Hi folks! Welcome back to our weekly recap of The Flash. This week’s episode is named “Grodd Friended Me,” and I am all for seeing Grodd again, I very much enjoy this episode every season when Grodd comes and a big CGI-fight occurs, so let’s dive right in.
1. Getting to know a new earth
The episode began with Barry looking for something with a bouquet, when a meta alarm is set and he goes to save the day, when he arrives, the one who is committing the crime is Pied Piper, apparently, Team Flash did something epically wrong to him and he’s a villain again, I’m happy to see him back he’s one of the most important villains in Flash’s rogues gallery and last time we saw him was way back on season two!
Also, it doesn’t hurt that the storyline teased is very appealing, the world when kept moving and when they got back from the Crisis, our heroes are caught a little bit out of their element, the computer estimated 3.725 billion changes in the timeline and Barry doesn’t know how to deal with it.
2. The series’ diversity
When Barry was in action against Pied Piper, nobody of the original Team Flash was on STARLabs, Cisco’s off the grid cataloguing metas (although he will be back next episode!), Frost was visiting Rossmo on Argus because she is compassionate, Ralph is tracking Sue and Iris is evil. This gave Kamilla and Chester P. Runk, whom we saw last time a while ago, the opportunity to take the stage for a while.
But Barry is not processing well the changes in the post-Crisis world and all he wants is to have a normal day, so, he acts hostile towards Chester, directly telling him that he is not part of the team. Then, Chester fidgets with the comms and accidently provokes Barry’s connection with Grodd, which makes him feel bad and try to leave but Frost convinces him of staying and helping fix the problem, after all, they all put Barry’s life at risk at some point, it practically is a requisite to be part of the team.
I want to praise the showrunners here, they could have easily hire white folks for this roles, but they chose to have a Korean-American actress and a Black actor as the newest members, if you add the already diverse cast including of course Candice Patton, Carlos Valdes, Jesse L. Martin, and a whole lot more, you have one of the more diverse cast on TV, now, they have to keep working on developing more LGBT+ characters.
3. Good Grodd
The main plot of this episode was that Barry got trapped on Grodd’s Mindscape, he deliberately trapped the speedster on his mind to ask for his help escaping from his mind prison, but Barry is super hostile to Grodd, you know for being a hero that predicates on compassion, I didn’t like his attitude towards a Gorilla.
Grodd asks for help because, with a simplified mind thanks to the device they are using to control him, he had to confront the reality of his actions and admit to himself that he is guilty of being in that position and guilty of his own mistakes, but I think that his case was compelling, if you take superpowers from a human, he is still a human, but if you take an advanced mind from an animal, that’s cruelty.
Finally, Barry accepts Grodd’s plea for help and they freaking merged! So we have a fight between Grodd/Flash and the gatekeeper, a mind version of Solovar and I was fucking furious because they could have had Gorilla Grodd wearing The Flash’s uniform and they only painted a lighting in his chest! Come on they wasted a perfect opportunity!
Well, after my anger I enjoyed the story, I mean it was kinda predictable, they had to solve Solovar’s problem with a cool CGI-fight inside wile Chester had to fix something on time on the outside to separate the minds and avoid Barry’s death, of course everything was going to result all right, the important thing here is the redeeming of Grodd and Barry’s personal growth, the world is changing and there’s nothing he can do about it.
Continued below4. Keeping up Iris/Evil Iris
This season big storyline advanced a little in this episode, Evil Iris stole information of a case from Joe, meanwhile, Iris convinced Eva to build the device she was building in the regular earth and she shows Iris that she cannot escape out of the mirrored universe because she gets badly burned, and the big twist is that Eva is colluded with Evil Iris and they are taking advantage of Regular Iris.
5. Nash is confronted, twice
Finally, Nash, who is still seeing other Wellses, asked Allegra for help with a gizmo that explodes, and she discovers the photo of Nash with her doppelgänger and confronts him, at the end of the episodes he tries to apologize and explain himself to her, but one Wells takes him and tells him that “He is coming” while his eyes turn red, does that mean that Zoom is coming back? Why are the other Wellses messing with Nash? Was that on his mind or is it a real world threat? Damn, I want to say “let Zoom rest!” but I have to admit I am excited for what will happen!
BONUS: Keisha Hatchett did a very interesting interview/column for TV Guide where she praises the little details of black life that they have been adding to the show since Eric Wallace stepped up as showrunner. It was very enlightening to me and I encourage you to go read it.
And that’s it for this episode, if I have to be honest, it was a little predictable, but I enjoyed that Barry’s hostility changed towards Chester and Grodd, after all, the main character of the show still has a lot to learn. What did you think of this episode? Leave your comments below. Next Tuesday is Super Tuesday and everybody will be busy with the political news, I guess; so, both The Flash and Legends will be delayed a week, that means that we’ll meet back on March 10th for our take on episode 614, “Death of the Speed Force.”
