THE FLASH Review “I Know Who You Are”

By Justin Carter
 

I Know Who You Are

So after all this time, we’ve finally learned the identity of Savitar.

All that time spent building him up and he turns out to be … Future Barry — or at least a future version of Barry, as many fans were able to predict.

To be honest the thought never really crossed my mind until those theories became more and more prevalent in recent weeks, but in hindsight, it couldn’t really have been anyone but him. Killing Iris has felt deeply personal on a level that neither Reverse Flash or Zoom really ever thought about, despite all the time they spent hiding among Team Flash. So, yeah, it makes some degree of sense that a future version of Barry would go that far and kill the woman he loves.

All that being said, this reveal severely lacked the impact it could have had. I said back when Arrow duped us by revealing Prometheus was Adrian Chase that Flash needed to get to the point, and that still holds true here However, when it eventually does, the episode tips its hand too hard in its final reveal, with Frost mimicking what Flash says exactly as he says it and saying he and Savitar are extremely alike in ways that go beyond their super speed. Not to mention Joe’s speech at the end about what it would be to live without love. With that in mind, it’s more than clear that this Future Barry is one who ended up bitter and enraged without the love of his life or family, or something along those lines.  

No doubt that Grant Gustin will relish the chance to play a slimier and more villainous Scarlet Speedster (well, technically blue) but he may end up being beat out by Danielle Panabaker getting another chance to be Killer Frost. She doesn’t always get the chance to let her villainous persona fly, but when she does, it’s a good time. The highlight of the episode comes when she creates an ice bridge to skate around the city, which gave me huge Incredibles vibes.

Savitar has Killer Frost go after Tracy Brand, the woman who will later build the device that traps him inside the Speed Force. While she doesn’t reach her true potential until 2021, the present day Tracy is in the process of giving up on science all together when Team Flash and Frost both meet her. The good guys manage to get her to safety, but it’s HR who convinces her to stick with science and help them save Iris (while also taking the time to have a crush on her, because of course he would). Cisco, meanwhile, is really hesitant about attacking Frost because he doesn’t want to kill her with his Vibe blasts. On one hand, that makes sense, but then the show has him compare his powers to guns, and that analogy doesn’t entirely work. You can incapacitate someone with a gun if you shoot them in the leg, and one would think that Cisco could easily take down his former friend if he didn’t arm his deadly hands directly at her chest. All it really exists to do is to have him and Julian snipe at each other back and forth, but they’re both in the right here–Cisco should take the shot, but Julian also didn’t make the smartest of moves in letting Caitlin go Full Frost. But Cisco’s able to take some of her blood that could lead to a cure, and that’s really all that matters.

In the end, “I Know Who You Are” is just another episode of The Flash. The meat is merely satisfactory, and the big reveal at the end feels hollow because of how long the show has avoided paying it off. Season four is said to not feature a speedster villain at all, and man, this reveal shows why the show needs to do that pronto.

Additional Notes

• Wally sure picked a hell of a time to go to Earth-3 and see his girlfriend, huh?
• Joe and his girlfriend Cecile say the big three words “I love you to each other!” (And also he tells her he’s the Flash’s dad, because you may as well at this point.)
• There’s a part of me that desperately wishes Captain Cold was in this, just so her and Frost could bounce snarky cold puns off each other.
• What the heck did Future Evil Barry do to get burn scars on his face?