The Flash
Episode Title: “Power Outage”
Channel: CW
Director: Larry Shaw
Writers: Alison Schapker and
Grainne Godfree
Genre: Action,
Adventure, Drama, Fantasy, Sci-Fi
Runtime: 43
min
Rated: TV-PG
Original Air Date: November 25,
2014
I
expected a more focused episode for the introduction of the Clock
King. Not only does he have to share time with another villain, but
he also takes part in a rather by the numbers hostage situation.
Most of the Clock King's nearly 70 year history has featured him and
those he works with being rather ineffectual, but I had envisioned
his introduction working a lot like the plot of Die
Hard with a Vengeance.
Some elaborately planned and meticulously timed challenges of The
Flash's speed and thinking ability would have done the trick.
Hopefully he makes another appearance and they're able to put him to
better use.
The
rest of the episode deals with another metahuman that siphons energy
and can direct it in electrical blasts. During the course of the
episode he drains away Barry's powers. A hero losing his powers is a
fairly standard story arc in comic books, as it can make them seem
more human and highlights their other strong points. My concern here
is that The Flash
is already hitting a lot of familiar comic book notes. Besides the
origin, which every hero has to have, we've seen: 1) The love of our
beloved alter ego's life unable to see how great the plain ol' person
is so he... 2) initiates a love interest between said love of his
life and his superhero identity, while she's dating the 3) friendly
workplace rival, who's everything the alter ego isn't. Along the way
there has been; 4) a childhood bully rears his head to cause trouble
for the hero, 5) unwanted public attention leads to the heroes loved
one's being put into danger, and 6) a hero that has come to rely on
his powers suddenly has them stripped away.
These are common superhero story lines
because they work, I'm not disputing that, my concern stems from how
many are being used and how quickly they pop up. The opening
narration, with Dr. Wells talking about how much Barry already relies
on his powers, backs up the idea that this wasn't the best time to
use this story line. Let the audience have a season or two under
their collective belts of The Flash doing his thing, then yank away
his powers. That way you don't have to spend the first few minutes
hearing about how much Barry uses his power, we'll have already seen
it.
That rant complete, this definitely
wasn't a wasted episode. We learned a lot more about Wells in
particular. We already knew that he was capable of an amazing amount
of ruthlessness, but he took that to new heights this week.
Additionally, he is in possession of a computer that can seemingly
see the future. It's obvious that he's trying to craft a very
specific future, one in which The Flash disappears for some reason,
but we still don't know his motivation. The softer side of Harrison
is also on display during a scene where he recounts the names of all
of those that perished as a side effect of the explosion at his lab.
The ending leaves even more questions concerning Dr. Wells
motivations
Conclusion:
“Power Outage” was an episode that could have felt too cluttered
for its own good, but it mostly manages to pull of the two villain
plot, although I feel like a solo adventure with the Clock King could
have been more interesting. Harrison Wells was the star of this
episode, and while it seems like the audience got to know him better,
it still left more questions than answers regarding the man.
Rating:
7.5/10
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