The Flash "Things You Can't Outrun" Review: Hitting Its Stride

The Flash S01E03: "Things You Can't Outrun"

Now that we've moved past the pilot and the re-hashing of the pilot, I'm eager to see how The Flash will begin to find its legs. We've already seen two proof-of-concept episodes, so it's time to find out what the show's goals are, and how it will set about accomplishing them. I'm hopeful that "Things You Can't Outrun" will turn out to be representative of The Flash's template as it starts to develop both itself and its characters, because the episode was pretty sound for me. I don't think the show should always stick to the approach it used here—and it's likely that it won't—but I suspect that it will rely on it for a little while.

So, let's just address the elephant in the comments that has so many of you feeling anxious/nervous/annoyed/cautious and me feeling perfectly fine: Freaks of the Week, or superpowered baddies who are dealt with in one episode. As some of you have noted over the past couple of weeks, in that sense, The Flash is Smallville all over again, but instead of meteorite radiation, it's the dark matter, antimatter, and other soft-science jargon released by the particle accelerator that's giving deranged folks their powers. The resulting baddies pop up like gray hairs, one each week, for Barry and the team at S.T.A.R. Labs to pluck—or, as of "Things You Can't Outrun," to keep contained in the very thing that made them into what they are.

I say I'm feeling "perfectly fine" because I don't mind the Freak of the Week format one bit. I mind dull Freaks of the Week, but that's different from finding the format dull. I'm also someone who remembers—forget about Smallville for a second—that Buffy the Vampire Slayer cut its teeth on Freaks of the Week, and that show did just fine overall, I'm pretty sure.

Of course, television has changed a bit since Buffy premiered in 1997, and even since Smallville arrived in 2001. Shows have become increasingly serialized (in no small part because of Buffy), and our expectations and tastes have changed. So it's understandable that many viewers will be wary of the Freak of the Week approach, but that doesn't mean it's without merit.

In short, I'll never find fault with Barry and the team having to figure out how to stop their Freak of the Week. Where I will find fault is in whether the Freak is interesting, whether his or her powers are well-represented by special effects, and whether the Freak as a threat is resolved in a compelling manner. This week, the individual in question was Kyle Nimbus (Anthony Carrigan), named the Mist by Cisco, a death row prisoner who'd just been executed when the particle accelerator exploded and was subsequently transformed into the very thing that killed him: hydrogen cyanide gas. It was a neat origin concept, if a bit dated, as I don't think anyone in the U.S. has been executed by that method since the early 1990s. Plus, I enjoyed the special effects of Nimbus transitioning to and from his gaseous state, and Carrigan had a nice creepy quality to him that made everything click into place.

However, the "keep running from him until his particles get tired" solution was a little boring, especially because I was hoping that Barry would just spin his arms around to form little tornadoes and disperse Nimbus. And way more importantly, I do like variety in my Freaks of the week. We've had three so far; all three of them have been a bit lacking in the personality department, and two of them have been motivated by revenge.

The revenge thing I can sort of deal with, since it's a common-enough motivation for characters of any type, dating all the way back to before the Elizabethans popularized revenge plays, but I'd rather the revenge-seeking types not appear back-to-back like this. As such, I'm more concerned with the personality problem. Nimbus at least had Carrigan's creepiness, but Weather Wizard Clyde Mardon and Multiplex Danton Black were one-note ate best. Part of the issue is that these guys haven't had anyone else to talk to, so their "temperaments" can't emerge until they're about to kill someone or until Barry shows up to stop them. It's an issue of putting spectacle over character, and while that's generally okay given that The Flash is an action show, I like a little savory with my sweet every now and then, so I'm hoping for more complex villains as the show progresses.

Another reason I'm fine with the Freak of the Week format—and the likely explanation for why The Flash has has so far favored villains with flat personalities and motivations—is that it provides the show with some extra time to further introduce its characters. The pilot was about Barry, last week's "Fastest Man Alive" focused on Joe and Barry, and the FLASHbacks in "Things You Can't Outrun" centered on Caitlin and her fiancé, Ronnie Raymond (Robbie Amell, looking a lot more like his cousin Stephen here than he did on last season's The Tomorrow People). Essentially, while characters wait for some science to happen or for the bad guy to strike again, they can talk... and talk they do.

Caitlin described Ronnie and herself as "fire and ice," a description that surely pleased looped-in comic fans while still offering an idea of how she and Ronnie operated as a couple. He made her laugh; he also died so that a number of other people could live by ensuring that the energy releases from the particle accelerator didn't travel in a completely bad direction. Hearing Caitlin talk about Ronnie added some warmth to her sad and cold personality, and while I would've preferred to see more evidence of tensions between her and Cisco given that Cisco trapped Ronnie inside the accelerator, we at least got to see the two lab rats out getting ice cream. It wasn't a huge moment of growth for Caitlin, but at least she's come to grips with Ronnie's death and can be thawed out a bit. Yes, shows can do this sort of character work with a more serialized approach, but it's a little bit trickier to make room for it, especially in the early going, when the plot gobbles up so much real estate that it's difficult to make the character stuff work at all. Looking back, that's what tripped up all those Lost clones in the mid-'00s.

None of this should suggest that all the character stuff is entirely working, though. I'm thrilled that we won't have to sit through another episode of Iris and Eddie worrying about Joe finding out they're together, but I also legitimately will not care if Joe shoots Eddie at some point. The romantic triangle that The Flash has half-heartedly created with Iris, Eddie, and Barry isn't interesting, and I don't see why any of those three would be interested in each other for reasons beyond A) the show wants them to be, and B) Eddie and Iris are the only ones who aren't in on Barry's secret identity and thus need something to do, so why not each other?

Some of these complaints are fairly common "early in the show" qualms, as the characters and their personalities aren't fleshed-out enough for us to really understand why they do things. Iris and Eddie being a couple falls into this category, as does Barry's tendency to act like a bit of a mopey jerk whenever he and Joe talk about Henry (though I'm chalking up some of the latter to Grant Gustin, who hasn't yet found a way to fully express that side of Barry). Of course, The Flash still has plenty of time to sort itself out, especially now that it's earned a full-season order of 23 episodes, so I'm by no means writing it off. In fact, I'm actually looking forward to seeing it grow.

LEFT IN THE DUST

– In this week's Harrison Wells episode tag, Harrison enjoyed his own sliver of a FLASHback to the night of the particle accelerator explosion, in which he watched Barry receive his powers from the lightning bolt... while smiling and saying, "See you soon, Barry." I mean, it wasn't a surprise stabbing like we saw last week, so it wasn't very exciting, but I do enjoy these little moments that close out each episode.

– Jesse L. Martin continues to bring it every week, from his delivery of Joe's advice on handling the tough choices that Barry will be forced to make to that now-patented "my character is about to cry, but I'm going to hold it back just enough" teary-eyed apology.

– "It's not like I want a museum built in my name!"

– "I didn't want him to be a hero. I wanted him to be my husband."

– I failed to mention this in my reviews of The Flash's first two episodes, so I'm mentioning it now: The Flash has a tie-in digital comic that comes out every other week, alternating with Arrow's digital comic. Just like with Arrow's digital comic, there's no a pressing reason to read it, but if you're interested in the transmedia aspects of various TV shows, know that it's an option.

– I know some folks don't watch episode promos, and I normally don't go out of my way to mention them, but I'm very excited about next week's episode. There's lots of stuff coming up to be pumped about.

What'd you think of "Things You Can't Outrun"?