The Flash just had its best episode of the season with “The Darkness and The Light.†It’s pretty rare that I enjoy a Flash episode that isn’t a special effects tour de force. Surely, there were a decent number of nice special effects throughout, but this episode gave us more Barry Allen than The Flash. It also gave us more Harrison Wells, and Tom Cavanagh is brilliant as always.
Patty and Barry have been teasing the idea of an eventual date, and it finally happens in this episode. Although, Barry put forth the figurative “blind†date quite literally. Earlier in the episode, he was blinded by the newest villain that Zoom forced across the wormhole, Dr. Light. While the name is kind of ho-hum, she is actually really interesting and just so happens to be Linda Park from Earth Two. More on that later. But, since Iris convinced him not to cancel the date, Cisco was his wingman.
Patty and Barry have some outstanding chemistry. It’s hard not to “aww†through every cutesy moment they have together. Seeing Barry truly happy was such a change from the cloud that seems to always hang over his head. It’ll be interesting to see what develops. And if Patty finds out that Barry is The Flash, how will that alter their relationship?
As mentioned in the opening, Harrison Wells is back. Well, Harrison Wells from Earth Two anyway. Apparently he is much more “dickish†than the fake Harrison Wells who was actually Reverse Flash from this timeline. Cavanagh just has this way of acting that really makes you hate him one second, then somehow reason with what his character is saying the next. That’s why I’ve loved watching him throughout the show.
Surprisingly, Barry is the level-headed one about the situation, and he knows that Wells is smart enough to be able to help him stop Zoom. Joe, on the other hand, is more of the shoot on sight type of guy. We get to see Barry run insanely fast and stop all the bullets that were heading right at Wells. While the various other characters at STAR Labs eventually become okay with the fact that they may need Wells, two people that aren’t are Jay Garrick and Cisco.
Jay Garrick is closer to Earth Two Harrison Wells than any of the other people on Earth One, and he knows how sneaky Wells can be. Jay and Wells even duke it out at one point in the episode over how they should beat Zoom. It’s an interesting dichotomy, one which Jay confessed toward the end of the episode, that Barry is much faster than Jay ever could be.
I feel like this will all lead to Jay eventually getting his powers back on Earth One and The Flash and Jay taking on Zoom together, or I hope it does anyway.
Throughout the episode, Cisco is on edge every time he is in the same room with Wells. It makes sense, considering Earth One Wells killed Cisco and essentially gave him the gift of being able to see into the future at certain points. He’s been able to keep his powers a secret, until now that is.
On Earth Two, Harrison Wells was an inventor/developer of devices that could detect when a meta-human is present, and his little watch went off around Cisco. Surpsingly, it didn’t go off around Caitlin. If you’ve been keeping up at all with set photos, you’ll understand why this is somewhat of an interesting detail. When Cisco breaks down and is forced to tell the STAR Labs crew, he explains that he’s always been worried that he will become as evil as Reverse Flash. Caitlin chimes in and says she doesn’t believe people just become evil. Oh, the irony in that statement. Eventually, Wells is able to trigger him to use his “vibes†to find Dr. Light. This allows us to see Barry match what Reverse Flash was able to do and Speed Mirage to take down Dr. Light.
We also get a much better look at Zoom, more specifically the reason why Wells is so adamant about taking him out. Zoom has Wells’ daughter held hostage, thus Wells is playing his last card because he knows The Flash is the only person that would have a semblance of a change of getting his daughter back.
