The Flash Episode Guide: Season 8, Episode 16 - The Curious Case of Bartholomew Allen

 For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.

Plot

An odd energy attack leaves Barry aging prematurely whenever he uses his powers.


Influences

The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button and Star Wars (villain uses a thermal detonator).


Goofs

Why doesn't Dr. Orloff just kill The Flash either of the times he knocks him out?

Why doesn't Team Flash try to call Caitlin to see if she can figure out some kind of way to cure Barry or at least negate the process that is causing him to age when he uses his powers?

It's a minor thing, but Joe dresses up as a wizard when his character is an Orc barbarian. (He even makes Gandalf references.)

There's no good reason for Barry to trash Caitlin's lab with a lightning explosion other than it looks impressive. It's also potentially dangerous given all the chemicals and equipment she has and he could just as easily disassemble everything at super-speed.


Performances

The scenes of Barry discussing dementia with Cecile are a powerful moment for both Grant Gustin and Danielle Nicolet are powerfully played.


Artistry

The old-age make-up for Grant Gustin is good.

The direction for the episode is top-notch, with the comedic elements being perfectly telegraphed.


Flash Facts

The episode title comes from a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald about a man who aged in reverse, being born as a 70 year old man and regressing into infancy. It was famously adapted into a movie starring Brad Pitt in 2008.

This episode was directed by Caity Lotz, who plays Sara Lance in all the Arrowverse series.

Chief Singh makes reference to a Steve Palmer case which gave him and Joe trouble back in the day. Steve Palmer was the name of an actor who played The Flash in a movie in The Flash Vol, 1 #118.

The villain of the episode is a scientist named Dr. Pytor Orloff. In the comics, the Wally West Flash befriended a Russian bio-geneticist named Dr. Pytor Orloff and helped him to defect to the United States. This Dr. Orloff was a heroic man, who tried to help Wally West regain his lost speed powers. 

Technobabble

A Gamma Absorption Array use bursts of gamma radiation to interact with cellular structures. It could be used for almost anything, from growing super crops to taking out an entire army. 

A full body diagnostic scan of Barry's body after the first energy blast detects multiple biological abnormalities, including moderate signs of arthritis, hearing loss, osteoporosis, high cholesterol and heartburn.

Gideon estimates that Barry's metahuman powers became 29% less effective as a result of Dr. Orloff's attack.

Based on the second scan, Chester determines that the gamma radiation in his cells is being activated by the Speed Force energy in his body. In short, the more Barry uses his powers, the faster it wears down his body and makes him age.

A 10-85 is the police code for a delay due to an unspecified event - in this case, a coffee break.

After Barry's third full-body scan, Gideon declares that the connections of Barry's hippocampus are showing gradual decay, although his using his powers seems to be accelerating the decay.

The energy amplifier Dr. Orloff stole from Magnus Labs could allow him to expand the energy wave generated by the Gamma Absorption Array 100 fold. This would allow him to drain all life force from everyone in Central City, making him immortal at the cost of their lives.

Chester tracks Dr. Orloff after finding a radiation spike equal to 3,000 millisieverts. It becomes fully charged at 100,000 millisieverts.

When Chester says the device can't be unplugged due to the cascading degradation cycle in the gamma isotopes, Barry gets the idea to overload the machine with his own energy instead.

Barry's forcing the gamma array's field backwards completely inverted its energy charge. This not only restored Barry to his original age, but actually deaged him to the point that he is 29 years old biologically. (Barry is supposed to be 33.)


Dialogue Triumphs

The Flash: You okay? Don't worry about that guy. I just dropped him off at CCPD.
Old Woman: Saved by Mr. Flashy himself! (reaching into her purse) Oh, I've gotta give you a nice, big reward.
The Flash: Oh, no, that's not necessary. I can't accept your money, I...
Old Woman: But it's butterscotch.
The Flash: Oh. (laughs) Thank you. That's very sweet of you.

(Barry describes the decay of his body to Cecile and his fear of dementia.)
Barry: When I run, my bones ache. Like they're made of glass, and... my hands won't stop shaking. I'm always out of breath, and it's getting harder...  It's getting harder to... remember the people I love.  My friends. Nora, Bart, Joe. Even Iris. What if I forget who she is... before she comes back?  I thought I had plenty of time to get Iris back...And live my live my life with her. Now it's all fading away, like my body. And now, with my mind going, too... it's like losing everyone you love...  All at once. 


Continuity

As the episode opens, Barry stops two robberies (one at CC Jitters) and saves an old woman from being run over by a distracted driver. 

Ironically, the distracted driver is listening to the novelty song Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer while looking at his phone while driving.

The old woman offers Barry a butterscotch for saving her.

Allegra runs a Dungeons and Dragons game for Barry, Joe, Cecile and Chester. Barry is the group' cleric and Joe is playing Karash the Orc.

Joe can't get into D&D.

Barry started playing D&D after Iris made him try it.

Barry still has no idea what happened to Iris, but is confident she'll be okay since she apparently still exists in the future of 2049.

Barry is called into work by Chief Singh, who has been covering for him the whole day, saying that Barry was in his lab.

Chief Singh had no idea that Captain Kramer knew that Barry was The Flash or that she had figured it out on her own. He does take pride, however, that he figured it out first and far more quickly.

Chief Singh called Barry in on a high-profile tech heist at Mercury Labs. Whoever the thief was, they were smart enough to wipe the security footage before stealing a Gamma Absorption Array.

After quickly searching every abandoned warehouse in the docks, Barry finds a van with the same tire treads as the one used in the Mercury Labs robbery. It contains the array, but it's been heavily modified.

Barry is hit by an energy wave which knocks him out, after being confronted by a gloating older man in a lab coat.

Chester determines the energy wave caused Barry's internal organs to age 30 years overnight. This explains why he looks young on the outside, but his joints, bones and organs are weakened.

The blast also caused Barry to lose control of his powers, so he can no longer phase through solid matter or create focused wind blasts with his arms.

Captain Singh checks in on Joe and finds him getting frustrated while trying to program a robotic vacuum. He offers to help him.

Jenna is said to be in pre-school now, giving Joe much more free time at home.

Barry guesses that his top speed is now Mach 10, but thinks that is still fast enough to stop this scientist,

Barry responds to reports of a break-in at Magnus Labs. This time, the scientist does not bother to wipe the security footage.

Barry can no longer throw lightning and is once again knocked out by the evil scientist.

Upon returning from the Magnus Labs break-in, Chester determines that Barry is now near-sighted and his hair is now going gray.

A second scan determines that Barry has aged another ten years.

The team identify the scientist as Dr. Pytor Orloff - a former technician at Corbin Taft Industries, who was fired for using company resources on unsanctioned research.

Barry mistakenly calls Dr. Orloff Dr. Olsen. as he decides to go to Corbin Taft Industries to see what they can learn about him and his work.

Cecile insists on going with Barry, staying her powers will warn her if he tries anything.

Joe and Singh can't get the vacuum to work and Joe becomes very frustrrated.

Singh recalls how he hadn't seen Joe that upset since the Steve Palmer case.

Barry finds Orloff's old laptop in storage, but accidentally triggers a facial ID scan. This triggers an automatic erasure of the hard drive.

Barry becomes confused again, saying he needs to run the laptop to Chester at the CCPD instead of STAR Labs. 

Barry tries to run himself and Cecile to STAR Labs and they wind up in China instead.

Chester determines that Barry using his speed again could kill him at this point.

Chester was able to stop the countdown on Orloff's laptop, but says it will take more time for him to hack it.

Barry checks the Starchives for something to contain the Gamma Absorption Array while the rest of the team monitor STAR Labs satellite feeds looking for gamma radiation spikes.

Singh reminds Joe that the reason why the Steve Palmer case took them so long to crack was that Joe refused to learn how to use the new computer system the police had adopted. He suggests that Joe has always been slow to react to change.

Singh also points out that all the best things in Joe's life came from his embracing the unexpected... like his raising Barry Allen.

Cecile finds Barry wandering the halls of STAR Labs, having forgotten where the Starchives are.

Barry tells Cecile he's scared that he might die before finding Iris, but he's even more scared that he keeps forgetting the people he loves as his mind deteriorates. 

Cecile tells Barry about her grandmother's battle with dementia but how it didn't stop her from trying to make every moment count for as long as she lived.

Chester breaks the encryption on Dr. Orloff's computer and discovers he was trying to find a way to reserve the aging process. He concludes that the device Orloff stole from Magnus Labs, coupled with the Gamma Absorption Array, could make him immortal at the cost of killing millions.

Barry has a heart-attack while running around Orloff and Chester determines he just aged past 100.

Barry is able to match the energy output of Dr. Orloff's devide, containing the energy wave and then overloading it.

The second inverted energy wave restores both Barry and Orloff to their original ages.

One week later, Allegra is running another RPG. This time, Chief Singh has been invited to join in.

Chief Singh asks Allegra if she ever considered taking on a code name. Allegra says she prefers to be more low-key about her powers.

Allegra planned to run a police-themed game Joe would be able to get into more. Joe surprises everyone by dressing up as a fantasy character and suggesting that he use barbarian rage and his vorpal sword to kill a monster.

Dr. Tannhauser calls Barry and asks if he's seen Caitlin. Barry says he thought she was with her.

Barry goes to Caitlin's apartment and discovers her secret lab.

Caitlin tells Barry about her plan to bring Frost back, but Barry says this is wrong.

Caitlin asks Barry if he can honestly say he wouldn't do the same to save his parents.

Barry destroys the lab with a focused lightning blast and leaves Caitlin in the wreckage, crying.


Location

Somewhere in China, along the Great Wall.


The Bottom Line

A solid filler episode which manages a surprisingly sensitive and accurate portrayal of the problems of dementia amid the science-fiction scenario. Shame it's ruined by Barry's uncharacteristic lack of compassion for Caitlin in the final scene.

The Flash Episode Guide: Season 8, Episode 7 - Lockdown

 For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.

Plot

When Goldface launches a bold raid on CCPD HQ, Barry will have to work around Captain Kristen Kramer to save the day. Meanwhile, Caitlin learns a valuable lesson after accidentally running into Chillblaine and Frost while on a date.


Goofs

It is impossible to believe that Barry Allen, even as a CSI, would not be intimately familiar with the procedure for arresting a perpetrator and making the charges known to the police officers when he hands them over for a formal arrest. (If nothing else, you'd think he could write up an official statement at super-speed!)

It's even more impossible to believe that neither Joe West nor Cecile Horton would approach Barry about his apparent habit of leaving criminals tied up in CCPD HQ with no indication of what they did so they could be properly charged.

It's particularly unbelievable that the CCPD doesn't have a process for making sure its many supervillains are properly processed by its many superheroes.

Allowing that it's possible for Barry to be surprised by a gas attack, he should have recovered before the other police officers given his accelerated healing.

Why, out of all the places she could take her new boyfriend, did Caitlin take him to O'Shaughnessy's - the bar all the villains hang out and and where Chillblaine used to work? (It's possible she was intentionally trying to force a confrontation but Caitlin's dialogue suggests it wasn't intentional.)

There should probably be some kind of oversight that prevents Captain Kramer from sending the experimental anti-meta bullets (which she commissioned in the first place) to ARGUS without informing anyone.

Given that she's in contact with ARGUS and military minded, you'd think Captain Kramer would consult with them about some kind of metahuman training program rather than waiting to ask The Flash about controlling her powers. (Come to that, you'd expect the CCPD to require her to be trained in using her powers safely.)

While Goldface's efforts to educate his henchmen are laudable, it seems unlikely that he'd try to get his right-hand interested in literature by giving him a rare first edition of a book he'd never read.

Frost says that Chillblaine got her tickets to an underground rave in Keystone city. Underground raves are not ticketed events.


Performances

Grant Gustin, Jesse L. Martin and Danielle Nicolet are to be commended for keeping a straight face reading their dialogue in their scene together.

Conversely, Damion Poitier steals the show by refusing to treat his farcical dialogue with any degree of seriousness.

Flash Facts

Frost and Chillblaine's karaoke team name is The Ice Pack. In the comics, the Ice Pack was also the name of a supervillain team made up of villains with cold gimmicks, including Mr. Freeze, Captain Cold, Killer Frost, Blue Snowman, Mister Blizzard and Icicle. 


Technobabble

Chester shows off a self-flying drone based off of an AI algorithm he created on his podcast.

There are 0.35 grams of gold in a cell phone, which is apparently enough for Goldface to be able to use his powers to control phones.

Marcus tries to comfort Caitlin by telling her that last week he screwed up the blooming cycle for the Selenicereus grandiflorus he was growing at work.

The anti-meteahuman bullets contain trace amounts of dark matter.

According to Marcus, the pads of the Opuntia cacti pair perfectly with an agave spirit.

Barry is able to reset the scanner in his lab from infrared to infrasonic, turning it into a make-shift sonic stunner device that allows him and Kramer to escape Goldface.

Barry theorizes that meta-dampener cuffs short out trying to cancel out a power mimic's powers because they release RNA energy pulses that repress metagenes. Since Kramer's DNA is constantly morphing based on her adrenaline levels and proximity to other metahumans, this overloads the cuffs, which were not designed with erratic gene fluctuation in mind.


Dialogue Disasters

Too many to list, but the fact that Caitlin is dating a plant expert named Marcus Ficus pretty much sums up most of the episode's attempts at humor.


Continuity

Team Flash now has an official monitor duty roster. As the episode opens, Chester is on duty.

Chester has a Supergirl lunchbox.

Chester and his grandmother trade off on making egg salad for one another's lunches.

The events of this episode take place on a Wednesday.

Allegra shows up unannounced at STAR Labs, intending to take Chester out to lunch at Hershfield's, - a place that makes amazing chicken parmesan sandwiches.

As they are about to leave, Chester is alerted to a hold-up at Jitters, a mugging off Route 119 and a carjacking at Edwards Center.

Barry takes care of all three crimes in less than a minute and leaves the offenders tied up in CCPD HQ's lobby.

Captain Kramer complains to Barry that it will take them the rest of the day to figure out just what the criminals did since The Flash didn't leave a report or any evidence they can use. She wishes she had some way to contact The Flash directly.

Joe and Cecile think Kramer has a point, given that they had a direct line to Barry and the new CCPD doesn't have that benefit.

Barry is reluctant to give Kramer a "Flash Phone" and instead resolves to make it easier on the police by redoubling his efforts to find good evidence as a CSI.

Chester's science podcast is called The Runkyard.

Caitlin complains that Chillblaine keeps taking Frost on ridiculous dates like skydiving and clogging their social media with cutesy couple pictures.

Caitlin is meeting her new boyfriend, Dr. Marcus Ficus, for dinner at The Spanish Hamper, which is apparently the hottest restaurant in town.

This will be Caitlin's third date with Marcus.

Chester speculates on if Marcus will soon be part of Team Flash or develop plant control powers.

Barry hustles to get all the evidence needed to convict the three criminals The Flash caught, but Kramer still isn't satisfied and wants a way to talk to The Flash.

Someone gasses CCPD HQ, knocking out all the cops, including Barry.

When the police wake up, they are all wearing meta-dampener cuffs and are being held hostage by Goldface. The cuffs also explode if the wearer tries to use their powers.

Goldface reasoned that with one metahuman now running the CCPD, there were good odds that there were other metahumans on the force.

Goldface recognizes Barry as The Chemist - the villain name he used when he first encountered Goldface while undercover in 513.

Caitlin accidentally made her dinner reservations at The Spanish Hamper for January next year. She decides to take him to O'Shaughnessy's - the bar that is a frequent hangout for meta-criminals where Chillblaine used work.

It's karaoke night at O'Shaughnessy's and Frost and Chillblaine are singing Journey's "Cold As Ice."

Frost and Chillblaine suggest a double date, which Caitlin is clearly uncomfortable with. Marcus, however, is agreeable to the idea.

Goldface reveals that he's come to steal the Anti-Meta bullets that Kramer had made in Season 7.

When the bullets are not in the armor, Goldface tries to strangle Barry with his chain and says he will kill him if Kramer won't tell him where to find them.

Barry says he can use a scanner in his lab to find the bullets, based on their dark matter signature.

"Snowflake" is Chilblaine's pet name for Frost.

Chillblaine invites Marcus and Caitlin to join them in a skydiving date next week, but Caitlin is afraid of skydiving.

Caitlin tells Frost she is being naive and that Chillblaine is just going to hurt her again.

Goldface's ringtone for when Amunet Black calls him is "Love is a Battlefield." This was revealed to be their song in 611.

Amunet is apparently in London.

Barry discovers that Goldface and Amunet Black are seeing the same couples' counselor as him and Iris - Dr. Sharon Finkel. He says their relationship and their business has never been better since they started working together.

Goldface has a BA in Literature from Yale and is dismayed that his right-hand man Carver doesn't get his references to Moby Dick or even Wrath of Khan.

Goldface bought Carver a first edition of Moby DIck for his birthday.

After turning his scanner into a sonic stunner, Barry and Kramer are able to escape through a vent in his lab to a storage room for junked equipment.

Kramer's powers cause her cuffs to short out.

Kramer says her powers only work for 30 seconds at a time and only when she is stressed.

Barry suggests that Kramer use her powers to counter Goldface and take him down. She refuses to consider this, however.

Chillblaine tells Caitlin he doesn't think she hates him so much as she's afraid to take the next step with Marcus and is responding by tearing down Frost's relationship.

Kramer tells Barry that she can't control her powers, so there's no way she can copy Goldface's abilities intentionally. 

Barry realizes Kramer wants to get in touch with The Flash so he can train her to use her powers.

Barry gives Kramer a pep-talk and tells her to trust her instincts and discipline.

Kramer is able to distract Goldface long enough for Barry to remove his cuff and outrun the explosion. He is later able to make quick work of Goldface and his men.

Kramer tells Barry she sent the anti-meta bullets to ARGUS 35 weeks earlier.

Caitlin apologizes to Frost for being rude to her and Chillblaine.

Frost signs them all up for roller derby for their next double date.

Barry visits Kramer as The Flash and gives her a pager and says he wants to let her know his secret identity. However, Kramer already figured it out, saying there was no way Barry could have escaped the exploding cuff unless he were The Flash.

Joe has been studying cooking since retiring and learned how to make a doro wat.

Iris fades out of phase with time, but hides this fact from her father.


Untelevised Adventures

Frost and Chilblaine have a number of adventurous dates involving cliff diving and other extreme sports.


The Boomerang Factor

The entire episode's plot is built around the idea that The Flash has been routinely leaving criminals tied up for the police with no indication of what their crimes were and that neither Joe West nor Cecile Horton ever told Barry that this was making it impossible for them to do their jobs.


The Bottom Line

Painfully dumb on every level. The best thing that can be said about it is that it makes the ending of Armageddon seem better by comparison.