It was a long hiatus for THE FLASH, but our favorite speedster returned to our screens last night, following through with the events of the winter finale back in early December. Although it wasn’t the best episode ever, “Potential Energy” was a very solid episode that served to establish several plot points we are most likely going to see unfold in the second half of season 2.
Even though the winter finale didn’t really end in a huge cliffhanger, we dove into those storylines pretty quickly last night. The last time we had seen our heroes, they were celebrating Christmas and Wally had just shown up at Joe’s house. So we pick up pretty much right where we left off, but it seems like Wally doesn’t really want anything to do with Joe and Iris – even though poor Joe is trying really hard to be super dad and make up for lost time. They talk Wally into having dinner, but the kid stands them up and Joe is really upset about it. I felt so bad for him. After all, it wasn’t his fault that he didn’t know he had a son and that Wally had to grow up without a father.
What came as a surprise, though, is that Wally is into illegal car racing and when Joe catches him in the act, he says it is the only way he can pay for his mom’s hospital bills. Okay, Wally, maybe you’re not the piece of crap I thought you were when the episode started. But you should at least give your old man a chance, kid. It wasn’t his fault.
Meanwhile, Barry has been having nightmares and he won’t talk to Patty about them, especially because they’re about Zoom killing her, and he hasn’t exactly told her he is the city’s superhero. So she goes to Iris about it, and the reporter tries to reassure her that Barry has a knack for carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders, but that they should just talk about it and everything would work out in the end, because Barry really cares for her. After that, she confesses to Barry that she talked to Patty and tells him that if he really is serious about pursuing a relationship with the young detective, then he should come clean about being the Flash.
Barry decides to go for it, but things go sideways when they face a metahuman that Cisco calls the Turtle, who has the power to slow down everything around him. They try to catch him at an event – which Barry takes Patty as his date – and all hell breaks lose when Patty sees the Turtle trying to steal a painting and tries to stop him. He slows everything down and drops a chandelier on Patty, but Barry manages to save her at the last second and gets hit instead. But he did so as the Flash, so to Patty, it seems like he just disappeared, so she thinks he ditched her and she’s very pissed. With good reason too.
He wants to tell her the truth, though, and he goes after her, but she gives him an ultimatum. He needs to figure out what he wants. And then the Turtle kidnaps her, because she is important to the Flash. Barry manages to save her and he is all up for telling her that he is the Flash, but she tells him she’s leaving town. I doubt this is the last we see of Detective Spivot, though. I have no idea how she hasn’t put two and two together yet. When he rescued her, he didn’t even disguise his voice. She’s got to be at least a little bit suspicious and I really hope she finds out who Barry really is sooner, rather than later.
Meanwhile, Cisco and Harry are working on something to slow Zoom down, which makes the Turtle an excellent candidate for Harry to experiment on, as we saw in the end. I wonder what exactly he did to the guy – extracted genetic material, maybe? – and if that is how they are going to go after Zoom next.
Also, Caitlin finds out Jay is sick and the only way to cure him is to get his speed back. Could this be the start of his arc, finally? I still don’t really like what they are doing with Jay and I just really don’t like he and Caitlin together because there’s absolutely no chemistry there, no spark, nothing. It just doesn’t work for me at all.
And last, but most definitely not least, what was that last scene? What the hell was that? Is that Reverse Flash from Earth-2? Or is it our Reverse Flash and he travelled in time? Was that even present time? What is going on in this show?
I am so confused. But yeah, I can’t wait to see what happens next.
An all new episode of THE FLASH will air on January 26 at 8/7c on The CW.