Spoilers ahead!
The Flash gets a new villain of the week with Magenta, another one of Alchemy’s little creations from the other timeline. Before we meet her, Barry and Iris try to go on a normal date without all of the Flash business. Naturally that fails since there’s a robbery across the street and a call from Cisco. The emergency is that a breach has opened and they can’t close it. As it turns out, it’s just Harry and Jesse coming from Earth 2.
We first see Magenta as Frankie Kane, who has been in the foster system her whole life. Her foster father isn’t a great guy so Magenta takes over an puts a lamp post through the window and it puts him in the hospital. Essentially, Magenta is a split personality of Frankie’s and she’s annoyed that she hasn’t completely taken over. She expresses this to Alchemy and he isn’t much help.
Harry brought Jesse to Star Labs to run some tests and to try and get her to not use her powers. He comes around by the end of the episode and brings us another stand out performance. Tom Cavanagh has had to play so many variations on Harry Wells now and he’s done a fantastic job with each one. It’s comical when he knows right away that Barry time traveled again and everyone else is surprised at how quickly he figured it out.
Caitlin tried talking to her, but it didn’t go so well. It’s obvious she’s hiding her powers and she can’t hide them for much longer. Despite his initial frustration, Wells has a great moment with Jesse towards the end of the show when he accepts that she will use her speed to help save people. She also gets a suit to match.
Joe and Wally have their moments in the show, too. Joe plays “dad cop” and tries to tell Wally that he can help people without powers. However, throughout the whole episode he still wants his powers. He even steps in front of a truck and forces Jesse to save him.
Grant Gustin and Candice Patton don’t have quite the chemistry that I think he has with Emily Bett Rickards, who plays Felicity on Arrow, but it works. As Barry and Iris, they decide it’s best to not ignore the role that the Flash plays for both of them. This feels like a wise decision that will make things between them less strained as that first date was.
This show has done a great job with the new timeline. The characters have slightly changed, but powers aside, nothing is majorly different. Barry is living with the consequences of changing the timeline and Alchemy will continue to try to make him pay for that.
The addition of Tom Felton as Julian Albert has been an interesting one. At the end of this episode he acts a bit strange when they see footage of Alchemy killing Clariss. That leaves them with something to reveal about his character, and who knows, maybe he’s Alchemy.
Flashpoints:
- How will Jesse handle her speed and newfound responsibilities?
- When will Caitlin reveal her powers to the group?
- There are a lot of great scenes this episodes between the characters.
- Alchemy is still an intriguing villain, especially with the chance it could be someone Barry knows.
- Will Wally end up with powers?
