THE FLASH “The Wrath of Savitar” Review

By Justin Carter

The Wrath of Savitar

Barry Allen has made some pretty boneheaded moves over the last two seasons. Only a few weeks ago, he made a blanket statement that it was time for Team Flash to stop harboring secrets. Of course, that was never likely to happen, especially not after Wally started having freaky visions of Savitar over the past week. So Barry, the master of secret keeping, gets upset with Wally and declares him benched for the rest of the episode.

That would be a big dick move in and of itself, but then when Wally convinces Cisco to vibe him to the future it turns out that the reason for Barry’s proposal to Iris last week was because she didn’t have a ring on her finger in the future where Savitar guts her. So basically, under Barry Allen’s logic, proposing to Iris and marrying her will change the future and prevent her from dying. That’s some super flimsy logic, Bar, and Iris is right to be pretty miffed that you proposed more out of fear than anything else.

Thankfully, the mystery of Savitar’s return is fairly simple: Caitlin kept a shard from the Philosopher’s Stone in the hope that it would reverse her powers. It seems like a bad move, but winds up being the final thing that the Speed God needs to be thrown into the Speed Force in order to escape his prison. The team finds this out after strapping Julian to the chair and plugging Savitar into his brain — twice — despite the fact that the scientist doesn’t want to. It’s hard to take our Speedster God’s threatening words all that seriously. We’ve been through four evil speedsters at this point, and the only thing that makes this one different is a height increase and extra armor.

It’s with “Wrath of Savitar” that the titular villain’s ominous prophecy also gets one third of the way to being completely true. (I know Caitlin is supposed to count as the traitor, but it feels like this is a misdirect for a grander betrayal.) Since no one bothered to get Wally in on the loop, and he’s still getting messed with in the head by Savitar, he takes the Stone fragment to throw it in the Speed Force. It’s this moment where our baddie swaps places with Wally, forcing Barry to watch as his friend is ripped apart before being sucked in. Wally is sure to get rescued next week, but man….Barry really, really dropped the ball on this one.

Additional Notes

• Savitar lets it out that HR will be one of the survivors of the finale, which is certainly interesting.
• Speaking of, the way our baddie talks makes it sound like we’re in for an identity reveal in a few episodes. The only real clue is that he hates Barry, but that is such a broad selection of candidates to go through.
• In two weeks, we finally get that Flash/Supergirl musical crossover, and I’m so excited.
• I would really like to know what HR’s best man speech would’ve been like at Barry and Iris’ wedding.