The Flash: “I Know Who You Are” Review

By: Ashley Binion (@ashleybinion)

Throughout this season on The Flash, the biggest mystery has been the identity of Savitar. Finally, with three episodes left in the season, the villain’s identity has been revealed.

Warning: Spoilers ahead.

Well, that was disappointing. After all of this time and the constant teasing of his identity, I expected something so much more from The Flash. It’s almost like the writers wrote themselves into a corner and didn’t know how to get themselves out. That is what separates this season of The Flash from this season of Arrow. From the beginning of the season, you could tell Arrow knew what type of story they were telling. Meanwhile, its little brother, The Flash, did not. Even though they showed a clip from earlier in the season where he says he’s Future Flash, I still don’t buy that they were building towards Barry being Savitar.

Halfway through the episode, it became obvious that a version of Barry was Savitar. There were so many clues that when it came to revealing the identity, it was no longer something I was looking forward to seeing. It’s ridiculous that it took forty minutes for the identity of the villain to be revealed. There is toying with the audience in a good way and there is just teasing the audience to be annoying. The Flash was doing it in an annoying way. As a result, the entire episode felt like filler to get to the reveal.

It’s hard to understand the decision to make Savitar Future Flash/Barry. There are so many other characters that would have been much more interesting from a storytelling perspective. Hopefully the next episode sheds some light on Barry’s motives for becoming Savitar.

Literally the only two things that saved this episode were Killer Frost and new character Tracy. The fact that Frost was flying through the air on an ice slide like Frozone from The Incredibles was the best thing to happen in the hour. Danielle Panabaker is bringing it. I do wish the show would let her full-on go there and actually kill someone. She needs to live up to her name of Killer Frost at some point or else the name is a joke.

I will give The Flash so much praise if they make Killer Frost the Big Bad next season. She would be an excellent villain because Team Flash would be so emotionally connected, akin to season one. We even saw a glimpse of this in “I Know Who You Are.” Cisco was having a difficult time shooting Caitlin because of their best friend connection. In reality, the series will probably wimp out and decide to cure her of her evilness by season’s end.

I think we can all agree that the evil speedsters need to permanently go away. It’s become the series’ major flaw. As is the rule with most superhero shows, the season is as only as good as its villain. With this logic, it’s no surprise that The Flash’s best season was its first with the Reverse Flash and Arrow’s best seasons have been its second and fifth.

What did you think about the big reveal?

Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

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