After last week’s musical extravaganza, The Flash team is back. The question: how do you solve a problem like Savitar? The answer may be in the hands of a new villain on the scene, but Gypsy’s hot on his tail as well.
I’ll admit, I was a bit apprehensive going into this week’s episode of The Flash. After all, it feels like we’ve been here before: a fantastic palate-cleanser episode (AKA “Invasion!” or “Duet”) draws me back in, only for the show to fall back into a rut. Thankfully, while “Abra Kadabra” is by no means perfect, it’s a pretty good hour of television!
The titular character is in Central City to build a time machine that will get him back to the 64th century. David Dastmalchian plays Abra Kadabra with relishing delight and menace. He cheeses it up in all the right ways. He also proves to be a pretty effective foil for Team Flash, including Gypsy. His nanotechnology “magic” tricks allow him to evade capture a couple of times. But his use of a hologram to get the heroes out of S.T.A.R. Labs? Very nice move.
While he’s captured halfway into the episode, Abra has another trick up his sleeve. He knows the identity of Savitar. He also killed Gypsy’s partner years ago, so she’s out for blood. The team is stuck in the dilemma of whether to let Abra go in exchange for that piece of knowledge. While Barry leans towards freeing Abra, with Iris arguing against it, Joe has no hesitation to try and save his daughter. But Gypsy’s interference leads Abra to set off an explosion and escape, with Caitlin injured in the crossfire.
This leads to the tensest scene in the episode. Caitlin has to talk Julian through a shrapnel-removing surgery, while she’s still conscious. Ouuuuuuch. It’s almost as intense when the team recaptures Abra and Barry begs to his better angels to reveal Savitar’s identity. Instead, Abra gleefully refuses, preferring to play a small role in Barry’s future suffering.
With an opportunity lost, Barry decides his only hope is to…..time travel again. Wait! Wait! Don’t walk away in disgust yet. This time, he’s headed towards the future, to learn what his enemies seem to already know. Will this turn out better than previous time travel exploits? Unlikely! But we’ll soon find out.
Barry should hurry back home soon though. After Caitlin flatlines, Julian rips off her power dampener to let her meta abilities restore her. But the person who wakes up isn’t Caitlin. It’s Killer Frost!
Assorted Thoughts:
– Abra Kadabra pulling a fake arm trick is pretty funny.
– In an entire episode of metahumans and “magic,” the least believable thing is that Cecile Horton’s sister would give up four tickets to “Hamilton.” Scheduling conflicts be damned, she would make that show!
– Fun fact: Dastmalchian previously played the Joker’s henchman Thomas Schiff in The Dark Knight.
– I forgot H.R. wasn’t in the episode until he showed up in the last five minutes. He had a very….active 48 hours with a new lover. Cisco doesn’t need to hear the details.
– The Flash is on break, so we’ll see you back here towards the end of April. But don’t stray too far! I’ll be reviewing the long-awaited return of another time-travel heavy show next month!