The Flash "The Trap" Review

"Founding member of--" you son of a bitch, that is some damn good teasing. This is The Trap where now that the gang is 100% sure that Harrison Wells is the Reverse-Flash, they plan to set a trap for him by recreating the time where Wells killed Cisco in order to get him to confess to killing Barry's mother, meanwhile, Eddie plans on proposing to Iris, who has started to piece together all the clues of the particle accelerator and all the meta-humans showing up.

Harrison Wells so far has been a very interesting villain, for the most part because of Tom Cavanaugh being an excellent actor and is able to play the sophisticated and wise Harrison Wells, as well as the sinister and traitorous nature of him. But this episode adds something that I was hoping they would do. Wells' plan all along was to train Barry so he could get himself back home and eventually kill him, except you don't spend this much time with someone, bonding with them, learning with them without growing somewhat connected. Wells has been watching Barry grow up for years, and once he got his powers, he trained him and they had fun, they made memories. Even though Wells still has a clear goal in mind, there is still that hint of conflict in him, nothing to make him question his actions, but enough where he does genuinely enjoy Barry's company. It's planting the seeds like this to make his future actions all the more complex and interesting. And it's not just one-sided, even though Barry knows the truth about Wells now, he still knows when he can trust him and is still grateful for what he's done. Conflict on both sides is what has made this duo such an interesting hero/villain dynamic. Although I will say, if this episode proved anything, it's that Grant Gustin really can't do threatening very well without coming across as a child, he's a really good actor, but he's not very threatening.

Then there was Barry and co. discovering Wells' time chamber (Awesome name) and learning so many facts about the future, Barry becomes the chief of police, Iris is going to marry someone named Allen (Take a guess at which Allen, I mean i doubt Bart's an option yet) and of course that Barry is going to disappear in a crisis, an "infinite crisis" if you will. Cisco puts it best, this is really freaky, also the hints at a small costume change in the future, but then there's the paradox on who influenced who. But the biggest problem with this story is still how Cisco remembers Wells killing him, considering that it never happened, and what is there explanation for how he remembers this? "I dunno" well fuck!

Then there's everyone's favourite wet blanket Iris, who has finally pieced together that the particle accelerator is the cause of all the meta-humans. Two things. One: Yeah, everyone else figured this out 20 episodes ago, and Two: NO SHIT! Giant science explosion, suddenly half the population has super powers, a monkey could have figured this out sooner! Oh, and then there's Eddie planning on proposing to Iris and Joe not giving his blessing for some pretty legitimate reasons. "She'll get swept up in the romance and say yes and years from now she'll realise she made a mistake, but she'll stay with him because she made a promise" or to translate "she makes a dumb decision, realises it was dumb way after everyone else realises and then makes another dumb decision" yeah that pretty much sums up Iris. I'll be honest, when it was her and Eddie on the bridge, I was rooting for the Reverse Flash.

This was a very good episode; Wells remains an engaging and layered villain and i'm very excited to see what's going to happen between these two, but their inability to explain Cisco's memory and Iris still being a waste of screen time really does bog it down. 7/10.

-Danny