When Iris' voice kicked off this episode, I got an inkling into what the writers of the show were trying to do. The past few episodes have indicated that the show is playing around with its formula, seeing what does and doesn't work. Not to keep repeating myself, but it's still early in the show's run and there are flaws that are being magnified here. It's increasingly become clear that the series' main problem is Iris. The actress is not the problem; She can only do so much with the material the writers give her.




This episode is loaded with tropes seen in so many superhero origin stories before: Nerds being bullied by people stronger than they are; The "damsel in distress" due to her own questionable decisions (though it's more complicated here than that); Further investigation into a past secret. I shouldn't put more emphasis on the voiceover narration. It's fueled by the hope that the writers figure it not to be working and scrap it altogether in the future. The fact that Iris keeps making the decisions that she does should be the focus.



Here's what I don't get about the series in general: It takes its time to analyze how to beat Barry's opponents. The team catalogs Barry's weaknesses which, disappointingly, become ignored in favor of showing off various other aspects of Barry's speed. Yet, Iris continuing to blog about the Streak is presented as a bad idea by all those besides Iris herself, and there is little being done to correct it. Even when school bully Tony Woodward, aka, Girder, shows up because of Iris' blog and then proceeds to kidnap her, using the blog as his primary motivation, she continues to write about the Streak.



The only change is in calling Barry by the proper Flash moniker that somehow, inexplicably, makes the blog go viral. This is the exact kind of dangerous situations that Barry and Joe have been saying to Iris since "Plastique." Her stubborness just won't endear her to many fans until the blog is completely done away with. The blog, like the particle accelerator's responsibility for creating all of the meta-humans, is just a primary source of conflict that the writers can lean on for the plots of episodes.




That said, Girder does present a problem that Barry hasn't addressed to this point. It's something that I noted as far back as "City of Heroes": He lacks even basic combat skills to fight the bad guys that come his way. Putting aside Girder's odd propensity to sneak up on people like a horror movie villain, Barry cannot directly beat him one-on-one in a fight. We get to see two different ways to develop Barry's fighting skills. There's the flashback, which actually cements the idea that Iris sees Barry as a brother rather than a potential lover that the writers desperately want to push. The show then gets Eddie to do more things than all of the previous episodes combined by teaching Barry some basic boxing.


The boxing doesn't figure too much into Barry's last fight with Woodward other than confirm that he is simply outmatched by the bigger, stronger man. So Barry has to resort to the only tactic left: The supersonic punch suggested by Cisco. It's undeniably another spectacular-looking special effect, though I could have done without the exact descriptions of what was happening from Cisco and Caitlin back at STAR Labs. As if those in the audience couldn't figure out what was happening from watching onscreen.





The villains gallery on this show is getting a bit crowded six episodes in. There are two of them stuck in the particle accelerator prison. I feel that there is going to be a space problem that has to be addressed in the future with the prison. Captain Cold, Heat Wave, and Firestorm are apparently still out in the open. Then there is the issue of Dr. Wells. He's much more helpful and human in this episode due to his late-night confession to Joe of what drives him (another superhero trope: the death of a loved one). Since all of the episode tags in the series so far have dealt with Dr. Wells, there is the real likely possibility that he is the "Man in Yellow" that takes all of the case material and threatens Iris if the investigation doesn't stop at the end. 


The pilot confirmed that he has foreknowledge of the future so it's conceivable that time travel is involved with him somehow. That would make him the primary suspect in the murder of Barry's mother. It does tie a little too neatly into Wells' overarching motivation to either be the impetus for Barry becoming the Flash and/or eventually becoming his arch-villain. Like much of the series so far, we'll have to wait to see what's in store for the future.