatural trying to do dragons and then kitsunes in seasons 6 and 7 respectively, which was a disaster in my eyes, something they obviously had no budget for and ended up being incredibly disappointing. The Flash is not as disappointing, but it’s underwhelming as these 2 episodes obviously can’t live up to the promise of their trailers and teasers.
Attack on Gorilla City and Attack on Central City simply don’t live up to their promises. They are not awful episodes, but they feel like missed opportunities. There is nothing new going with the Iris is going to die storyline, so these episodes feel as filler up until the last moment of Attack on Central City when Savitar suddenly appears. If we sum it up: Barry feels hopeful that they are changing the future, then not, then yes (which has been done already in this back half of the season), Iris’ role is incredibly reduced here and her only worth moment is when she tells Barry to find a better way. Harry and Jessie come back, and while I love to see them around, they don’t add incredible character moments as Harry is contained to the relationship with Jessie, which we have seen to death in this show, and Jessie and Wally… eh.
If these episodes were light on the gorilla action and heavy on the the character dynamics, then I’d be all on it for it. But instead, I felt I was watching the same beats as the show has thrown with the occasional high budget escene, but short lived, light action that wasn’t exciting, and character moments that weren’t resonating most of the times. All of this lead me to approach the episode with an “eh” attitude. I felt like checking my phone more often than not and sometimes I had to rewind and I realized I didn’t miss anything.
Now, I have been overly negative with these two episodes thus far, but that doesn’t mean it is all bad: as I said before, Jessie and Harry are always welcome. I think The Flash has some of the best characters on TV, but the show doesn’t really know how to exploit them, or at least not all the time. Harry and Jessie being back got me excited because I like them, I wish they had more to do, but I was happy to see them and especially during “Attack on Central City” it was a pleasure to see Harry react to HR on his jerky way as HR just looked delightful: those were moments I truly enjoyed.
Barry has made a lot of mistakes and only recently he is showing to have grown a brain again, so it is interesting to see that, now that he has learnt on so many errors he has made, that he is struggling with this moral dilemma, and that is triggered by fear and despair. I think the show hit an important landmark there and it was the highest point of both episodes, both when it was discussed with Iris and with Harry. In fact, Harry’s line about how every time he does it it becomes easier to do it the next time was quite powerful.
The Flash is usually light in tone: Barry is not going to directly kill anyone (he indirectly killed Zoom, but we can assume he didn’t see that through as the end result), he wants to stand up to his ideals of heroism and there is something very noble in that, but it’s nice to see the struggle that it causes.
It was also sweet that Julian is worried about Caitlin and wants to help her: this is obviously going to relationship territory so I ask the show to end the Caitlin curse here: no more deaths, no more betrayal, the gal had enough. How many more extreme failures of romantic relationships does she has to endure? I’m just saying, I can see the Killer Frost plot coming with something happening to Julian, so show, please no. They make a good couple, they have good chemistry on screen and they make sense. Let them be. Please. I’m not asking as a shipper, I’m asking to stop regurgitating the same beats with Caitlin.
The episode was light on Joe, and sadly he gets one of the most eye rolling scenes when Grodd is controlling him. We have 3 speedsters and none of them thought of taking the gun away while he was rising it or when he was talking? Seriously? No one? It was frustrating to watch because it is an obvious plot convenience point that doesn’t work at all. And Joe himself didn’t get much to do on the episode anyway.
Overall, I’m pretty disappointed: some character moments save this 2 part event from being a bore fest. I think The Flash should take this as a lesson not to aim for stuff they can’t afford. Or at the very least, ask WB for that sweet money they make out of the DC shows and add a couple of millions more to throw a real event. It worked for “Invasion!”, but it clearly didn’t work here. But I do applaud the attempt and I think the show should be ambitious, but it also has to be realistic about what they can and cannot do. Here’s hoping the next one is either better executed or bigger on scope.
The Flash can do much better, both on epic scope and in relationship dynamics. I hope next week's episode gets me excited again, because the last 3 episodes have been quite disappointing for me on an otherwise solid season.
Grade: C
*You may have noticed a lack of Gorillas on the pictures. Part of it is due to the structure of the review I wrote before adding the pictures, but it is also telling on just how little they seemed to care on episodes dedicated to them. Many were just background players and Grodd and Solovar also didn't get as much screen time. I'm still pretty disappointed by how these episodes turned out.
