THE FLASH “Cause and Effect” Review

By Justin Carter

Cause and Effect

After revealing that Savitar is actually another Barry Allen, it’s easy to think that this week’s Flash would devote an entire episode to peeling back the logic of how we got to this point. That would’ve admittedly made for a not fun time, so the show reveals all of that in the opening minutes: our Evil Barry is a Time Remnant who was made by Future Barry to help fight Savitar in the future, then became Savitar himself. (Look, Cisco and Evil B both explain this on their own, and it’s confusing. The best way to explain it is that Futurama episode where Fry discovers he’s his own grandpa.) The time travel of the last three years has basically screwed things up so that Savitar could be born even without Barry not making clones, so that easy loophole is shot down the moment it enters the realm of possibility.

Julian and Cisco deduce that since Savitar has the memories of the past, the solution is simple: just shut off Barry’s short term memories and catch him unawares. But neither of the two men are good when it comes to brains, so they mess up spectacularly and end up wiping away everything to the point that Barry doesn’t even know his own name. It’s a monumentally bad screw up that also makes for a pretty entertaining series of events. Grant Gustin has such a dopey smile and he plays an amnesiac Barry so well that it can’t help but be funny.

Sadly, there’s a downside to this, and that comes in the form of a convicted criminal named the Heat Monger. Barry has to testify in order to put him behind bars, but his sweating destroys the glasses Cisco and Julian use to feed him information during the trial. So Heat Monger is back out on the streets and setting fire to a building before long, but that’s not the real point of the episode. Instead, it’s to show that as easy as it would be for Barry to not carry the weight of the world on his shoulders, it’s not really possible for him or the rest of Team Flash.

As much as Iris would rather him be the guy who’s always smiling and not being such a downer, heroism is just ingrained into him from his core. He’ll always want to help people, even after just discovering (or rediscovering) that he’s got superpowers. There was an issue of Batman a year or so ago that did basically the same memory restoration thing here, and like in that comic, it’s an emotional hook that just works. Barry may not be defined by the loss of his family like Bruce was, but they made him stronger for it, and Iris can’t protect him from that, no matter how much she wants to.

Still, even the reemergence of his powers aren’t enough to do the trick. Killer Frost comes to Team Flash for help in restoring Savitar’s memories, since no Savitar means no Kid Flash, and the city can’t take two missing speedsters. It was already a given that Caitlin would take over her mind from Frost again, and the show lays the seeds for this with Cisco trying to bring her back by reminiscing about the old days with Ronnie. Her eyes even flash to normal after departing STAR Labs, but Frost is determined to stay in control, such as when she brushes off Julian’s declaration of love and says that she never loved any of Team Flash.

“Cause and Effect” starts off dour, but it takes a nice swerve to a more comical and heartfelt tone. It’s something that the show has needed the last few weeks, but that now means that we’re likely headed for some dark territory in the final two episodes of the season. I’ll take it, and since next week means the return of Captain Cold, I can’t complain too much.

Additional Notes

• Amnesia Barry, upon seeing his and Iris’ apartment: “How do we pay for this?” That’s a very good question that the show will seemingly never answer.
• Tracy and HR get together. Good for them!
• Barry: “How do we know each other?” Wally: “We’re brothers.” Barry’s gut reaction to look at his hand made me laugh more than it should’ve.
• Next week: King Shark also returns!