Into The Arrowverse: The Flash zooms back after post-Crisis hiatus
By Ariba Bhuvad
Pictured (L-R): Grant Gustin as Barry Allen and Candice Patton as Iris West – Allen — Photo: Katie Yu/The CW
The Flash Episode 610: “Marathon”
The Flash is back after a post-Crisis hiatus, and it didn’t disappoint in the way I was bracing myself for. You see, a lot of this particular Arrowverse show has become centered around Barry and his guilt…for everything.
I was imagining that the episode after the Crisis and Oliver’s death would be spent with Barry down in the dumps blaming himself (even though there was nothing he could do). Luckily, this is not the case, thank goodness.
In fact, we spend less time with Barry and more time with Iris, which is a pleasant change. But the time we do spend with Barry revolves around Arrow’s Diggle (David Ramsay) showing up in Central City. Oliver’s will and testament provide that Barry get the mask he made Oliver back in the day.
Remember how I said that Barry would find some way to feel bad about what happened to Oliver? Well, that does happen, but luckily, we don’t spend the entire episode on it. While no one else in the world would hone in on such a tiny detail, Barry notices a mark on Oliver’s mask and immediately assumes it means something.
Further analysis shows that there is Mirakuru (the serum that gives you super-strength) on the mask. Barry has no chill, so he convinces a not-so-happy Diggle into zooming all the way to Lian Yu to figure things out.
Side note: Ramsay’s brief return to the Arrowverse was great. With all the hectic and stressful things that happen on Arrow, I forget how funny his performance is. Did anyone notice that his Central City field trip happens before the big Green Lantern moment we saw in the Arrow series finale? I know you were all looking for the ring just like I was. Looks like we have to wait.
As expected, Barry and Diggle’s trip to Lian Yu proves to be a dead-end because there is no Mirakuru left on the island. And as Diggle points out (after the fact, for some reason), just a couple of years ago, Oliver fought Deathstroke and his cronies there. That’s likely why there was Mirakuru on the mask. Why didn’t you say that before, Diggle?
Now, let’s talk about Iris. I enjoyed her arc in this episode more than anything else. She and Team Citizen are busy working on a mystery involving a tech company called McCulloch Technologies. While the investigation itself isn’t anything worth writing home about, I was very excited to see where we ended up.
Long story short, the head of McCulloch Technologies is connected with an organization by the name of Black Hole. Iris is dead set on exposing the story here, but meets resistance when the head of McCulloch Tech, Joseph Carver, hires a meta assassin (Dr. Light) to shut the story down. Despite everyone’s advice not to release the article, Iris does it anyway (of course) and then has a hit put out on her.
Iris manages to escape the multiple assassination attempts but loses her source along the way, thanks to Dr. Light (who is way more evil post-Crisis). This is a result of the Crisis turning old villains into new villains with extra/new abilities that they never had before (Cisco struggled a lot with this throughout the episode).
In the end, Iris comes out on top after threatening to expose Joseph as the leader of Black Hole. But then something even bigger happens. In the middle of the night, Iris has a random epiphany about something her source said, which leads her to McCulloch Technologies (for some reason they didn’t think to change their security protocol).
She walks into the office of Joseph’s wife, Eva, whom she believes has some connection with the mystery. She finds a huge mirror in the office and before we know it, Iris is pulled into the mirror! Is anyone else thinking what I’m thinking?
MIRROR MASTER?! Or better yet, IRIS IS THE NEW MIRROR MASTER? Please let that be the case.