The Flash battles multiple Godspeeds as a speedster war erupts
Frost's love life and the West-Allens' quest to reproduce are a drag on the episode
TV Reviews The Flash
For its first few seasons, The Flash’s Big Bads inevitably turned out to be speedsters. The show took a break from the pattern for a while, but now it doubles down…and that’s only the beginning. As “Enemy At The Gates” opens, there are two versions of Godspeed on the loose in Central City at once, which shouldn’t come as too much of a shock to a team that has battled multiple other versions in the past. By episode’s end there are twelve Godspeed clones, which would seem to be an insurmountable challenge were it not for the fact that they don’t all like each other.
Before we can get to that, there’s the ongoing drama of Barry and Iris attempting to reproduce to deal with. “Drama” is probably the wrong word, however, as the show mostly continues to play the situation for laughs, though not very successfully. The whimsical music that appears on the soundtrack every time the subject comes up has begun to feel oppressive—the show’s creators trying desperately to convince us that some not-all-that-hilarious moments (Barry trying not to reveal the real reason he and Iris are taking a sudden tropical getaway, Cecile showing up at the door just as Barry is trying to leave the apartment with blood and urine samples to test) are gut-busters.
Having dreamed about Nora—not his mother or the Speed Force, but the speedster daughter he and Iris lost several seasons back—Barry wakes up convinced that Iris must be pregnant. Making this even more awkward is the fact that Candice Patton doesn’t appear in the episode for the second week in a row, resulting in a lot of Barry calling to her offscreen or on the phone. After all is said done, the test results are negative, leaving Barry puzzled as to why his dream didn’t foretell the future. (It’s because dreams don’t work that way, buddy.)
Speaking of unrewarding subplots, the saga of Frost and Chillblaine continues as she rescues him from a beatdown at their favorite bar. Since he’s alienated every other medical practitioner in the city, Frost takes him to STAR Labs to get patched up, which means he’s on the scene when the Godspeeds attack. Chester has rigged up a force field to keep them trapped outside, but the Godspeeds are able to sap it of its strength and break in. With Gideon’s help, Chester attacks them with an overload of their own electronically distorted voices. That temporarily disrupts them to the point where Frost and Chillblaine are simply able to beat up on them (why they don’t freeze-blast them, or why these two Godspeeds lose their speed while the one Barry is battling retains his, are the main questions going through my head at this moment), but this advantage is short-lived, and soon the Godspeeds are powering up the vibrating hands of death.
Barry leads them on a merry chase through Central City, and it looks bad for him when all six of them the catch up and start draining his power. Luckily it is at that moment when six more Godspeeds show up and start fighting the others. They cancel each other out and and disappear, leaving Barry to ponder the reasons for this civil war of speedsters.
While all this has been going on, Caitlin has been busy operating on Ultraviolet, who has finally given in to her cousin’s urgings to trust Team Flash. The surgery to remove the Black Hole microchip from her throat is a success, in part thanks to Cecilia’s ability to share her peace of mind with the increasingly anxious Esperanza. Does this mean we have two ex-villains potentially joining up with the good guys? Not necessarily, as Chillblaine is still shadier than an oak tree (and Frost’s feelings for him still mysterious, unless she’s all about those abs).
With this crowd of subplots, the one involving Joe and Kramer is almost subliminal this week. It’s as if the writers were caught off-guard by the shorter than usual episode order this season and are trying to cram in everything they had planned anyway. Kramer continues to behave as if Joe’s trust in her is unjustified, but both of them are seemingly caught in the vehicle explosion that ends the hour. It’s hard to even regard this is a cliffhanger, however; the creative team has made some questionable decisions lately, but killing off Joe West would be a bridge too far.
Stray observations
- “Wait, do you have a Flashmobile?” Sadly, no. Not yet anyway.
- Next week: Diggle to the rescue!
47 Comments
That was actually a very sweet cold open. I really liked it.Frost is having her Jackson Pollack phase.No. NO. NO! Stop this storyline now. This Frost/Chillblaine thing is just so ewwwwwwwwwwwww…Okay, I’m already tired of this comedy of errs Barry sneaking around storyline.Awhttp://www…all of Chillblaines’ “friends” hate him. I feel so sad. Sad they didn’t finish him off.Caitlin is performing invasive surgery, with two other people in the room, and none of them are wearing masks?The clones can just beat on a force field without breaking their hands?Please have Frost put a failsafe in his devices.I was expecting Nora and Bart to show up to save Barry, not that. It was an unexpected twist, I’ll give them that.I hope that Frost ironically sets Chillblaine on fire.Gee, wonder if Kramer has a meta ability that makes her invulnerable. One that helped her survive the ambush and now this.Chillblaine strikes me as what an incel imagines that a cool guy is. And his flirtation with Frost is how they imagine that women respond to such guys.
why they don’t freeze-blast them, or why these two Godspeeds lose their speed while the one Barry is battling retains his, are the main questions going through my head at this moment
I theorize that Frost and Chillblaine were lowering the temperature of the room so that the Godspeeds couldn’t use their superspeed.
“Chillblaine strikes me as what an incel imagines that a cool guy is. And
his flirtation with Frost is how they imagine that women respond to
such guys.”You’d be surprised how many women actually find that kind of stuff hot.
Caitlin is performing invasive surgery, with two other people in the room, and none of them are wearing masks?That really bugged me. Also where is this surgical room in relation to the rest of the building? I thought it was the medical suite they typically use off to the side of the main cortex, but that didn’t seem to be the case when Barry fought the Godspeeds there.
I tend to put Caitlin’s medical skill along with Cecile’s legal skills. I just go with it.
Wait, you mean a man lying to a woman, manipulating her, then trying to murder her, but then sort of apologising and hinting that there’s something so special about her that the man might actually reform, but still lying to her in the meantime, is NOT an ideal romance plot?…someone should mention that to TV writers, because they don’t seem to have heard!
– According to Twitter, Candice Patton is missing from this and last episode due to needing a mental health break, but she apparently will be around for Episode 150. And take this with a grain of salt, but there’s rumors that Patton wants to leave the show next season.
– So, is Chillblaine a meta or not? He was introduced as a regular guy who developed tech that shoots ice beams, then he gets treated like a meta and even called that by the newspaper, and now they brought back his ice tech.
– Nice of Allegra to help take out the various Godspeeds.
– I had to LOL at Barry saying the Time Vault was reinforced to keep Barry out in case he goes evil again, while Godspeed was able to break in easily.- Why exactly did Barry need to go through all the rigamarole of using STAR Labs’ tech to confirm if Iris is pregnant instead of using a normal pregnancy test from Walgreens?- It annoys me more than it should that Chester knows Captain Cold became a good guy, but doesn’t know about Future!Nora.
– I am no surgeon, but aren’t you supposed to have assistants when performing surgery?- Man, Twitter really despised Cecile tonight, especially the scene where she finds out Barry’s running a pregnancy test.- “It’s a civil war.” Barry, that’s Marvel. You’re DC.
– So, we know Joe’s not ACTUALLY dead, right?
– The preview recycled the shot of Diggle finding the Green Lantern ring, but Ramsey said in an interview that Diggle returned the ring. Was that just to troll fans?
Is Chillblaine a meta or not?There is precedent for non-metagene super-people in the Arrowverse to be labelled “meta humans” as a catch-all. I’m more thinking of the Invasion! crossover when Green Arrow, White Canary and others are grouped as metahuman by the aliens and/or the US Government. It wouldn’t surprise me in this universe that people don’t really distinguish whether your powers come from technology or genetic mutation.Nice of Allegra to help take out the various Godspeeds.This killed me, especially coming after an episode where she re-established some level of fighting ability with her powers.According to Twitter, Candice Patton is missing from this and last episode due to needing a mental health break, but she apparently will be around for Episode 150. And take this with a grain of salt, but there’s rumors that Patton wants to leave the show next season.Really? Yikes. I can appreciate actors needing breaks and that we live in a time where studio productions grant this kind of thing instead of forcing them to push on or firing them, but this seems so ill-timed and the script is so ham-fisted in drawing attention to the absence.
The CW should be, collectively, the master of writing around actor absences. Their primary budget-saving measure is to demote a bunch of the ensemble to the next rung (special guest, special appearance, guest star, whatever) and only use them for x of y episodes per season, per the union rules or whatever.They aren’t, as we witnessed again tonight. But they should be.
I expect next season to be the last. They may probably find ways to work around her absence if she goes.
Where did you see that news about Patton?
Mental health break, it may be. But seems like this might sync-up with her contract negotiations too.
In all sincerity, if Candice Patton does not get everything she wants contractually, including I think her primary concern, good storylines for Iris, she should walk. She has given seven years to this show and for most of that time has been given borderline insulting material.
It’s code for she was having a tiff with the producers. Contract negotiations seem a legitimate theory for that tiff. Also, she apparently hates flying up to Vancouver.
Key is “Twitter says.”If I stubbed my toe, Twitter would call it “grievous bodily harm with potential for amputation.”
I seem to recall that since Barry is a meta that it would affect a normal pregnancy test.
I am no surgeon, but I’m pretty sure you are supposed to have a sterile room with no audience and a mask on.
“- Why exactly did Barry need to go through all the rigamarole of using STAR Labs’ tech to confirm if Iris is pregnant instead of using a normal pregnancy test from Walgreens?”
He said something about how metahumans sometimes have false positives or something so they couldn’t use a regular pregnancy test, which was very confusing, because I don’t think Iris is a meta? Though who can remember these days. I forget what Allegra’s powers are every time she uses them. Also didn’t Chester start out as a meta?
I also can’t remember where the Godspeeds came from or what their deal is.
This episode was a C- at best. Every little A-plot emotional journey from these characters is so predictable and telegraphed to death. It was obvious from Barry’s over-excitement that Iris wasn’t going to be pregnant, just as it was obvious a few episodes back that the reason everyone seemed chill with Cisco leaving was because they were trying not to fall apart (although that was slightly better handled). Chillblaine is terrible. The comedy isn’t funny. Let next season be the last, or just have Wally come back and take over the show because I really don’t think anyone is watching for Barry anymore.
Candice Patton was one of the ones that renewed her contract for an unspecified number of seasons (along with Panabaker and Martin), so she’s not going anywhere it seems.
It was so great to see future Nora againCecile deserves a less idiotic stepsonI guess the maturity level of the Frost-Chillblaine relationship makes sense given that Frost is basically a child, but that does not make it any less annoying. She is adorable though
When Chillblaine’s pellet exploded I totally thought it was a reveal that he had spiked her drink (combined with all the close-ups of his bartender mixing shots), which would’ve been really dark for the show’s current tone.
I think what they are going for with Frost and Chillblaine is a gender-flipped version of Cisco’s thing with Golden Glider, where she was both into him and playing him. (Cisco at the time was somewhat more innocent than he later became). Is it sexist that I think that worked a lot better when she did it?
Why did it take so long for the season to get good? Not a perfect episode by any means, especially the glaring “Oh Iris is home sick” lamp shading, but an army of Godspeeds is pretty good comic book-style plotting. Liked how the surgery subplot carried over from last week and justified the team hunkering down, and it was great to see Jessica Parker Kennedy again ahead of forthcoming appearances.
This wasn’t terrible. I liked the Nora-Dream, and at this point I’d rather have Speedsters than anything else (Thawne obviously being the best case scenario). The Frost storyline, by contrast, is just terrible. Frost works but I can’t stand the new guy. Hopefully he doesn’t stick around.
Man, this Godspeed episode was such a delight. One minute, you’ve got them on the run; the next, you’re on the run. One minute, you regain the upper hand; the next, a Godspeed clone figures out what you’re doing and has you back on the defensive. And just when all seems lost for you… out comes a feud like the one between the Green Goblin and the Hobgoblin:Perhaps if we could take the Kingpin’s advice and watch these Godspeeds destroy each other…
I can’t for the life for me remember what the deal with Godspeed even is. I remember he was in episodes before. Now there are 12 of him?
He’s a non-meta who is using technology to become a speedster, then started stealing Flash’s speed to give him permanent speedster abilities. Originally it was a regular dude, but then the androids started appearing out of nowhere.
I thought it was funny that each of these new Godspeeds is apparently well-built and favors bodysuits. Who said there’s no room for style in this universe?
Also, the original Godspeed, August Hart, was from Nora’s timeline in the future in season 5. Less clear where the Godspeeds with the garbled speech are coming from once they re-appeared in season 6.
Why did Chillblaine cockblock himself?As much as I enjoy hearing BD Wong’s voice, I like how alien the modem-speaking Godspeed clones are. The energy-sucking vortexes they beam out of their chests is a cool move. They’re like a more intimidating Putty Patrol.
Iris being absent for two episodes in a row is awkward.
Why did Chillblaine cockblock himself?I think they’re trying to make him a (male) Catwoman for Frost.
This season feels like it’s just stretching everything out until the 150th episode, and everyone knows that, showmakers and audiences alike.
I thought for sure that when Frost said she had a crush on a bartender a few weeks back, that she was referring to the Snake-eyeball Guy. I was hoping that Chillblaine was too obvious of a choice. Matthew Norvock (I had to look him up), to be fair, is still kind of a grungey pick for Frosty’s first boyfriend. But the guy showed up at her sentencing looking all teary-eyed. It would have been a surprise reveal – heck they might still do it – even though in the past the guy came off as kind-of a lunk-head henchman type. If I remember right, he took the meta-cure so he doesn’t have a snake in his eyeball anymore. It would be fun to reveal since he reformed his ways he’s been into Bukowski poetry and Frazetta artwork. Frost could hook-up with a guy like that. (I’m only projecting a little bit, seriously. Would Frost date a guy who watches The Flash every week? Probably not. She’d be into Mindhunter, though.)Meanwhile Chillblaine will continue to be a thing. I’m alright with the actor himself: he’s cut, he can do stunt work, he sells his borderline bad-guy vibe. There’s been plenty of CW actors who start out annoying but come around eventually. It’s just that everyone, me included, loves Frost & it feels almost cynical of the show to put her with a class-A douchebag right from the jump.
He teeters between “borderline bad guy” and “self-designated Fun Guy in your fantasy football league” somewhat haphazardly.
Caitlin operates on Ultraviolet, whom isn’t even meta-cuffed, in unsterile conditions. It feels like something was missing from that sequence. I was half expecting Esperanza to die as collateral damage from the Godspeed rampage & Allegra take up her mantle. Or if that’s too dark, that Allegra would’ve used her power to keep the medbay running until the surgery was successful.
Honestly I think Chillblaine ends up dead for Frost growth. Allegra you could have helped or even say you were protecting the surgery. I like that Chester doesn’t have powers but still helps and fights anyway he can.
Why is Barry getting so distraught over one negative pregnancy test? Did Iris use up all her eggs? Did his balls get destroyed in the fight with Godspeed? He’s acting like this was their one and only chance to get her pregnant. Can’t they just…try again?
Yes, but the vision of Nora made him think that this was the moment.
Yeah, but… that’s stupid. It wasn’t a vision, it was a dream.Barry is stupid.Also, I know people keeping secrets for no good reason is a common trope on this show, but seriously, WHY are Barry and Iris being so secretive about their attempts to have a baby?
Don’t have kids myself but I can appreciate that it’s a personal journey that can lead to…awkward conversations if you’re not ready to share, even when you’re not Chester running into two people trying to get it on. The show, as is the norm of late, just seems to handle all of it in very big, broad sitcom-style comedic strokes, instead of something more down-to-earth.
A lot of parents who choose to try to have a baby, especially their first, don’t tell anyone. They don’t want to get their friends’ and family’s expectations up so they’ll be asking “Are you pregnant yet?” over and over.Plus it’s devastating if they find out that they can’t conceive and would then have to go around and tell everyone that they can’t have a baby.This is similar to parents that get pregnant and then wait a few months to tell people. Newly pregnant women sometimes lose the baby early in the pregnancy, so they want to be sure everything is ok before telling everyone.And these are normal, real-world couples, not a couple where one of them has meta-DNA.Honestly, this was the most realistic part of the episode.
Making this even more awkward is the fact that Candice Patton doesn’t appear in the episode for the second week in a row, resulting in a lot of Barry calling to her offscreen or on the phone.It did start to come off as Barry having some kind of break and talking to his purely imaginary romantic partner. Now the case is your adoptive sister more or less likely that a supermodel crytozoologist going off to study iguanas.
“You’re going to be a great dad, Barry.”“Thank you, Cecille.”“Because your kids will be able to learn from all your many, many dunderheaded mistakes.”
Also, I can’t believe I forgot to mention this, but I had to laugh that the only door in STAR Labs that actually has a lock is the freaking bar.
How the hell did an episode about a possible pregnancy by Iris get out of production WITHOUT IRIS?!?! Candice Patton making a power play here or something? The actions of Team Flash toward the Godspeed robots confuse me- Why didn’t Chillblaine (gag me) and Frost use their ice powers in the fight? What was Allegra doing during the fight? Barry has seen other speedsters steal his speed temporarily- hell Barry Allen of Earth-90 did it to him. Why not actually try learning something and figure out that trick??All of that said, this was much better than the power of love crap they’ve been playing with this season.Also, is JOE WEST dead?
Man this show used to be so good. Now it’s a chore to watch
After Caitlin patches up Chillblaine, he struts around a bit when Frost walks in… and while adjusting his pants, he actually lowers them by a hair. Good grief, he has no fliting game, just Hemsworth muscles and perfect teeth.
Considering it employed my favorite trope, Villain Saves the Day, I should have been more into this episode. But it was just there. Godspeed/s would have to have actual personalities to make them saving the hero someone interesting.Joe had better not be dead. That is all.