The Flash 3.07 “Killer Frost”

 SPOILER WARNING!

The Flash has been teasing much of Caitlin’s gradual transformation into Killer Frost over the course of this season, which has been great because they’ve finally given her something to do other than basically be a love interest for either Ronnie Raymond or Jay Garrick (albeit a Zoom-impersonating Jay Garrick). This transformation in the Kevin Smith directed episode was fun to watch and was easily the best part of the episode as we see her break apart from her friends and Barry risk everything, including his job, to try to help her.

Let’s get the bad stuff out of the way first. Unfortunately for Savitar, it seems that we have yet another villain who is a speedster. After The Reverse Flash and Zoom, it’s starting to get a bit annoying. Surely it would be more interesting to see the Rogues as the big bad for once? Or Grodd? Or someone, anyone, who isn’t a Speedster? The show also appears to be reusing another plot point from the previous two seasons as well, by having Julian turn out to be Dr. Alchemy, Savitar’s underling. Hopefully it isn’t as obvious as it looks and the writers have one more twist up their sleeve like suggesting that Lance was Prometheus in Arrow only to subvert it in the next episode. Tom Felton is still being typecast as Draco Malfoy here and he’s basically playing exactly the same character.

Felton still refuses to see metahumans as people who can be both good and bad, and following an attack from Caitlin believes that Barry’s judgement is askew and threatens to turn her in. However, due to his friendship with Barry he decides to give him the option to quit the Central City Police Department in order to keep the secret, which will no doubt be revealed at some point anyway down the line winding Caitlin up in even more trouble. For now, Barry’s out of the CCPD and Julian has complete freedom to operate without his back being watched by Barry.

Now we can concentrate on what this episode did right, which was a lot. It worked on an emotional level, as we were left wondering throughout the entire episode whether Caitlin would become Killer Frost completely, living up to her name. However, Barry’s tactic of only letting Caitlin leave if she could kill him proved to be an effective one, helping her overcome her dark abilities. It may be too late for Julian, but she was able to save Wally, who now has the powers of the speed force that he regained from the Flashpoint timeline.

The Flashpoint timeline was brought up once again here when Caitlin, whilst in her Killer Frost mode, told everyone that Cisco’s brother would have been alive had Barry not changed the past. It was a pretty effective moment and highlighted Barry’s biggest screw-up yet, which is something that will no doubt cause a major difference between Barry and Cisco going forward. It’s safe to say after this episode, Team Flash will no longer be what it once was.

The good thing about Savitar was that although his design looks completely awful and showcases the problems of having a mostly CGI-villain, he was kept to the backseat this episode and hopefully will only be used sparingly throughout the season. It’ll be fun to see what more Caitlin is going to do in her role of the Killer Frost because it will more than likely not be the last time we see her lose control again It’s helped by the fact that Panabaker’s Killer Frost on Earth 1 isn’t as over the top and downright evil as Earth 2’s Killer Frost is. Here there’s more depth to her performance and character, as it’s still early stages. She’s still trying to find her way after all.

So despite its flaws, “Killer Frost” was an emotional, grounded episode of The Flash that worked in places but stuttered in others. Whilst Season 3 may be the weakest yet, there is still plenty of promise, and hopefully Julian’s character will take a different approach to the one that we are all expecting him to going forward. Sadly, Felton’s casting remains as predictable as ever.

What did you think of The Flash’s Killer Frost? Let me know in the comment below and stay tuned for next week’s episode, which airs on Tuesday at 8pm on the CW.