The Flash season 7 episode 9 aired on 11th May 2021.
Okay guys, I don’t know how I feel about this Forces thing. It’s not coming together really well for me? Maybe this has something to do with the fact that Team Flash was disconnected this week with all its members on different pages.
The Flash: Civil War
We pick off after Speed Force absorbed Barry’s lightning to super-blast Alexa. Alexa is seemingly dead. Barry and Iris confront Speed Force, who pegs the Forces’ existence on the couple. Barry states that he protects, not kills, and refuses to help Speed Force find the remaining forces. Speed Force vows to kill them anyway. Barry’s trust is shaken.
Barry decides to best way to save Deon and Psych from Speed Force’s wrath is to go back in time and stop their creation. One one hand, yay–it’s been a while since we had time travel on this show. On the other hand, there is A LOT of risk. Iris refuses to be part of the plan (rightly so).
A mad time-travelling plan requires a mad scientist. Barry travels to Starling City in 2000 to recruit Dr Harrison Wells, who is chilling in his beachfront home with his wife.
As the guys prep their materials, Deon shows up at Star Labs. He learns that Barry is the reason he got the Still Force when Barry is unaffected by his pausing time. Of course, Barry’s plan to stop him getting the Still Force angers him. He destroys their equipment…except Chester saved the crucial device: the tachyon enhancer (remember that thingamajib?)
Deon’s reappearance makes Cisco reconsider the plan. When Barry stands firm, Cisco too walks out.
“He doesn’t want to be saved by you, he just wants to be given the chance to be himself.”
Think of the children
Barry seeks Joe for a hallway (lounge) chat. Joe says Barry has to think of the Forces as “children” who can grow and change if you give them love. In a way, Barry and Iris are the Forces’ “parents”. I dunno, this angle is really weird to me. When I said I wanted to see WestAllen as parents I did not mean this.
Team Citizen: Ghostbusters
Earlier, Kamilla met Cisco and mentioned she got an opportunity in San Francisco. Sounds ominous, but we’ll file it aside for later.
Cisco modifies one of her cameras to detect the Forces’ isotopes, like a thermal-imaging camera. At work, Kamilla observes a concentration of energy within Iris. Iris figures that she and Barry are connected to the Forces because they summoned the lightning that night creating the artificial speed force.
Barry sees the Forces as separate entities from their human vessels, but Iris still sees Nora. She figures Speed Force would return to the place her vessel (Nora Sr) died: the old Allen house. Kamilla notices a really vintage car on the street. Uh oh.
Instead of Nora or Deon, however, it is Psych in the house. He tries to give Iris a nightmare, but she uses her connection to sense his presence and stop it. She says the Still FOrce is controlling the person that Psych was. “What makes you think I’m not in control?” Psych retorts.
Time travelling with a plus-one
Barry and Dr Harrison Wells travel back to the night of the artificial speed force creation. (Right, Harrison can time travel because of how he was brought back. He earns the nickname “Timeless Wells”.)
When they arrive on scene, episode 3 Harrison saw episode 9 Harrison and Barry. Hence the LOOK he gave.
Barry uses the tachyon enhancer to extract the Force particles from the lightning bolt. The Forces leave Deon, Alexa, and Psych in the present. Back in that episode 3 moment, however the Forces are still created. Their emission from the lightning was apparently so pretty that Barry couldn’t bring himself to destroy them. So Barry smashes the tachyon and re-releases the particles. The FOrces return to their human vessels.
Well, that was anticlimactic. At least there definitely won’t be another Flashpoint.
Bring your child to life day
Barry and Iris make up. They discover they can revive Alexa with their connection to the Forces. They bring their hands close together. A spark flashes between them, like it did in The Flash season 1 and just 6 episodes ago. The lightning jolts Alexa back to life like some crazy electro fibrillator.
Harrison tells Cisco to “follow his heart” (then glances at Kamilla) and that he taught the Wellses as much as or more than they taught him. After he leaves, Cisco and Kamilla admit to each other that they’re considering leaving Central City.
UGH. I’ve had a sneaking suspicion that Cisco might be leaving since last season. Why?!
And now we return to the cliff-hanging final scenes that The Flash just loves. Nora finds Deon and vibrates her hand in front of him.
Timeless but not Classic
This episode was a downer for me. Barry felt very out-of-character. Just last week we recalled that the metahuman cure should be taken voluntarily and not forced. Yet wasn’t Barry’s plan forcing a “force cure” on Deon and Psych?
The argument with Iris also felt really engineered. She’s always been the more streetwise and cynical one in the relationship while Barry is more hopeful and optimistic. So it felt unnatural having her as the one still trying to connect to Nora as a person while Barry sees the Speed Force masquerading in a human shape.
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