For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.
Barry enacts a training program for Alexa Rivera, as Iris seeks out Psych. Meanwhile, Joe and Cisco both make big decisions about some changes in their lives.
Influences
The Flash comics of Joshua Williamson (concept of Still, Strength and Sage Forces) and The Incredible Hulk (Fuerza basically becomes this to Alexa's Bruce Banner, Alexa quotes the "Don't make me angry." line.)
Goofs
The Speed Force's motivation turns on a dime after the cliffhanger last week, suddenly deciding to turn on Barry and Iris rather than killing the other Forces.
The weapons delivery form Kristen Kramer uses is dated May 18, 2021. This matches the original air-date of the episode. However, given the sequence of events in The Flash Season 7 continues on directly from the finale of Season 6 and that only 17 days passed between the events of 703 and 709, it should be sometime in 2020.
Cisco says his worst fear involves being trapped in the same job in 40 years. This contradicts 705, where he was clearly hallucinating something happening to Kamilla when Psych attacked him with his worst fear.
Iris says that Lucas Sharpe is driving north on I-95. When Barry catches up to him, the ocean is on the left (or western) side of the car. This doesn't match the real world I-95, which runs along the east coast of the United States. (It's possible Iris meant US Highway 95, which does run north to south through east Oregon and Washington state, though this is still quite a distance from where Central City is meant to be in the Post-Crisis Arrowverse and not on the coast. Alternative, the highways are just different in the Arrowverse.)
Performances
The only thing that makes Joe's scenes with Kristen Kramer tolerable is Jesse L. Martin's performance.
Flash Facts
Psych's real name is revealed to be Bashir Malik. In the original The Flash comics which introduced the Sage Force, Psych's first name was Bashi, but he was never given a last name.
Technobabble
Alexa was biologically dead but now her biometrics are stable.
Barry, Iris and Alexa share the same bio-kinetic genome sequence. This is, on a cosmic level, like how a parent and their children share the same DNA. This connection gives them some ability to sense one another on a quantum level.
Chester and Cisco work on a way to track the temporal isotopes generated by Deon Owens across multiple timelines.
The billionaires attacked by Psych all exhibited signs of mental distress and symptoms consistent with narcolepsy. These symptoms do not match the experiences Barry and Iris had facing him.
Cisco has reinforced the force field inside STAR Labs with inverse surge capabilities. In theory, this will make it stronger the more force is pushed against it.
The motto of the League of Lions is Felicitatem esse virtutem. - Latin for Prosperity equals Power.
Psych's telekinesis manifests as red tentacles and can move as fast as The Flash in close quarters.
Cisco and Barry try to use isotopic arc radiators to bring out Fuerza in a controlled state.
The mental activity dampener uses neural pathways to connect multiple consciousnesses.
Dialogue Triumphs
The Flash: Bashir, listen. Iris and I know what your parents did to you, but you can't keep punishing the world for it.
Psych: Actually, yes, I can.
Kristen Kramer: I do things by the book, Captain.
Joe West: Maybe. But it's gonna take a whole lot more than that when it comes to protecting the people of Central City. Only, you can't see that. And since your "by the book" is nowhere near mine...
Kristen Kramer: Do you realize what you're doing?
Joe West: Yeah. I'm staying on the right side of the line.
Continuity
The Speed Force refers to Deon Owens as her younger brother and recruits him to fight their "parents."
Barry and Iris explain the other Forces to Alexa, although they have no idea how they brought her back to life.
Barry wants to start training Alexa to harness the Strength Force.
Iris, Kamilla and Allegra go to work on trying to track down Psych and figure out who he was before he became a host for the Sage Force.
Kamilla asks Cisco how he feels about moving to Miami, having found a gallery on South Beach that is interested in her photos.
Cisco still hasn't told the rest of Team Flash of his decision to quit.
Psych attacks a tech billionaire named Caleb Fairwater in his home. Fairwater recognizes Psych, calling him Bashir.
Joe is told four billionaires, including Fairwater, were attacked by Psych.
Iris determines that all of Psych's latest wave of victims were members of the League of Lions - an Ivy League club for overachievers with money.
Joe is called away from the Fairwater crime scene because Kristen Kramer is still in Central City and wants to talk to him.
Kramer notes that there are multiple instances of metahuman criminals mysteriously disappearing. She specifically singles out the Rainbow Raider, who was "vanished" into STAR Labs illegal metahuman prison in 108. (He later escaped custody and went on the loose in 122.)
Kramer also notes that many of the CSI technicians who worked metahuman cases for the CCPD resigned under mysterious circumstances. She mentions Patty Spivot (who quit the CCPD in Season 2) and Julian Albert, who quit between Seasons 3 and 4.
Cisco tells Alexa that he named her Strength Force persona Fuerza.
Iris ambushes Naomi LaSalle at the LaSalle Building, asking her about the attacks. She was President of the League of Lions in college and she and another man, whom she hasn't identified, are the only people in the photo she found who haven't been attacked.
Naomi LaSalle identifies the other man in the photo as Lucas Sharpe - a do-gooder into apps and alternative energy.
Naomi LaSalle recognizes Psych's voice and also calls him Bashir. She says the last time she saw him, he was getting thrown out of her yacht club for being unable to pay the dues. She also says that she only allowed him in the League of Lions because the others thought he deserved a chance, but she thought he was a loser who would never fit in.
Barry thinks that Fuerza should be able to counter Psych's power, for some reason.
Team Citizen identifies Psych as Bashir Malik, the adoptive son of Adrita and Paul Malik, who owned the Malik Hotel chains. His parents died in a plane crash, making him an orphan two times over. To make matters worse, the Maliks were $5 million in debt at the time of their deaths and were fleeing the country to avoid tax evasion charges. They abandoned Bashir to try and save themselves and left him destitute. This matches what Psych said in 709 about hating his parents.
Iris decides she needs to look for more information on Bashir, thinking there's more to him attacking his rich college friends than a simple hatred of the upper crust of society.
Joe discovers that Kramer approved an armament delivery he didn't request. The delivery turns out to be bullets containing the metahuman cure. He notes that this ammunition is illegal, but Kramer says there is not a precedent for using them yet.
Joe threatens to go to the Governor, but Kramer says she is acting with the Governor's approval.
Alexa loses control and nearly overloads the force field when she is forcibly transformed into Fuerza. As a result, Cisco is thrown through a glass window and is knocked out.
Caitlin tries to talk to Alexa after she says she's done having anything to do with Barry of the Forces, telling her about her relationship with Frost and how they came to an understanding.
Alexa says it has been two days since the events of 708 and first finding out that she was connected to the Strength Force.
Joe discovers that Kramer has been making a number of purchases on behalf of the CCPD, along with requesting copies of case files from Keystone City, Gotham City and Coast City.
Joe tries to get Cecile to investigate Kramer's background, but she says she doesn't think she can do any better than she did in court.
Kamilla tells Cisco that the gallery in Miami wants to schedule an interview with her.
Cisco says he's qualified for 7,685 scientist jobs currently hiring in the United States and 83 of those are in Miami.
Cisco tells Kamilla that his worst fear is still being at STAR Labs in 40 years and being the only one who hasn't moved on.
Caitlin suggests that Alexa can use her mental activity dampener to communicate with Fuerza.
Iris is able to track Lucas Sharpe's car heading north on I-95 using the STAR Labs satellites.
Iris says she thinks she knows what to say to Psych to get him to listen if Barry can get to him before he does something to Lucas Sharpe.
Psych refers to Alexa as a baby sister.
Alexa respectfully asks Fuerza to help her. She transforms and Fuerza helps save Barry from Psych.
Iris tells Psych, through Barry, that his friends didn't abandon him. All of the League of Lions except Naomi LaSalle put together a trust fund to help him get back on his feet.
Alexa tells Bashir that she was abandoned by her family too because of her drug use but how she rebuilt her life and found friends who know her past and stand by her anyway.
Barry says that they can be the family Psych dreamed of.
Psych releases his hold on his victims and they all wake up.
Psych agrees to go with Barry and Alexa to STAR Labs.
Cisco gets a phone call from ARGUS Science Director of Science and Technology Chip Cooper, which he takes in private.
Joe resigns from the CCPD rather than follow any more of Kristen Kramer's orders.
Nora and Deon attack STAR Labs, apparently killing Iris, Bashir and Alexa in the process.
The Boomerang Factor
Joe's insistence that Kristen Kramer is a good cop doing a bad thing is perhaps the most idiotic aspect of this episode. This is even more nauseating given this is the same episode where Barry doesn't think that maybe the biologist who has some experience with dealing with a super-powered alter-ego should be consulted regarding his training Alexa and Iris going back and forth and whether or not she's the Mother of the Forces or not.
The Bottom Line
Another low-water mark for the series, with character motivations shifting from scene to scene and very little sense of drama with the cliffhanger, given we've already seen one of these characters come back from the dead once.
No comments:
Post a Comment