With the mid-season finale upon us, Weather Wizard returns to break a couple of our favourite villains out of Iron Heights and Joe and Iris prepare to meet their long lost son/brother.
SPOILERS AHEAD
We open to find Harrison Wells being chased by Zoom in STAR Labs. Zoom gets a hold of the good doctor and Wells begs for his daughters life to which Zoom responds by wishing Wells a ‘Merry Christmas’. Interesting start…
Now we find Central City in full holiday cheer as Iris and Joe are Christmas shopping. They discuss what to get Barry for Christmas and the father and daughter having a bonding moment for maybe the third time. Joe mentions words his father said to him which makes Iris feel guilty about keeping Joe in the dark about his potential son. She goes to talk to Barry about this and walks in on him and Patty sharing a not so secret make out session. She and Barry talk and they have bonding moment for maybe the fifth time. I guess they’re going out of their way to bring Iris back into the show this episode. She fills Barry in on the fact that there is another West out there – Wally West. Yeah. Wally West is Joe’s son.
Meanwhile, Jay and Caitlyn are discussing ways in which to shut the portals down and keep Zoom out. Their romance is just as brutally awkward it always has been, much to the ire of Cisco. Wells shows up and is weird with Cisco… was the beginning of the episode a flash forward, a flashback or has Tom Cavanaugh forgotten how to not be creepy?
This brings to us to Iron Heights in the midst of a snowstorm. But the snowstorm isn’t a freak weather occurrence as Mark Mardon, aka Weather Wizard, uses the storm to break into the prison. His plans are immediately evident as he breaks Leonard Snart, aka Captain Cold, out of his cell and the two of them go to the maximum security ward to break out its only prisoner – The Trickster!
Back in STAR Labs, Cisco and Barry brainstorm what to do about the three villains and have a comical re-enactment of the last time Cisco figured out how to stop Mardon in the other timeline. Barry tells Wells about his time travel which Jay and Wells agree that messing with the timeline was a bad idea. So, Barry and Iris decide now is the time for their intervention style breaking the news to Joe. Joe takes the news about his long lost son about as well as could be expected and immediately shuts down. We all know Joe isn’t going to bail on his family whether he knew existed or not, but I’ll allow them to play this out if only to get another great reaction scene from Jesse Martin!
Iris and Barry return home (which looks suspiciously like that ‘isolated farmhouse’ they used in last weeks crossover…) to find that Joe’s reaction is the least of their concerns as Snart sits in waiting for them. Luckily, Snart is only here to fill Barry in on what is waiting for him but it turns out Cold wants no part in a plan that doesn’t involve a pay day. Barry calls Snart out and asks him to help him stop Wizard and Trickster, but Snart only wishes him a ‘Merry Christmas’ and leaves. Call back? Or set up for the eventual ‘saved by Snart’ moment later?
Back at STAR Labs, Joe and Barry meet in secret. Joe blames himself for not having sought his wife out and discovering his son sooner and nothing Barry can say can dissuade him. But I did get another scene out of Jesse Martin, so it was worth it. Back at the precinct, Patty is talking to the Captain when Trickster takes over the airwaves to call Flash out with more inventive lyrics and some very serious threats unless Flash will face him. The team is able to track down where he’s hiding out by a reflection in his cornea (good thing all cameras on TV are 4K) and Flash goes to find the villain(s). Flash finds Patty at the warehouse because she also somehow saw the reflection at the precinct and suddenly the stakes are much higher. So, of course Trickster left a trap for them in the form of dradles made of C4.
Luckily for Patty, Flash thinks quickly and uses his arm spinning move to literally fly them out of the warehouse as it explodes. Remember last week when I said they needed to set some ground rules for Barry’s powers? Anyway, Flash tries to talk some sense into Patty but she breaks down and tells him about how she blames herself for her father’s death and how she’s basically faking her relationship with Barry. Cause why not lay all of your insecurities and problems on your local superhero while still being suspicious of your boyfriends extended absences… I’m digressing a lot this week, it seems.
So, Patty is hell bent on revenge and won’t answer Barry’s calls. The team manages to get the Weather Wand up and running which means Barry is ready to take on Weather Wizard. At the same time, Trickster is handing out presents as a mall Santa with a special surprise inside. And then the portal to Earth 2 opens and Zoom returns to ask Wells if he has made his decision!
So, Cisco uses science to find Mardon and he’s going to hit the tree lighting ceremony and expose the maximum number of civilians. Barry grabs the wand and races off without a moment’s hesitation. Flash faces off with Weather Wizard who has a trick up his sleeve as he can now fly. The Speedster chases the flying Wizard until he uses the wand to bring Mardon down. Unfortunately for Flash, Trickster has been handing out bombs all day long and the evil duo offer Flash an ultimatum. He can die at the hands of Weather Wizard, or Trickster can blow 100 families to smithereens. Flash, obviously hands over the wand and Wizard goes to work on slowly killing our hero.
But all is not lost! Wells in STAR Labs jumps into action, planning on using the portals to send the bombs away. As Wizard steps his attacks up, the team closes in on the bombs. Some pseudo-science is used to explain how to get rid of the bombs while Wizard hands off the killing blow to Trickster. Wells, Jay and Cisco get rid of the bombs and Flash leaps into action, quickly subduing his foes. And Cisco made a Breaking Bad joke! Just when everything seems to be wrapped up, Patty show up and incapacitates Flash and pulls her gun on Mardon.
Flash pleads with Patty not to put a bullet in Mardon’s head and he manages get through to her as she places him under arrest (next half of the season then). Back in STAR Labs, Joe and Barry meet up and Joe fills him in on the off screen meeting he had with Francine. Joe gives Barry his watch, a gift he promised to give to his son one day in an especially touching moment between the two. Barry dons the watch and uses Earth 2’s Wells to voice the unspoken residual feelings he has for his own Wells and passes his forgiveness on the fallen villain.
The team all get together to celebrate the holidays and everyone is full of Christmas cheer. Caitlyn and Jay share a kiss under the mistletoe and Patty shows up and she and Barry seem to be better than ever. They also get an unexpected visitor too in the form of Wally West. So, he’s in the show now too.
But we can’t leave the fall finale on a lovely note. The stinger scene shows Wells meeting Zoom. Wells has uncovered Zoom’s plan to strengthen Barry, filling him with the Speed Force that Zoom can harvest for himself, like he did with Jay. Zoom parades Jessie in front of Wells and Wells agrees to help Zoom steal Flashes speed.
After tonight, we take a couple of weeks off for the holidays, so how did this episode stack up as a mid-season finale? Meh. It was a great episode, but as far as touting it as a finale of any sort, they should’ve skipped that. Jesse Martin slayed it yet again in the emotional department, relationships developed at the appropriate rate for TV, Flash had a decent villain faceoff and we got to see some more of Zoom. The reveal of Zoom’s plan isn’t exactly a surprise nor was Wells turning on his new friend, but it didn’t stop it from being a little heartbreaking. Especially when it was put beside that scene of Barry speaking to his own Wells. So, the episode packed an emotional punch across the board and had some decent action.
It also introduced Wally West and, if you couldn’t tell, I’m not particularly happy with this turn of events. I guess I should have seen this coming a mile away, but I didn’t and I don’t really care how they develop this character. He’s not going to end up being a regular and I feel that Wally is being wasted here. Unless this kid turns out to be hilarious. I might reconsider then. But let’s sign off with an acknowledgement of how wonderful Mark Hamill is! With Star Wars around the corner, he didn’t need to do this role, but seeing him back in action as Trickster was the next best thing to having him voice the Joker!
P.S. There was a trailer for Legends of Tomorrow during tonight’s episode and I have to be honest, it was more compelling then all of the weeks of build up both shows have put it. Just saying, they could have saved some time…