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DVR Catch-Up: The Flash, ‘Shade’

(WISH) — What’s worse than things that go bump in the night? Things you will never catch going bump in the night!

Savitar!

No really, he’s supposed to be the god of speed. I mean, Zoom was supposed to be all creepy and such, with the “mouth” area of his helmet all connected to his jaws like a zombie with rotting flesh but Savitar? Savitar is like Sonic the Hedgehog gone all evil and faster and AHHH!

But before we even get near that, first we have the outing of Killer Frost. And she’s not really happy that Cisco spilled the beans.

In “Shade,” Team Flash take on the latest Alchemy baddie, a shadow man that thrives in the darkness, can materialize and de-materialize, and, generally needs to be taken down. Team Flash sciences all over that and determines that Shade really just vibrates really fast, like Barry does when he needs to pass through walls, and that light slows down Shade’s vibration. Light him up and he stays solid.

Of course, he interrupts Joe’s date night at a movie-in-the-park, and Wally is having some wicked dreams about that other reality. At first, Barry’s reluctant to address Wally’s dreams and behavior, not really wanting to tell the group about Kid Flash. He tells them to fix they should fix the Shade problem, instead. And, as the baddie of the week, Shade gets resolved with time to spare.

The Flashpoint reality is crossing over into Wally’s mind-he sees himself running, saving people, getting stabbed by the Rival, the usual. It’s becoming agonizing to him. He’s also getting telepathic messages form Dr. Alchemy. “Come to me, Wallace…I can make things right for yoooooou…” (Well, something like that). They decide to lock Wally up, but Alchemy is doing such a job on his mind that Iris takes pity, lets him out, and Wally/Alchemy attacks her. Girl can throw a punch, though!

This all leads to a come-clean moment among Team Flash. Barry tells Wally about Kid Flash, and Joe admits that Wally reminds him of himself in his youth-and he could only imagine what Young Joe would do with superpowers! And then Cisco alludes to other secrets.

Earlier, Caitlin had confided in Cisco about her Frost powers and her worries about turning evil.

Okay, hold up. Here’s my problem with this whole “Caitlin could be evil” theme. Cisco, as Reverb, was evil in Earth 2. But in Earth 1, he’s Vibe, has developed his powers aaaanddd isn’t evil. So why does Caitlin have to be evil in this Earth 1? Can’t she get a different name? At this point, we can make some Elsa references, call her Frozen, and be done with it.

Anyway, Cisco blurts out Caitlin’s secret, she says that wasn’t his secret to tell, storms out, Barry follows, they have a heart to heart, and Barry mentions that she has powers because of Flashpoint. Unfortunately, Iris interrupts about Shade, they leave and Caitlin is left to stew in her Flashpoint “woulda shoulda.” You can already see her laying the blame for her powers on Barry.

She has two paths here: Own her powers and be a force for good. Or blame everything on someone else and be mad about it and, well, end up a baddie. Props to the writers for exploring this, that not everyone that gets powers is so super excited to have them. Compare it to Wally, who BADLY wants powers but doesn’t have them. This could be a fun exploration.

Shade settled, and secrets exposed, the team sets up a trap with CCPD to catch Dr. Alchemy. Julian is nowhere to be found (He’s Alchemy! You heard it here first! I’ll just bet!). Wally ‘succumbs’ to Alchemy’s call and the team follows him to Alchemy’s lair. Zoom! Blast! Zap! And a couple of ‘dead’ extras later, and they have Alchemy on his knees with his fancy rock (a philosophers’ stone?) fallen aside. Savitar springs Alchemy and Wally grabs the stone.

Wally gets cocooned, Savitar has Flash by the throat, and we are just glad that the CW shows don’t go to their holiday hiatus as early as other network shows! They’ve got one more episode to sort all this out before the Flash has to bring Supergirl to Earth 1 for the four-way team up!