The Flash S1x09 “The Man in the Yellow Suit”

WARNING! SPOILERS!

And so, one of the most exciting series of this fall season delivered a pretty action packed midseason finale. It was one of the strongest hours of the show yet as it featured the appearance from the Man in the Yellow Suit (known in the comics as Reverse Flash and Professor Zoom) for the first time, with his introduction having been teased since the pilot and the death of Barry’s mother. We know he’s responsible, so that gave the clash between Reverse Flash and Barry extra emotional input which was handled very well indeed, making him something more than just a metahuman of the week and most likely someone who will end up as the series’ main villain at least for its first season, especially with the revelation that Dr. Wells is seemingly the Reverse Flash. It’s certainly an interesting prospect and the revelation will no doubt be very shocking to the Flash team and I, for one, cannot wait because it will mean that things will never be the same.

The episode itself seemingly answered all the questions concerning the identity of Dr. Wells being the Reverse Flash, but there’s a few other factors that we have to take into account as well. The fact that he spared Eddie is one of them, and the fact that Wells appeared in multiple places at once (maybe this has something to do with the fact that Cisco mentioned that there were two speedsters on the night Barry’s mother died?) makes it something that isn’t as open and shut as we previously thought.

But enough of the Wells/Reverse Flash stuff. Let’s talk about the rest of the episode, starting with Robbie Amell’s Firestorm, who felt like the weakest link in an otherwise brilliant episode. Whilst it’s great that we’re getting Firestorm in a live action series, I wasn’t a big fan of the way his character was handled and his appearance towards the end where he stopped Reverse Flash seemed like a massive Deus Ex Machina moment. However, given how awesome the character is in the comics at least (hopefully as the character does grow it will lead to a new Firestorm ongoing comic), it’ll be great fun to see what happens next, as this will most likely be a long-term project in transforming the character into a superhero likely to support Barry, much like Laurel on Arrow. It almost looks like they’re kind of setting things up for a Justice League of characters on the small screen, with Firestorm, Captain Atom, The Flash, Green Arrow, Black Canary and Arsenal all introduced over the course of the two series which would certainly make for a great team up when they’re eventually where they need to be.

The special effects of this week’s episode were mostly brilliant. We got to see the stadium brawl between Reverse Flash and the Flash in all its glory and it was handled very well indeed. The fight scenes were among my favourite part of the episode and it was great to witness them in motion. Once again, it has certainly helped that The Flash has taken a darker tone over the course of the previous few episodes from its initial lighter fare, allowing for the darker tone of this episode (which still had some pretty light moments, to be fair).

In conclusion then, The Man in the Yellow Suit was an excellent episode of The Flash which has perhaps shown the most consistency out of all the comic book shows on TV so far, being in a stronger place than not just Gotham and Constantine, but also I am feeling more positive about this show than when I was the first seasons of Arrow and Agents of SHIELD. It’s almost disappointing to see the series go on a winter break, and as a result January 20 can’t come quickly enough.