The Flash 3.03 “Magenta”

Warning! Spoilers!

Despite the mostly wasted potential of “Flashpoint”, it didn’t take long for The Flash to return to its basic ‘metahumans of the week’ approach as Harrison Wells and Jessie returned from Earth 2 to shake things up a bit. Like pretty much everyone else, Wells is annoyed at Barry for going back and altering the timeline, but there’s a new metahuman in town to keep the team occupied, and this one goes by the name Magenta.

Joey King took the role of Magenta here and although she may not be as fleshed out as the big end of season bad guys were, she got a bit more development than your average forgettable metahuman bad guy of the week as the show tried a different tact. Here they had her being a teenager who has simply lost her way and isn’t actually as in control as it seems. It was great to see King here after her role in Fargo and she put in a pretty impressive performance and a nice balancing act between Frankie Kane and Magenta. Even though she’s not going to be the most memorable villain that the show has ever had, she’s a welcome change of pace that keeps things fresh and exciting. She also served as a way for Jessie to put her new speedster powers to the test in an exciting climax that forced her and Barry to team up despite Wells doing everything he can to keep her safe.

Tom Cavanagh is one of the best actors on The Flash, so it’s great to have him back and he puts in a good performance as Wells no matter what version; this Earth 2 take provided a new level of depth for the actor to explore. It’s great that it looks like this is not just a one-time thing and hopefully Wells and Jessie will be involved in the future of the series, but you’ve got to think it’ll only be a matter of time before Jessie ends up in trouble and Wells has an overreaction especially given how protective of her he is.

One thing that didn’t quite work out as well as normal was the Barry and Iris romance which again never feels like its taking off. This is mainly due to how boring these romantic dates interrupted by superhero duties have become. It’s not just The Flash that’s used it in the past and it’s starting to get tiresome, especially when you add in the other melodrama coming from Wally’s character who now is jealous that Jessie was the one who got the powers and that he didn’t. However, it’s safe to say we can’t have too many speedsters around at once, so it’s understandable that the writers are playing a long game with Wally, and there’s potential for Dr. Alchemy to exploit his desire for speed as well in the future.

However, Dr. Alchemy needs to actually do something more concrete in the next few episodes to be counted as a formidable threat because right now he’s just lurking in the background. Eobard Thawne made us question him pretty early on and at the same time Zoom also made a memorable early entrance. We haven’t quite got that yet from Dr. Alchemy, so the character needs to step up in the next couple of episodes.

Something needs to happen with Julian Albert, who’s just so bland at this point his storyline isn’t worth caring about at all in the overall scheme of things. Congratulations The Flash, you got a high profile actor in Tom Felton. The question is, what do you do with him now other than make him play the same character that he plays in everything?

There’s too many problems that The Flash is having so far with Season 3 to make it truly great, but there are some steps in the right direction at the same time. Jessie’s use of the Speed Force is very cool and it’s fantastic to see two speedsters working together for a change as opposed to one being the enemy. And, again, Wells’ return is always good news.

What did you think of “Magenta?” let me know in the comments section below.