The Flash "Power Outage" Review: Secrets in the Dark

The Flash S01E07: "Power Outage"

So. Harrison Wells.

Harrison is an original creation of The Flash as a CW television show, a mystery to Flash comic book aficionados and lovers of bowling alley lawyers alike. He appears to be a time-traveler from the future, and he has a very intense and dangerous interest in making sure that Barry not only became the Flash but also, as we saw in "Power Outage," remained the Flash. Is he the man in the yellow suit who killed Nora years ago and threatened Joe last week? I don't think he is—though I've arrived at a slightly silly theory regarding the identity of the flaxen felon. However, the point is that he could be. He's putting on a show with regard to needing a wheelchair, and you can't really trust a guy who pretends to need to a wheelchair.

We already knew that Harrison was ruthless based on his surprise stabbing of Simon Stagg and his manipulation of Bette Sans Souci in an effort to kill General Eiling, but now Barry has gotten a sense of the lengths to which Harrison will go to make sure his future remains in place, and Barry's not particularly thrilled with that.

Harrison's decision to free the imprisoned Tony Woodward in exchange for Tony killing Farooq (Michael Reventar) was one of those supervillain-esque plans that results in something of a no-lose situation. Either Tony killed Farooq, thus eliminating a threat to S.T.A.R Labs and Barry, or Tony would buy the team enough time to get Barry's power back. If the former had worked out, it's easy enough to imagine that Harrison would've had some trick up his sleeve for containing or killing Tony himself. Instead, the latter was the result, and Tony ended up dead.

So began Barry Allen's education in the sacrifices that must be made for him to do what he does. One of the perks of Barry's superspeed is that he doesn't typically have to choose between who to sacrifice and who to save, because it's very likely he can save both. This has made him a little arrogant, as Harrison noted, but it also means that Barry thinks he can fix everything without anyone ever getting hurt. Sans speed, Barry believed he could talk Farooq off his particular ledge through the power of empathy.

But empathy isn't always enough, and sacrifices will have to be made at some point, sacrifices that Harrison made without a second thought. Harrison values his future more than he values human life (his memory of the names of the dead aside), and he wasn't lying to Barry when he said he cared about Barry, so whatever Harrison has to do to save any given day is what he'll do. Barry and Harrison's confrontation over Tony's death was EXACTLY what The Flash needed: a situation where Barry's optimism could be pierced by Harrison's increasingly sharper edges. It's an ideological conflict that I don't think will surface all the time—and nor should it!—but one that will likely continue to simmer all the same.

I'm rather glad that "Power Outage" aired just before The Flash and Arrow's big two-part crossover. The Flash has differentiated itself from its parent show by being brighter and lighter in terms of tone, aesthetics, and characters' attitudes toward the world and their crime-fighting, but "Power Outage" was its darkest episode to date, and not just because Farooq caused a city-wide blackout. Make no mistake, though: The Flash's darker lighting this week matched its darker tone, giving it an Arrow-esque quality, complete with the latter's concern over lines that cannot be crossed. I can't wait to see Barry out in the field with Oliver Queen, where he'll inevitably get another taste of a mentor figure going further than Barry is willing to go.

While the Harrison aspect of "Power Outage" worked very well for me, the rest of the story surrounding it wasn't anywhere near as interesting. I'm not familiar with Farooq from the comics—I didn't read the Flashpoint storyline where he was featured—so he fell into the show's habit of presenting generally personality-free villains looking for a bit of revenge. Reventar managed to inject a bit of sadness into Farooq's existence as an energy vampire, and I liked the detail about his friends dying as a result of attempting to save him, but on the whole, there wasn't much to him beyond the splashy electricity special effects and the low-key but effective make-up and prosthetics.

With Farooq falling through that particular Freak of the Week crack, Barry getting the yips after the team managed to restore his powers worked... just okay. It was a nice episode-based arc to illustrate that Barry has come to rely on and define himself by his powers, and to show us how he struggled to define himself without them. This was especially nice after he suggested to Tony last week that the powers they gained from the particle accelerator not only gave them abilities, but also that those abilities ended up enhancing their core personalities. Muddying this particular plot, however, was the oh-so-very-shoehorned-in bit about Barry trying to convince Caitlin to believe in him. I'm not sure where that character cul-de-sac came from or why it was there, except to remind us that Caitlin still isn't completely sold on this whole metahuman crime-fighting endeavor.

I might've been cooler with the Caitlin aspect of Barry's yips if it'd been given more time, but instead we got a hostage situation at the police precinct instigated by Arrow's Clock King (Robert Knepper, still having as much as fun with the role as he did when he appeared on Arrow last season: "One helicopter, one vegetarian takeout meal, and one laptop with eight gigabytes of RAM"), who was taking advantage of the blackout in Central City. It was pretty much a throwaway plot that existed for the sake of that scene in the hospital where Barry, in costume, apologized to Iris for not saving her and then said, "You're worth being on time for." And Iris got so flustered by this that she forgot her coffee.

At this point, the whole "woman falls in love with superhero she's reporting on/blogging about" is pretty passé, and the way that Barry is going about this by flirting with her as the Flash since he can't do it as Barry Allen... well, it's not really creepy, but it's certainly a little manipulative in that it can feel like he's trying to encourage her to fall for the Flash so he can be with her at least in some fashion. It's just another instance of how I'm not crazy about how The Flash is writing and using Iris. On the upside, she got to free herself from Tockman's clutches, so points for that.

LEFT IN THE DUST

– I'm totally not clear on why the Clock King was in Central City. Is his sister hospitalized there? Why was the Central City DA the one to reject his furlough request instead of the Starling City DA? I really dug his new spectacles, though.

– Joe West is a well-read know-it-all, and I love him for it.

– "I got held up. You had to be there." I thoroughly enjoyed that mugging sequence. It was a nice example of the levity The Flash already excels at showcasing.

– Barry really loved that mug.

– Way to undermine all my handwringing about Tony Woodward knowing Barry's secret identity and my concerns about how S.T.A.R. Labs was going to care for him, show.

– Those names of dead people Harrison rattled off were the names of various DC superheroes: Ralph Dibny (Elongated Man), Al Rothstein (Atom Smasher), Grant Emerson (Damage), Will Everett (Amazing Man), and Bea De Costa (Fire). I admit to having to look up Emerson and Everett.

– Eddie on painkillers was pretty funny, and Cosnett was having a ball with that scene.

– As I mentioned, next week is the crossover event between The Flash and Arrow. If you don't normally tune into Arrow, you may want to consider watching it on December 3. Or just skip next week's Flash altogether. Either or.

What'd you think of "Power Outage"?