THE FLASH Review: “Death of the Speed Force”

The Flash — “Death Of The Speed Force” Pictured (L-R): Grant Gustin as The Flash and Keiynan Lonsdale as Kid Flash — Photo: Colin Bentley/The CW

The Flash Review: Death of the Speed Force 

By Justin Carter 

Kid Flash has been absent from the Arrowverse for a long time. Following his transfer to Legends of Tomorrow during the final episodes of its third season, Wally West was written off so Keiynan Lonsdale could be in movies and make music. His return here is welcome, given that his absence over the last two years, and especially in Crisis, was a big question mark. I just wish it were under better circumstances and longer than it was. 

That’s not to say the episode is bad, but “Death of the Speed Force” is about exactly what its title implies. Wally’s been working with the Peace Corps since he left the Legends in order to find himself, and after showing off some cool new powers like creating speed duplicates and making lotus flowers out of lightning, he reveals why he came back to Central City. The Speed Force is dying, putting both their powers on the fritz. 

When the two speedsters project their minds into the Speed Force, they learn the cause of all this actually ties back to Crisis. Back then, Spectre Oliver had to boost Barry’s power to get him back into the Speed Force and the two energies are now incompatible. Wally is not happy about this, blowing up at Barry in a way that also feels like a quiet admission of how the show didn’t really know what to do with him during his tenure. There’s still something inherently funny about seeing a speedster being all zen and calm, but Keiynan Lonsdale makes it work. 

There’s a germ of an interesting idea at play here in letting Barry and Wally just spend time together to hash out their strange relationship with each other and the Speed Force, but this naturally has to be an action show. So in between all that, we have the speedsters and Joe going up against Turtle 2, now a former Russian arms dealer (what is it with this show and arms dealers lately) who’s knocking off people who snitched on her. There’s nothing wrong with her, but there’s also nothing right, save for her nifty ability to blast green orbs to put people in stasis or age rapidly. 

In the show’s other post-Crisis storyline, it turns out that Nash actually was seeing ghosts, and now one has come for him. After getting blown off by a now returning Cisco, the treasure hunter gets body jumped by Thawne, but lacking his speed powers. He’s becoming overused, but he does his job in setting up Barry and the others trying to build a Speed Force of their own. 

Additional Notes

• It does not surprise that Wally has only been around for about two days and instantly realizes something is up with Iris. 
• Speaking of, Mirror Iris blasts Kamilla with the Mirror Gun and either kills her or also sends her to the same world Iris is in. We’ll see?