Title: “The Flash Season 3 Episode 20: I Know Who You Are”
Genre: Superhero fiction, Drama, Action
Platform: TV – The CW
Director: Hanelle Culpepper
Writer: Bronwen Clark & Joshua V. Gilber
Rating: TV-PG
Release: 2017
Cast: Grant Gustin, Jesse L. Martin, Tom Cavanagh
“Easy, Romeo and Juliet. None of us have forgotten about Caitlin.” H.R. Wells—The Flash
Joe (Jesse L. Martin) and Cecile (Danielle Nicolet) have just returned from training for a marathon. They are tired but giddy from their run. Cecile accidently tells Joe she loves him; Joe looks shocked and a little bewildered. Fortunately, for both of them he gets a call and has to leave. Team Flash is having a meeting on Tracy Brand (Anne Dudek); the scientist who will develop the trap Barry (Grant Gustin) will imprison Savitar in the future. Present day Tracy is a graduate student at Central City University. Julian (Tom Felton) is sniping at the group about Caitlin (Danielle Panabaker). Julian: “Sorry, why are we not looking for Caitlin again?” H.R. (Tom Cavanagh): “Easy, Romeo and Juliet. None of us have forgotten about Caitlin.” Cisco (Carlos Valdes) adds that they wouldn’t be having this problem if Julian had not removed her necklace.
Barry, Cisco and H.R. go to the university to see Tracy. They find her burning her dissertation because her department rejected it. Her advisor said her work was a waste of university funding. H.R. gives her an impromptu pep talk. Killer Frost shows up to kill Tracy. “Admission here is so easy.” Cisco freezes and doesn’t take the clear shot he has. Barry does a neat trick of using his speed to turn a small flame into a fireball in Killer Frost’s direction. That allows them to get Tracy to safety. Cisco and Barry know for sure that she is working for Savitar now.
“Maybe there’s more Caitlin Snow in you than you’ve led me to believe.” Savitar—The Flash
Tracy gives a description of Killer Frost to a police sketch artist. The team has removed any video of her attack. Cecile stops by to reassure Joe that she doesn’t want to put any pressure on him. Killer Frost meets with Savitar. He isn’t happy with her not killing Tracy. Savitar: “Maybe there’s more Caitlin Snow in you than you’ve led me to believe.” H.R. and Tracy are at Jitters. Tracy knows about a coffee that Jitters serves that H.R. wasn’t aware existed. He’s smitten. The rest of the team is doing surveillance. Julian and Cisco are watching H.R. and Tracy on monitors. Julian noticed that Cisco had a clear shot at Caitlin but did not take it. Cisco doesn’t want to talk about it. Barry and Joe are in a car watching them. Barry advises Joe to be honest with Cecile. He could even tell her about Wally and him. H.R. and Tracy are hitting it off. She explains her theory to him, it is about speedsters and the speed force even though she doesn’t use that term. He says speed force and she likes it. Suddenly H.R.’s coffee freezes, he knows it is time for them to get out of there. When they step outside, an ice dagger heads straight for Tracy.
The Flash rushes in to save her. He chases after Killer Frost; she creates an ice bridge and slides on it. Cisco has another clear shot at her, but instead of seeing Killer Frost, he sees Caitlin’s sweet face and can’t take it. Killer Frost doesn’t hesitate to shoot an ice blast at him; the Flash arrives in time and jumps in front of Cisco taking the blast. Barry hits the ground. Savitar ordered her not to kill the Flash, so she stabs him in the leg again.
“Joe, there’s no such thing as normal. Love is the only thing that makes the fight worth it. And it’s the only thing that’s going to get us through it.” Barry Allen—The Flash
Back at STAR Labs, the team tells Tracy why Killer Frost is trying to kill her. They inform her that her theories are correct and they show her impressive future to her. The team asks her to build the trap so they can save Iris (Candice Patton). It is all too much for her to take so she walks away. H.R. goes after her. In Cisco’s lab, Julian confronts him for not taking the shot again. Cisco finally admits that he is afraid he cannot control his powers and he will end up killing Caitlin. He would rather die himself. Barry finds Joe to ask him about Cecile. Joe has not told her about Team Flash yet. She is the only normal thing in his life. He is afraid if he does not tell her the truth he will lose her. Barry: “Joe, there’s no such thing as normal. Love is the only thing that makes the fight worth it. And it’s the only thing that’s going to get us through it.” H.R. runs in to tell them that Tracy is gone.
They go through Tracy’s hologram from the future to get a clue to where she might have gone. H.R. finds a picture of her sitting near Galileo’s statue in the park. H.R. joins her on the park bench. Finding out she wasn’t a crackpot and becoming this brilliant woman in the future overwhelmed her. H.R. tells her to believe in herself; he already does. (He is smitten.) Back at the West household, Joe is telling Cecile how complicated his life is and how complicated it can make her life. Before he gives her a headache, he breaks up with her. She is stunned because she thought they had something, but she doesn’t make a scene and leaves. A few seconds later, she comes back in, with Killer Frost holding a blade against her throat. In an hour, she wants him to meet her to exchange Cecile for Tracy. If he doesn’t, Cecile is dead. (I guess Cecile knows what he meant by complicated now.)
Team Flash discusses what to do and they formulate a plan. Julian tells Cisco he believes he has more control than he realizes; his power comes from a positive place, love. The Flash and Joe arrive with Tracy for the exchange. Killer Frost knows everything Barry is about to say and even knows that Cisco is up in the rafters. Savitar told her because everything that is happening in that room has happened in Savitar’s past. Killer Frost wraps the Flash up in a thick blanket of ice. Joe pulls his gun but she freezes it. Cisco comes down from the rafters to confront her. Cisco: “It’s over, Caitlin.” Killer Frost: “Caitlin is dead.” Cisco: “Not to me.” They begin an epic battle of ice verses vibe power. Cisco is too powerful for her and knocks her across the room. He goes over to her to see if she is all right and draws a sample of blood from her. Savitar shows up, tells Barry, “My ascension is nearly at hand,” picks up Killer Frost, and speeds away.
Julian holds the sample Cisco drew from Killer Frost and believes they might be able to reverse engineer her powers and turn her back to Caitlin Snow. Tracy noticed that Savitar wear a strange metal to neutralize the electric charge from his lightning. She thinks they can use that to trap him in the Speed Force. Joe tells Cecile he broke up with her to protect her, which was a bad move. He takes off his wedding band and tells her he loves her. Back at the house, Wally (Keiynan Lonsdale) is back from visiting Jesse in Earth-3. Joe tells his kids that love is what counts, and where would they be without it. This causes Barry to flash back to all his confrontations with Savitar. He excuses himself and speeds off to confront Savitar. He tells Savitar he knows who Savitar is. Savitar takes off his armor; it is a scarred up Barry Allen. He is the future Flash.
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How shocking, Savitar is Barry Allen, who could have guessed that? Probably nearly everyone. It was not a lock that Savitar would be future Barry Allen. However, he had to have been in everyone’s top three. It took them to near the end of the season to reveal it. On “Arrow”, Oliver is facing a nemesis named Prometheus. It was a mystery who this villain was. In Episode 15, they revealed the DA to be Prometheus. (I hope I didn’t spoil this for anyone behind on Arrow.) They did it before anyone could be tired of waiting for the reveal. Since the reveal, they have only increased the intensity of the storyline. Their whole season wasn’t about who this mystery man was. The Flash writers have waited until Episode 20 to make their reveal, and they only have three more episodes before the season ends to justify the wait. They waited so long to make the reveal that I lost interest in knowing who it was, and even now that I know whom Savitar is, I don’t care.
Aside from the Savitar reveal, the episode was okay. The fight scenes, and the special effects were great, some of the best of the series. I loved the chase scene with Killer Frost using an ice bridge to get away from the Flash while he was in hot pursuit. That was the first time you really see how powerful Killer Frost is. The scene was over the top comic book action and I loved it. Cisco and Killer Frost’s confrontation at the end was great too. Not as elaborate a scene as the ice bridge, but it was very emotional. The fight took place over the context of Cisco and Caitlin’s relationship. Fight scenes are always better when there are emotional stakes attached to them. What kept the episode from soaring was the story itself. At times, it felt like they were doing a parody of a Flash episode. It seemed everyone was giving everyone else a pep talk. Joe broke up with Cecile to ‘protect’ her. They really piled on the familiar story beats. One other complaint, did Iris speak this episode? Candice Patton was in several scenes, but I do not remember her saying anything. The main storyline of the back part of this season has been her impending death, but she has taken a backseat in her own storyline. Iris’ death has everything to do with Barry, and very little to do with her. I will end on a positive note, I liked Anne Dudek as Tracy Brand, and I liked her chemistry with Tom Cavanagh. I cannot wait for him to keep a secret from her and break up with her for her own ‘protection’.
Grade: B
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