On the surface, it might seem strange for a midseason finale to close on such a heartwarming, neat note, seeing as how the entire purpose of the midseason finale is to entice the viewer to, you know, return for the second half of the season. But the conclusion of “The Present”, lit by the warmth of a Christmas gathering so draped in tinsel and ornaments I half expected the neighbor’s dogs to run through it, was such a tidy, saccharine ending it may as well have been tied with a bow. Wally West receives his Kid Flash outfit, completing his journey from human to hero. Joe West and Cecile Horton share a kiss, finally bringing a partner into Joe’s life he’s long-needed. Cisco finds a measure of peace with Dante’s death, as Caitlin finds something similar with her powers, and HR, well, HR gets straight up egg-nog hammered, so there’s peace to be found there as well. And finally Barry, who doesn’t know how to take it slow (it’s kind of his thing), signed a lease for a house, putting Iris’s name next to his. It’s Christmas, it’s snowing, and everything is fine. More than fine.
And yet…that’s the present. But in an intriguing twist, The Flash has shown us the future, and it is dark. In five months Iris West is going to die at the hands of Savitar, with Barry too slow to stop him. The only person who knows this is Barry himself, who for once fell forward out of the Speed Force instead of backward. With the shadow of the future looming over it, this warm Christmas ending turns cold, the happiness turns tragic. It’s a moment of contentment, frozen in time. On The Flash, the present is just fine. The present is more than fine. But the worst part about the present is that it eventually becomes the future, and The Flash‘s future is bleak indeed.
I mean…woof, right? Some dark stuff from this show, especially following last week’s feel-good team-up-a-palooza. You know it’s heavy when Mark Hamill shows up as The Trickster (basically the only chance we’ll have to see him play The Joker in live-action), and I don’t even mention it until the third paragraph. So, just to get it out of the way, Mark Hamill is a damn delight as The Trickster, his short appearance here brought more joy to my life than a number of my real-life friends ever could, and I fully plan on setting The Trickster exclaiming “I’m going to sue you, saucer-head!” as both my ringtone and alarm clock.
But Barry doesn’t travel to Earth-3 for The Trickster; he’s there for Jay Garrick. While it’s never NOT a pleasure to see John Wesley Shipp (especially opposite Hamill. I mean, look at these two), this only really further muddies the rules to what calls for a crossover. To recap, aliens = call in everyone. The literal god of speed = call in the only speedster eligible for a senior citizen discount. It’s not like Jay isn’t without his uses though. Dude is a regular exposition machine when it comes to Savitar’s entire origin story: “Savitar was the first man ever granted speed,” Jay reveals. “Over time he became the fastest of us all, the god of motion. Before Savitar graces an Earth with his presence, he sends a predecessor to prepare for his arrival.” This…all seems like information you shouldn’t just keep bottled up, Jay. To his credit, Jay is also really, really good at getting his ass kicked while everyone else works around him. For a rundown of Jay’s confrontation with Savitar, play this GIF on a roughly 10-minute loop:
Also surprisingly knowledgeable on all things Savitar? Julian Alpert, who dug up the Philosopher’s Stone from the Forbidden Forest outside Hogwarts and released Savitar in the first place. Turns out there is no Alchemy, not really; there is only Savitar, acting through a medium. Four years ago, Savitar used the memory of Julian’s dead sister, Emma, against him, convinced him to free him from underneath the Earth like the super-sped Jumanji-monster he is. That’s what the so-called god of motion does; he uses your lost loved ones against you, your innermost desires. He did it to Julian and now, in the present, he’s doing it to Cisco, tormenting him with visions of Dante.
This all leads to a showdown inside S.T.A.R. Labs: Julian, revealed as Alchemy, locked inside the Pipeline while Cisco wrestles with the fact that his dead brother is suddenly not-so-dead and urging him to open the Philosopher’s Stone. “Open it and I can be reborn,” says the Ghost of Dantes Past. “We can be together again.” And Cisco, both tragically and understandably, opens the box.
I’ll tell you what, it’s a bit ridiculous that if Savitar, the GOD OF SPEED, just, like, hurried up a little bit both Barry and Wally would be dead. Clearly, both are outmatched by Savitar, who is only vanquished when Caitlin gets through to Cisco and has him close the box, locking Savitar away once more. It’s a just a little more ridiculous that in what seems like the next 15 minutes Caitlin works out a way to connect Julian’s mind to the Philosopher’s Stone. No matter; it leads to this episode’s best scene, a genuinely disturbing seance in which Savitar speaks through Julian. “I know you better than you know yourselves,” he tells the team. “One shall betray you, one shall fall, one shall suffer a fate far worse than death. TK.”
And there it is again, the future. Everything that comes after Savitar’s predictions — Barry and Jay pull off the slingshot move from Talladega Nights to fling the Philosopher’s Stone into the Speed Force, which is a thing that is apparently possible — because they’re only temporary. The team’s “Christmas cheer” is a brief roadblock on a road to the inevitable.
I don’t know how many of you watched Arrow‘s 100th episode, but essentially Oliver Queen is given everything he’s ever wanted — his parents, alive and well, along with a marriage to Laurel Lance (also alive and well) — which turned out to be a simulation created by aliens. It…was weird, but also heartbreaking, no moment more so than when Oliver asks simu-Laurel to skip their wedding to get married right that instant, because he’s realized his perfect world is fleeting. Barry buying a house for him and Laurel is like this moment, and maybe more so. Where Oliver’s realization is sad, it’s also tempered by the fact that the life he’s built outside the simulation is a sadder one, yes but no less worthwhile. For Barry, this is his life, and he’s building his own perfect, beautiful, short-lived simulation within it.
Flash Points
- Nearly every single thing Tom Cavanagh as HR said this episode was absolute, 24 karat gold. “Caroling in the rain…that sucks!”
- I know The Flash is like, the poster-child for not explaining things, but the fact that Julian Alpert was on an archeological dig where every other person was killed, but is not currently a fugitive is ridiculous.
- Grant Gustin and John Wesley Shipp have always been great in their pseudo-father-and-son chemistry, but were particularly effective in the scene immediately following Barry’s trip to the future: “Jay, tell me this isn’t my destiny.”
- Five months into the future, Savitar kills Iris on Infantino Street. For what it’s worth, Carmine Infantino was an artist often credited with ushering in the DC Comics’ Silver Age; he redesigned The Flash into his familiar red-and-yellow full-body suit for DC Showcase #4, and that sleek redesign soon stretched outward to every DC character, and then comics as a whole. So basically when you think Infantino, you think of huge, life-altering changes for The Flash.
