The Flash Season 3 Attack On Central City Review — Gorilla Warfare
Here’s your spoilers warning before this review is over in a Flash. This week’s Flash in a few words may be the best episode of the season? Our episode begins with Barry (Grant Gustin) and Iris (Candice Patton) again enjoying life together…aww. At the same time HR (Tom Cavanagh) greeted the gang with Friend’s Day. Apparently its an Earth 19 holiday. You show friends love and all that jazz…cute!
During this time, Jessie (Violett Beane) along with a scared Wally (Keiynan Lonsdale) approach Harry about her staying. So it goes well…a little too well. I mean the guy went as far as kill people to protect her. It just comes off out-of-character. Mr. Ramon (Carlos Valdez) is feeling a little down while Caitlin (Danielle Panabaker) assures him that he will find a special someone. The friend love fest is interrupted however! Cisco’s kindred spirit, Gypsy (Jessica Camacho) comes in to crash the party. She’s seemingly lost her mind as she’s attacking our leading man. Luckily Harry is a sharpshooter and knocks her out.
So it turns out she was mind controlled. I’ll give you one guess whom was behind this. Now the whole team is concerned that Grodd (David Sobolov) has made his way back to Central City. Plus he has an entire gorilla army backing him. The issue now is how do they stop all of that exactly? Can they even.
Harry and Wally whip up a device to help Franciso vibe the army’s location. Harry kind of slips and tells Wally he’s terminally ill. Wally clearly is very concerned and is asked to keep the secret from Jessie. Hmm…he maybe a jerk but that’s rather convenient.
Cisco tries to solicit help from Gypsy unfortunately she says no and points out the obvious to him. Team Flash has 3 speedsters, an ice queen, and someone that can vibe. That’s a lot of man power on paper. Still it’s not enough. Gypsy unfortunately is very scared from the experience. Grodd wants to destroy everything and anything.
Jessie Quick, Kid Flash and the Scarlet Speedster await the invasion with CCPD. Things get eerily quiet for a supposed army. Then things get scary as Grodd takes hold of Joe’s (Jessie L Martin) mind. Speaking through detective West, he warns The Flash that he can’t be stopped. He takes things further as he has Jo nearly shoot himself. Thankfully the Fastest man alive saves best TV dad…again. But it was a diversion for our heroes. A high ranker general is abducted elsewhere.
After the short ordeal. Barry mulls over his choices to deal with Grodd and um its grim. Speaking with Iris he considers actually killing him. Now that’s a pretty big moral dilemma for our titular hero. Since taking the mantle he has never taken a life of his rouge gallery. Of course bad guys have died by other additional influences! Barry makes mention of th Gren Arrow’s methods as a counter argument. Again, Iris knocks that down because The Flash represents a different kind of heroism. He instills hope and mercy.
During the interim, Cisco and Harry devise a way to find out the killer gorilla’s plan. After probing Joe’s mind, he draws the portrait of our abducted military person. So turns out he’s a general and became mind controlled as they speak. He also happens to be in charge of firing nuclear missiles…yikes! Nukes get armed and ready to b launched. Barry rushes over to stop them. This results in him trying to pick the right code. So in a very tens moment our hero tries an impossible number of codes to fail over and over. He finally gets the right combination with literally seconds before the nukes launch. The tension was pitiable and nerve-wrecking.
After this Grodd steels himself to launch his army. Barry is still thinking if he should kill him and end his life. Harry pops in and assures him it’s a stupid idea. He bluntly tells Mr Allen there’s always another way. As he reveals doing dark things makes it easier. The Flash has to find another way. With this in mind he summons Cisco to assist them with finding a solution.
Vibe makes his way to Earth-19. Before doing so, we see Gypsy working with what appears to be the Flash of that Earth. Cisco pleads to her in requiring her help for the greater good. In the mean time the speedsters meet up with the gorilla army. Its scary just as you would assume! As they do battle Grodd taunts Barry and points out that killing him is the only way. He refuses and claims that there’s an alternative. Sure enough Vibe and Gypsy return with help in the form of Solovar (Keith David). The former gorilla king and Grodd do battle.
What takes places is an impressive display of CGI as they fight. No really its the season’s best. I bet it hit over the budget. So solovar gets the upper hand and sends Grodd crashing into the concrete. That’s not all that surprising considering had to manipulate things in his favor. Before Solovar can drive a spear into his chest Barry asks for mercy.
Grodd will remain on Earth-1 locked up by Argus and the gorillas return to Earth-2.Barry deservedly feels really considering that he didn’t have compromise himself. Cisco and Gypsy send someone alone time. Cisco admits that they both should be together. She responds with a passion series of kisses with Mr. Ramon. She makes her exit by letting him know he would have his hands full. Harry finally accepts Jessie staying on Earth-1 before he makes his return. By the way, h was lying about being terminally ill to have Wally weasel out of them staying together.
Our episode ends as Barry reconsiders his thoughts on the future. He no longer sees it as a set path. He now realizes that it’s something that we freely shape. H shares these thoughts with Ms. West in a romantic setting. Barry presents a wedding ring and proposes to her. Sorry fans but we don’t get to hear her answer. Our episode ends as Wallace sees Savitar out and about?
So why was this the best episode of the season? The first few key things are that there was moral dilemmas present for multiple characters. Barry had to struggle with killing a villain. Gypsy was understandable scared and hesitant as a hero. Harry was being a jerk to his daughter’s happiness. There was legitimate humor via Harry and Cisco’s shenanigans. Everything wrap up nicely and in their respective ways with the main conflict being front and center.
