Last night’s episode of The Flash felt rushed storywise. It was acknowledged that Barry was forcing Zoom into confrontation long before he was ready, but it still felt odd as a viewer to see this dramatic moment in episode six. I still feel like there’s a lot of basic character development and relationship stuff they haven’t worked through and they should be using these early episodes to do that before things become extremely action-heavy.
The scene in which Zoom nearly kills Barry didn’t have the dramatic impact it should have because it all felt so oddly timed. However, Barry being paralyzed as a result is a potentially interesting development.
That said, this episode did have one major strength, which was the relationship between Iris and Linda. Their friendship and bond felt very organic and it was satisfying to see Iris understand why Linda refuses to just be a bystander after her own experience being left out of things last season.
They also elaborated more on Earth 2 Harrison’s daughter Jesse, who is clearly a version of Jesse Quick. All the Harrison flashbacks and the fact that they’re introducing yet another speedster were further examples of how weighed down this season is with more and more worldbuilding. I really want to see more scenes that return to the core of who Barry is and how his relationships with the other main characters are going.
The show managed to get in a couple of cute scenes between Barry and Patty in between all the action. They’re sweet together, but I still don’t understand how this relationship is expected to succeed when the issue that came up between Barry and Linda– that he’s in love with Iris– has in no way been resolved. It’s also frustrating to see Barry and Joe once again keeping someone out of the loop, especially when she’s on a task force to fight metahumans.