Into the Arrowverse: Love is in the Air-O-Verse

Pictured (L-R): Grant Gustin as Barry Allen and Candice Patton as Iris West – Allen — Photo: Katie Yu/The CW

The Flash Episode 611: “Love Is a Battlefield”

Arrow was always my favorite Arrowverse show, and I’m still grieving. Now that it’s gone, we have to move on, but it’s hard not to think about better days when watching middling episodes of The Flash like “Love Is a Battlefield.”

Sure, there are a few moments of fun and excitement, but overall, this really felt like a filler episode, a Valentine’s Day outing coming out just in time for the romantic holiday.

For once in their lives, Barry and Iris decide to take a break and go out for Valentine’s Day. Unfortunately, Amunet returns to cause chaos, and we start to see changes in Iris’ behavior.

In last week’s episode, Iris went to check on a lead and ended up getting sucked into a mirror. I’m hoping that this is going down the Mirror Master route, but it remains unclear. Anyway, whatever happened to Iris there, she’s definitely different. She’s aggressive, careless, reckless and more confident than usual. She explains it away to Barry as her finding herself during the Crisis. She thought Barry was going to die so she put her priorities in place and began to prepare for a life without him.

This certainly doesn’t sound like Iris, and it’s weird to me that Barry is so naive as to not think twice about it. He thinks they’re having relationship problems, but this Iris is drastically different. I’m not sure if this is a plot hole, but it’s hard to believe.

The meta-case of the week goes hand-in-hand with Iris’ behavior as she forces her way into the case against Amunet and her ex-boyfriend, Goldface. They’re trying to get their hands on a plant that only blooms every 25 years. The pollen of this plant gives you mind control abilities, but while Amunet and Goldface are fighting, Iris tells Barry to light the plant on fire so it will effect the fighting ex-couple.

The plant’s pollen allows them to know each other’s thoughts, and yes, they’re still in love, so that solves that issue. And that’s basically the gist of what happens this week. 

But wait, I have to tell you the coolest part of the episode: Barry and Iris are hugging one another after their whirlwind adventure, and then…something interesting happens. The camera zooms in on the mirror behind them and we see the real Iris shouting for her life, hoping to get Barry’s attention. It turns out that the Iris with Barry isn’t the actual Iris, and the real Iris is stuck in the mirror.

Well, then.

Grade: C+