‘The Flash’ 7×07 recap: “Growing Pains”
The team deal with changing relationships and life situations
This episode of The Flash aired on 13 April 2021.
Finally for this season, The Flash has an episode that isn’t mind-bending or cliff-hanging or heart-wrenching. This was just a middle-of-the-road, good hour of entertainment.
Frost in the spotlight
Frost’s first reaction to finding out there’s a state-sanctioned manhunt for her? Change into a T-shirt that says ‘Freedom’.
Joe and Cecile convince Frost to stay in Star Labs until they ward of Kristen Kramer. Of course, someone throws a spanner in the works right after. There’s a new metahuman in town with icy powers, making it look like Frost has started murdering people and stealing tech. (Seriously, what is it with Central City and tech companies? Why does anyone even open their labs here when equipment always gets stolen and/or destroyed?)
Team Flash have to find this new meta to prove that Frost hasn’t actually become a Killer Frost. Frost goes to the old bar she worked at to get some intel. There, she meets a hunky bartender who points her towards a warehouse. There, she finds the empty delivery boxes for the stolen tech and no one.
Meanwhile, Kramer receives a tip-off and mobilizes the metahuman task force to arrest…Caitlin Snow. Luckily, since Frost and Caitlin split bodies, Caitlin no longer has the metahuman gene and should be easily cleared soon. However, Frost tries to break Caitlin out of CCPD by force. Cecile and Caitlin talk her out of it before she incriminates herself.
Fake metas and mistaken identity
Chester and Barry do some CSI work together and discover the dark matter at the crime scene was artificial. Meaning the murderer wasn’t actually a meta, just trying to make it look they were one. Learning this, Frost figures it out: it’s the hunky bartender.
Bartender was an ice scientist and obsessed with Frost’s powers. He stalked her and realises she and Caitlin were the same person (recent events notwithstanding). He was stealing back his own tech as the lab kicked him out for trying to replicate her powers with said tech. He’s now made these gauntlets for himself with similar icy powers and calls himself Chillblaine. (Because his last name is Blaine. Yeah, it’s not very creative, and the Flash rightly points out how disappointed Cisco would be.) Cue icy battle scene!
Chillblaine eventually grabs Frost behind and stabs her with an icicle. Frost couldn’t be arsed. She just extends the icicle until it stabs through the guy’s abs and all. And since he’s not a meta, he doesn’t have fast healing.
By that time, though, Kramer has surrounded the block. Frost decides to turn herself in and answer for her crimes, however long ago they may be.
The Flash and the Speed Force
Side plot was Barry being helluva awkward around the Speed Force. It seems that his powers glitch and cause him to run around uncontrollably whenever Speed Force Nora is in close proximity. Unfortunately, Speed Force Nora seems quite keen to help Barry out with his CSI work. It causes a few close calls with Kramer and nearly wipes their crime scene data. Luckily for Frost, that was only nearly.
Barry later confides with Iris how weird it is to have something that was once part of him now exist outside himself, walking and talking and being. A parallel vein can be drawn to Caitlin getting used to her split from Frost. At the end, he apologises to Nora for being standoffish. So I guess the look he gave at the end of last week was one of weird-outedness and not suspicion? Anyone still not entirely convinced by Speed Force Nora?
Other notes
Chester served as CCPD meta tech consultant this week because Cisco wanted to hang with Kamilla. Which begets the question, where’s Kamilla? We haven’t seen her since she came out of the mirrorverse. Did something happen with Victoria Park’s contract that I missed?
Oh, and here’s a reminder that Allegra has a criminal record. She was quite reticent about Frost turning herself in, having served in Iron Heights herself. Just another week where the American justice system gets some scrutiny.
It was nice to see more of Jesse L Martin this week. I enjoyed watching Joe play both sides, trying to help Frost while satisfying Kramer.
Did Grant Gustin fall ill during shooting? He looked a little worse for wear. Part of me wonders if the speed glitching and the Flash spending last episode in a coma was a retroactive write-in because Gustin had to take some time off.
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