Intergalactic Comics: The Flash Recap: Borrowing Problems from the Future

Thursday, January 26, 2017

The Flash Recap: Borrowing Problems from the Future

By: Ashley Binion (@ashleybinion)

The Flash returned from hiatus on a high note with “Borrowing Problems From the Future.” It had many of the traditional season one elements of humor and quality character interactions.

Warning: Spoilers ahead.

One of the biggest issues The Flash has encountered has been its lack of trust between the characters. When it was revealed that Iris would die at the hands of Savitar, I was convinced that Barry would keep that secret for a handful of episodes. I can’t tell you how thankful I was to be wrong. It is a little annoying that it took Barry a full month to tell Iris about her impending death, but at least he told her, and as an audience, we didn’t have to suffer through episodes upon episodes of Barry hiding it from Iris. But now he is hiding it from Joe. The series’ writers just can’t help themselves.

The Flash’s strength continues comes in the characters’ relationships with each other. I absolutely adored the cast’s interaction in the last act at the housewarming party. This is why the series was successful in season one, and the strong relationships that were explored and “Borrowing Problems From the Future” brought back those strong and heartwarming character moments.

Caitlin’s storyline continues to be the best of the season. We knew that Killer Frost returning was only a matter of time. There was no way that she could permanently keep her alter ego at bay, so when Barry was looking at the news scroll at the bottom of the TV, I was happy to see a sentence about Killer Frost returning.

Speaking of the news scroll, that was a very clever device to give the audience a taste of what is to come later in the season. Personally, I’m looking forward to the impending Gorilla Grodd episodes.

Wally as Kid Flash is coming into his own. There was a month time jump between this episode and the previous episode, so it’s no surprise that he has gotten better. However, finally watching him be capable was a pleasant surprise.

It’s been two seasons, but S.T.A.R. Labs finally has a purpose. At the beginning of the series, S.T.A.R. Labs’ usefulness as a place of employment was a point that I chose to ignore. However, this has been in the back of my mind for a long time and I’m glad that they have decided to make a plot point about it. It was fun to see Cisco and Hipster Harry disagree about the museum. I know that this was probably just a throwaway storyline, but now since it is a museum, they should exploit it somehow and make a longer storyline.

I’m pretty apathetic about Julian joining the team. Since Barry no longer works with him and you can’t get rid of Tom Felton, Julian joining Team Flash was the most obvious solution.