The Flash family expands as Bart Allen suddenly exists
The much-missed Jessica Parker Kennedy and John Wesley Shipp speed to the rescue
TV Reviews Bart Allen
“Heart Of The Matter, Part 1" is another busy episode, but it’s more streamlined than the past couple have been. The focus is on the ever-expanding Allen family, with Barry and Iris meeting the latest timeline’s version of their future children, Nora and Bart. Fortunately, Nora is still played by Jessica Parker Kennedy, while Jordan Fisher’s take on Bart is reminiscent of the Ezra Miller version of the Flash from the movies. (For a portion of the audience that probably means he’s super-annoying, but he didn’t grate on me as I was half-expecting him to.) If their presence along with a dozen Godspeed clones wasn’t enough to make this the most speedster-saturated episode ever (it is the 150th, after all), John Wesley Shipp is on hand as Jay Garrick, whose powers have been restored with the rebirth of the Speed Force.
The result is one of the stronger episodes of this seventh season, though not without its flaws. Nora and Bart (a.k.a. Impulse) have arrived in the present by chasing August Heart to the Flash Museum in 2049 and following him onto the cosmic treadmill. The version of August Heart in the present day has no memory or powers, but his dozen Godspeed clones are still causing havoc in the city. Chester has a plan to stop them using his father’s solar encryption engine, but he needs Allegra to power it up and doesn’t know why she’s moping around STAR Labs unable to conjure up the energy he needs.
Barry’s impulsive decision to power up the device with his lightning backfires when he ends up infusing the Godspeeds with a fresh dose of Speed Force. When Nora gets hurt and Bart admits that August Heart is his version of Thawne in the future, Barry goes full Speed Dad and forbids the kids from helping him in the field. He still needs backup, which the re-powered Jay Garrick is ready to supply, but he’s ambushed by Godspeed clones setting a trap for Bart. It seems Uncle Jay is Bart’s primary mentor, who he’s already seen killed in front of him once. This spurs a soliloquy from Barry about the curse of the Allen family and how they’re doomed to witness their loved ones dying before their eyes, which…I mean, he may have a point there.
Living up to his moniker, Impulse zips off to rescue Jay once Chester is able to determine his location and ends up getting zapped by multiple Godspeeds for his trouble. Barry and Nora race to the rescue, but they appear to be overpowered until Cisco shows up in full Mecha-Vibe gear and zaps the Godspeeds. (This was a pleasant surprise, as the CW usually reveals these guest appearances ahead of time, but if news of Carlos Valdes returning for the finale leaked, I missed it.)
With Bart in a coma and no more speedsters in reserve (Wally is evidently somewhere on the astral plane), how to defeat the Godspeed clones? Project Barry’s consciousness into the mind of the amnesiac August Heart so that he can come face-to-face with the real Godspeed. In this mindscape, Barry finds the real Heart awaiting him on a throne, but their showdown will have to wait for next week.
It’s an effective set-up for the finale, even if the return of Iris is as baffling as her initial disappearance was. (It really feels like something the writers scrambled for at the last minute based on Candice Patton’s availability.) If nothing else, we learn that the Allen family penchant for pep talks has not skipped a generation. The ongoing subplots are less effective, however. At least Allegra’s angst over her cousin’s death ties into the main storyline via her inability to generate any energy but ultraviolet light. The side quest of Joe West and Kristen Kramer, however, feels more irrelevant with each passing week. Joe is bothered by Kramer’s unwillingness to confront the fact that Adam said he watched her die, but it’s hard to see how much further this can be developed given that there’s only an hour left in the season. Their only tie-in to the main storyline is seeing a line of cars leaving Central City, followed by a pair of Godspeeds fighting it out on their car hood.
With this truncated season, it feels like we’ve gotten a half-dozen episodes squeezed into these last three. The irony, of course, is that earlier seasons stretched their Big Bad arcs over too many episodes. Somewhere in the Speed Force, there must be a happy medium.
Stray observations
- The wisdom of Jay Garrick: “Sometimes you have to take your hat off.”
- Sadly, I will be on vacation and off the grid when the season finale airs next week, but you’ll be in the capable hands of Jarrod Jones for part two of “Heart Of The Matter.”
55 Comments
Ooh, new abilities.Wait, are they not twins?How did Cecille know that his name was Bart?The lightning bolts on Bart’s uniform both face the same way.That sucks. One of the big things that I was really waiting for when Nora returned was Iris seeing that she existed again.So they know about the other Nora.Did Godspeed kill Barry or Iris? (Ah, it’s Jay.)So this Jay Garrick is still the Flash of Earth-3. I had seen speculation that he might be the JSA Flash of Earth-2.Still no to Chester and Allegra.FROST SHOWS UP! Why don’t you just keep pouring it on?When Chestra put his hand on Allegra’s arm was so cringe.Wait, Jay and Nora are of Earth-1? That doesn’t make any sense. Are they supposed to be the twins of Barry’s parents?Hey, Barry. Why don’t you just give them a pep talk.Is this Kramer storyline going anywhere?“That was close.” After you pulled in front of him when he was in a different land than you.I would like Nora to hit on Allegra.Aside from most of the XS/Impulse stuff, I found this episode to be pretty “Meh”. (I saw somebody mention that the best part of this episode was the absolute absence of Chillblaine.)
Wait, Jay and Nora are of Earth-1? That doesn’t make any sense. Are they supposed to be the twins of Barry’s parents?Yeah I don’t believe we’ve seen Jay and his wife (Joan, not Nora) post-Crisis. I think we’re just supposed to accept that Crisis merged them over and Team Flash is aware, and if there ever was a question of why they look like Barry’s parents just to hand wave it because Barry’s parents are deeeaaaad.Not sure what this means for JWS showing up in Stargirl, since he’s supposedly playing the same Jay Garrick (and not just another version of Jay Garrick).
It’s earth three Jay garrick. Earth 2 was just straight up destroyed and never got reborn.
No, the Jay Garrick Flash of Stargirl on Earth-2.
It’s insane that we’re debating this because the show couldn’t take a moment to even have Barry ask how the hell Jay Garrick is 1) alive and 2) on Earth 1. Just so, so lazy and rushed. It’s like Crisis never even happened.
Jessica Parker Kennedy as Nora is so schwayI am reminded of the notes Marge put in Lisa & Bart’s lunchboxes. Nora: I am very proud of you. Love, momBart: Be good. For the love of god, please be good
They’re even both named Bart
Any Flash episode that brings back the mind-meld helmets and the MFing Jumper Cables (!!) automatically goes up one letter grade in my book.
You put John Wesley Shipp in that classic Flash helmet, you START at a B+ for me
At this point, the show’s wheeled out so many different ways to put someone’s mind into another person that I don’t even recognise the story-of-the-week that they came from originally. Lately it seems like the show is leaning heavily on “wait don’t we have that gadget that we used one time to do the thing, let’s just remodulate the neural reflector pathways and it can help us!” as a plot device, and it’s getting to the point where they could probably just make something up and it wouldn’t even matter. The continuity of the show (and its universe) is so malleable since Crisis that keeping it all straight is impossible anyway.
Godspeed isn’t Bart’s Thawne. He is, in fact, Bart’s Zoloman. How do I know? Barry never got to see Thawne murder Nora as a kid, but he was forced to stand helpless and watch as Zoom kill Henry (the doppelganger of Jay Garrick):Did Bart want to kill Godspeed after that? We can only use educated guesswork.Speaking of Thawne, I have this sneaky feeling that he’s secretly behind this war. After all, what’s a season of The Flash without the reverse?
Seeing Allegra act that way in this episode made me think of what happened after Kylo Ren killed his own dad. Having the only family she had left die horribly in her arms really “split [her] spirit to the bone.” Hence, she is now “unbalanced”, unable to help Team Flash in any way right now.So what will it take to replace conflict with resolve and weakness with strength?
I am watching this season to see on how they dealt and adapted this show due to the pandemic. I guess good on them for making the effort, but I personally feel it didn’t pay off no matter how the last episode turns out. Last season I skipped forward half the episodes, this season I’ve skipped forward most of the episodes. This show may have been renewed, but I feel it wouldn’t be terrible if they decide season 8 will be it’s last. As for this episode, I’m glad the reviewer liked it enough. I gave it a shot and now can knock on it. Jordan Fisher’s take on Bart is reminiscent of the Ezra Miller version of the Flash from the movies. (For a portion of the audience that probably means he’s super-annoying, but he didn’t grate on me as I was half-expecting him to.)Sadly I am part of that portion. I can’t say Jordan Fisher is a lousy actor, but I feel his acting for this role was bad, but not the Adam West’s Batman fun kind of bad. Just not worth watching his portrayal of Bart. His happy go lucky and crying performances came off equal to or lesser than an casting audition video/middle school acting performance.They tried to portray Godspeed as the menacing future Big Bad as Thawne was to Barry. I don’t know how much the pandemic schedule and shooting delays and reschedules can be blamed but the execution of Godspeed and this storyline just came off more as filler than an arc. The concept of the internal conflict between Barry and Thawne took a whole season to organically grow with well written scenes and performances by the actors. It was well received. However they tried to sum up the tragic and menacing conflict between Godspeed and Bart in a couple of minutes. They kept throwing Thawne’s name as a signal flare for people to really get how tragic Bart’s conflict is with Godspeed and how wickedly evil Godspeed is. It just felt like filler. As for Godspeed’s portrayal on this show. In the previous seasons he was just a throwaway speedster in spandex. This season he’s even more now than ever looking like a bunch of guys in a Power Ranger cosplay convention all dressed as the White Ranger. In fact all his dialogue sound like someone just stole the English dubbed lines from a Power Rangers villain. I really liked seeing “Uncle Jay”, but that one line he had…“Come on Flash, let’s give ‘em heck.” I mean, careful CW. You’re pushing that TV-PG rating. And as for Iris. I’m not familiar with the Candice Patton’s story of her complaints about the show, but I just assumed her sudden disappearance and awkward cameos up until her strange return to this episode was more related to the Covid shut down. That some people on the crew got it, and maybe she was in close contact with one of them and had to be removed from schedule and quarantine as a precaution. This episode as well as the show is more cheese now. The first few seasons tried to balance the campiness and the darker tones with some hits and misses. But these last couple of seasons it feels like they’re just trying to recreate that weird cheesy fun Legends of Tomorrow vibe. They got the cheesiness part down. Definitely got the saturday morning kids show thing going on many episodes. But unlike Legends of Tomorrow, it’s just lousy results on the whole and not so much popcorn silly fun.
I thought when Godspeeds voice got lower and distorted they would reveal it was Thawne in his body especially since they kept name dropping him
The most I’ve seen of Candace was her on a live stream and being very adamant about not being asked any Flash questions.
With this truncated season, it feels like we’ve gotten a half-dozen episodes squeezed into these last three.It really does feel like we’re missing at least one episode’s worth of story somewhere between this one and the last one, where Barry and Iris acclimate to Nora’s return and get used to Bart before the Godspeed crisis really ramps up. Also maybe where we see Bart interact with Jay Garrick and develop that bond a bit before the reveal that Jay’s destined to die. And yeah, Iris abruptly returning with a “Oh I’m up to speed, saw everything in the still force” felt very much like a writer’s shorthand. Not sure why but Iris also feels kind of subdued, like Candice Patton was getting back into the swing of things.I’m glad they cleared up that this version of Nora’s not the same from season 5, just a “close enough” version similar to how Loki was caught up on his other life via cliff notes.The Godspeed effects (the sonic rings) may be some of the worst VFX I’ve seen on this show. Partially because all the Godspeeds do is stand there thrusting their chests out. There’s also at least one really bad shot of Bart in close-up where its obvious he’s just swinging his arms while standing still.
I enjoyed this one. I think we already knew that Cisco was back for the finale, and I’m really hoping Thawne comes back next week, for basically Cavanaugh’s grand farewell.
i thought they would reveal Thawne was in August body calling himself godspeed since they kept mentioning his name and Thawne was trying to steal Barry’s speed
Places named after comic creators are a standard feature on these shows, but Zauriel Cathedral on Morrison Avenue might be the best one yet.
Yeah that was a nice nod.
Did we know that Jay Garrick exists on Earth Prime? Does the phrase “Wally West is in deep meditation, handling unrest on the psychic plane” make sense? Is being told that a new character is another new character’s version of Thawne an effective way to rise the stakes?
After Wally stopped being a regular, he’s been consistently shown studying under Buddhist monks and meditating a lot.
No, kinda, and hell no.
Betteridge’s law in full effect here. I think you’re asking the right questions though.
I’m exhausted just thinking about all the lazy writing devices and tropes we’re getting tossed now. I’ve said it before, but it really bears repeating tonight: The Flash’s tail is wagging its dog. Even if behind-the-scenes drama isn’t actually motivating half the stuff we’re seeing onscreen, the clumsy writing still makes it feel that way.The other half’s nothing to write home about either. This is careless, by-the-numbers screenwriting that’s completely given up on trying to be clever or responsible about the beats it’s laying out. I can practically hear a Justin Roiland character halfheartedly dunking on the whole enterprise.And then there’s the double whammy of Joe’s side quest and the main plot feeling like they’re only halfway finished, just in time for the season finale. Oy vey.
I do give them partial credit for bringing Cisco back like two episodes after his big farewell. That’s not a David/Costanza maneuver like I’d hoped, but hey, it’s something. It’s a soupcon of absurdity befitting a character who’s been flirting with departure literally for years. It’s right up there with his ultimate motivation coming from a nightmare about never moving on… which he resolves by micro-pivoting to a new job with a morally greyer organization doing the exact same shit, but, I dunno, I guess with a formal job title that sounds impressive?
Ever since we first saw him in the JL trailer, I’ve been saying Ezra Miller’s Barry is basically Bart. It got really irritating when people kept saying he was basically Wally, which never acts anything like that.
Barry is a boring hayseed, Wally is a jovial hero, Bart has crippling ADHD. Jay also exists.Yeah, Ezra as Bart checks out.
Grant’s Barry at his best is basically Wally. Barry desperately needs a better writer and run in the comics. He hasn’t had a good one since he returned.
For me Barry should be like Earth’s mightest heroes Hank pym before yellowjacket. Smart, capable, and wanting to take the path of least violence but is able to bring the heat if needed. Barry is interesting if he is given time to get to know him
It’s actually kind of funny what a disasterous mess the current Flash is as it was pretty clear this is where things were going to head when Johns decided to bring back Barry.What makes it even more amusing is that everytime I read Flash in the Justice League comics currently, it feels blatant that the writers want to use Wally instead of Barry.
Barry Allen is only interesting as a corpse that Wally West, THE Flash, is metaphorically racing against.
I hadn’t really thought about it, but now that you mention it, yeah Miller’s Barry is really a lot like Bart. Although hadn’t seen the comparisons to Wally which feel really weird as that version was pretty far from Wally.This is kind of broadly speaking, but I think the core problem is that Barry is ultimately a very bland character, which is fair as he is a Silver Age creation when they were all like that. So whenever there are versions that show some personality, the comparison is almost instinctually to Wally who had a pretty rich personality.
Cisco references Time Trapper in relation to the entropy trap, but he hasn’t appeared in the Beeboverse yet. I guess he could’ve been part of the new Post-Crisis continuity offscreen, but it’s odd to just namedrop a major LOSH foe like that.
It’s kind of weird to have Not-Barry’s-Parents still around. (So why didn’t Barry wish Jesse Quick back into existence too?) Bart bonds with Uncle Jay in the future because he encourages his impulsiveness, which doesn’t track with any of the advice Jay had given Barry.
This is the type of situation where it’d be permissible to interrupt Wally’s meditation retreat!
Godspeed’s amnesia is the most distinct characterization this speedster cipher has received. Rick Wasserman isn’t a worthy substitute for BD Wong’s voice.
While everybody else gets arcs this season, Iris is basically limited to being the mother of Barry’s metaphorical & actual children.
They should have used crisis to recast Wally
Time Trapper was referenced by Diggle in his episode, so it’s the second reference. I wasn’t sure if there was anything else I was forgetting, so I checked out the Fandom wiki. Time Trapper also appeared in a novel based on the CW-verse that came out earlier this year.
We’re supposed to read the tie-in novels now too?https://arrow.fandom.com/wiki/The_Flash:_The_Legends_of_Forever
Honestly The flash needs to slow down a bit and develop Bart. Develop the so called relationship between Bart and Jay because it’s very weak. The pacing is just so fast that the actions and characters just doesn’t stick. When Nora came she got a full season and Nora was great as a result of it. Bart gets what two episodes.
Also wasn’t the point of crisis that the universes were even more separated making it harder to cross over into the other universes but now they seem to be doing easier than ever
What happened to Blood Work in the last season he let his blood out saying he was biding his time is he going to do anything or just wait until season 8
He got defeated just before Crisis. He’s in Iron Heights.
I am going to be a bummer, and I apologize.I don’t ordinarily watch “The Flash”. I had it on because I couldn’t remember whether “Superman and Lois” airs at 8 or at 9. But okay, there’s someone in an XS costume, and there’s someone in an Impulse costume, and they’re fighting a bunch of Power Rangers bad guys.I just … I mean … has anyone looked at this show with fresh eyes? I guess I’m not seeing how anyone would be writing the show and saying, “now THIS is a story I can be proud of”. That’s mean of me to say, and maybe the problem is entirely on my end. But when the story is “our guys have limitless speed but the other guys have limitless speed too except theirs is more limitlesser but somehow our guys will get even more limitlesser still” … I could be watching a show about sit-up champions and get as much out of it.Part of my problem may be that I know the source material a little too well: I have a sense of how things have been done well in the comics, and at least last night I didn’t see things being done all that well. Different isn’t necessarily bad, but if you’re going to set off in a different direction, at least make it good.Let’s talk Bart. Back in the 90s, I had probably every major Impulse appearance, from his introduction through his own title through “Young Justice”. So I’ve got opinions on how Bart should be if he’s going to be appealing at all. And … this show doesn’t seem to get it. Bart shouldn’t be a cocky kid, so much as a kid who doesn’t fully grasp the consequences of his powers. He doesn’t quite understand 20th (now 21st) century life, his powers let him approach life from odd angles, but he has neither an ego nor a mean bone in his body. And he’s not a haunted character with secrets, just a kid who likes to be helpful and is delighted that life is so full of things to do. Now it’s possible to do an alternate take on a character, and that’s fine … but is it an improvement?Ditto with XS. In the comics, like Bart she was from the future, and she clicked with Bart (for the brief period she was around) because they were the only two people who got each other. They had a sweet and unguarded rapport. She was only in the “Impulse” comic for a few issues, so fair enough, if she’s going to be a series semi-regular they need to come up with a new angle for her … but if my brief exposure to TV’s XS is any guide, her deal seems to be not a whole lot deeper than, “I’m from the future and I hint at my future knowledge”.Maybe I just happened to drop into a bad episode, or I was in a bad mood, or something. But I’m just not getting it.
While this is an alternate version, XS was in the entirety of Season 5, which is why she doesn’t get a lot of focus here compared to Bart. They even emphasize that early in the episode when everyone’s eating Chinese.
Also, the Arrowverse has ALWAYS done their own interpretation of the various comic heroes, regardless of the comic versions. After all, Nora and Bart are Barry’s grandkids in the comics, while they’re his direct children in the show. There’s also, just in The Flash alone, Killer Frost being a superpowered evil side of Caitlin Snow, Savitar being an Evil Barry from the future, and Wells, who was a villain in the comics/Superfriends but is not only a good guy, but has many, many alternate universe variations, including Pariah from Crisis on Infinite Earths.
Just to note, one of the writers confirmed that Jay & Joan are from Earth-3, but got plopped into Earth-Prime via Crisis.
If only they had confirmed that on the show, for you know…the people who just watch it
Palpatine-being-brought-back-in-Fortnite-ass-shit
Yayy Nora’s back. Does that mean we can start shouting “GIVE NORA A GIRLFRIEND” again?Should have given her and Killer Frost a relationship. Would have been interesting to see how they went with a split persona with one side being gay.
This was the first episode of the season I genuinely enjoyed. I like the more mature grown up Nora. I loved the scene of her and Bart eating and acting like siblings.
Not sure what was up with Candace’s availability but I am glad she back. Barry yelling up the stairs with no reply was starting to grate on me. Did anyone on that show ever hear of dubbing in a recorded voice? There must be some show over the course of the years where Iris says “OK” or “See you later” that they could have pulled audio from.
Not sure what was up with Candace’s availability but I am glad she back.
Barry yelling up the stairs with no reply was starting to grate on me.
Her absence was very conspicuous, especially since they kept saying “She’s just upstairs, she’s sick” several episodes in a row.
Did anyone on that show ever hear of dubbing in a recorded voice? There
must be some show over the course of the years where Iris says “OK” or
“See you later” that they could have pulled audio from.
I think that would’ve been even worse. Constantly referring to her, not showing her onscreen at all and throwing in ADR old dialogue as ‘proof’ that she’s there would’ve just been bad.
This show has no idea what it’s doing or what it wants to do. I’ve watched every episode this season, and I just don’t care about anything that’s happening on the show. I’ve been saying for years that these seasons are way too long at 20+ episodes. How have ‘regular’ shows not learned from cable shows yet?
Personally I found Jordan Fisher work way way way less annoying than Ezra Miller’s. His Bart is pitch-perfect.
Soooo. Did we already KNOW Jay and Joan were still alive? the implication seems to be that they ended up on Earth Prime after crisis, I’m guessing that because their counterparts (Barry’s parents) were already dead, the “no doppelgangers rule” wouldn’t apply. So i’m not too upset that they are here. I’m just confused if we were supposed to know that already or not. NO ONE mentions crisis. And Iris can apparently just PHONE Jay and Joan? (bit of a plot hole considering the Godspeeds were supposed to be blocking electric signals, hence why Joe and Kramer couldn’t call for help)
Writing for flash has declined since season 2. This show used to be so good
Watching Godspeed fight is so bad. Watching these two guys in suit slowly punch each other is the opposite of exciting. You get way more out of the average fight in Power Rangers than anything here.
I really found myself enjoying this episode. I guess Jessica Parker Kennedy can make anything spectacular.
That look on Jay’s face after Nora said August always goes after the people they love most melted my icy heart.