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Five Thoughts on The Flash’s “Liberation”

By | April 29th, 2020
Posted in Television | % Comments

Hi folks, welcome back to another recap of our favorite show, this week’s episode is named “Liberation” and damn! They are finishing the season with a bang! A row of great episodes! So, let’s dive right in!

1. “Oh, thank Elsa!”

Almost every episode has had two or three storylines, but this time what we could say was the “b plot” (on order of importance) seemed a little too short, my guess is that it had to be altered in some way due to the season ending early thanks to the quarantine.

This episode had what seemed one scene cut into two, Ralph and Cisco visit Caitlin to see how she is recovering from her last fight with one of Joseph Carver’s light based meta-goons, they discover that the entire room is frozen and she is in some kind of coma.

Latter, they managed to wake her up and she guesses that her body was reacting to the wound she had in an extreme way and she will need her mother’s help to fully recover and avoid entering into an “ice coma” again, and that’s it for this plot.

2. My cheesy show turned into a psychological thriller!

Now let’s focus on the main story, because it was A-MAZ-ING. The episode began with the team testing an artificial Speed Force but it failed, then, Cecile tries to make Barry and Iris talk to each other and they both reject the idea, Evil Iris ask Cecile to use her power in her to find what she is feeling, Cecile reacts a little baffled and tells her that she is feeling sadness, pretty generic for a ”tele-empathic” meta if you ask me.

Then, she arrives at her home and discovers Barry with the classic trope of a Crazy’s Chalkboard, all paranoid, and he reveals that he doesn’t believe Iris is the real version and he convinces her to go and look for evidence and then confront her. Eva secretly changed the “prismatic scanner” (the gizmo to discover a mirrored person) and Evil Iris manipulates Cecile and Nash Wells to trap Barry, a big setback to poor Barry… What a great little twist that makes everybody doubt of a paranoid person convinced that his wife is not his real wife, a problem worthy of a blockbuster psychological thriller!

3. The Long Game a.k.a. hunting Bloodwork

Meanwhile, Eva is about to finish her escape, but she needs one extra element to do so: a sample of Bloodwork’s blood, to be used as a biological bridge between the mirror and the regular universes, so, the evil versions of Singh, Kamilla and Iris go to the prison where he is being held and ask for his blood.

He senses something in Evil Iris that was being teased earlier in the episode: doubt, her “mother” Eva wants to be liberated, but she also wants to be free, be real, then Ramsey Rosso gives them the blood they need, but he returns to his prison, because he has a plan bigger than escaping at the moment, he is playing the long game.

I was very pleased with this story because, even if it could be a stretch that the most recent “main” villain is needed by the immediately next foe, it works for me because, a) it ties both halves of the season and b) it teases us that Bloodwork was not a “one and done” villain, he is coming back and we can only expect him to come with a big plan.

4. Evil Iris’ redemption

With Barry captured, Cecile is having serious second thoughts, she feels the truth on Barry and doesn’t quite trusts Iris, so, she liberates him and he goes running to confront Evil Iris, she reveals herself and turns her hands into swords, à la T-1000 and starts cutting Barry, then we have a juxtaposition, while Iris is confronting Eva about her being in love with her husband, Barry is confronting Evil Iris, telling her that she has showed that she can be a good person, so she “betrays” Eva’s will and liberates herself, literally exploding.

I was positively surprised by Evil Mirror Iris’ changed of heart, I tough that she was going to reveal herself as some kind of mirror monster and be destroyed on battle, but no, they decided to give a practically disposable character a story arc, and they DID dispose of her, but she died happy, and fulfilled, and that’s a great story worth telling.

Continued below

But that didn’t stop Eva, the bridge was already done and she comes out of her prison, she is clearly troubled, conflicted about hurting Barry but determined to kill her husband, so, she threatens Barry, he shouldn’t try to save Joseph Carver, especially given that he has no powers and could die, then he faints. I like that she is not an “all evil” villain, she is focusing on getting revenge for her husband taking her company and forgetting about her, her motivations are grounded and layered, she doesn’t want to be a villain for the sake of being evil, she just has a mission, I’m looking forward to the final confrontation with her.

5. Telling your feelings to the mirror

The cliffhanger scene at the end was also excellent, Barry wakes up and attempts to talk to the real Iris on the mirror, and her is doing the exact same thing, trying to reach him, and we have a very emotional moment when they tell one another (even when they cant hear each other) that they are going to do everything to finally meet again, and that’s great storytelling, Barry had problems with Evil Iris, and she proved the lack of love, but with the real Iris, they are willing to everything they can and more to get back together, that’s why their love story is so great.

BONUS: Speculating on the season finale

Well, there are only two episodes left, next week we will have an episode involving Goodspeed and the Pied Piper, for the former I hope they redeem the character, if you remember, I hated his first appearance and wished for a better story at the season premiere, and the latter I find interesting because he went good back on season two and now he seems to have gone back to his villainous path.

After that, we will have our season finale named after what the mirrored versions of the characters respond to Eva McCulloch’s orders. To be honest I am a little concerned that the season ends with an unresolved thread, now that it’s shortened, but I do hope they take vantage of that by doing a big cliffhanger and I hope they are allowed to use the remaining budget from unproduced episodes on the new season.

Well, that’s it for this episode, it was one of my favorites this season, a lot of tension even with little action scenes and a wonderfully emotional ending, it is great to see the creative team focused on the psychological conflicts, not only the physical ones. What did you think of this episode? Leave your comments below and join us next week for our take on episode 618, “Pay The Piper”.


//TAGS | The Flash

Ramon Piña

Lives in Monterrey, México. He eats tacos for a living, literally. You can say hi on Twitter and Instagram. Besides comics, he loves regular books and Baseball - "Viva Multiversity Cabr*nes!".

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