I said this about “Killer Frost” and I have to say it again about “The Present.” They got enough work done this week for two episodes. It looks like we’re going to spend more time with him later this season, and I couldn’t be happier about it. I could imagine him giving orders to anyone we hung out with in the “Invasion” crossover, for example, and I suspect even Oliver would be like, “y’know what? I’m gonna listen to this guy.” He also plays Jay without the sadness that hung over Henry all the time, but considering we also had a “normal/happy” Henry Allen in Flashpoint earlier this season, the distinction between the two performances is even greater than that.

Jay is more than a strong-jawed hero type, he’s the most experienced superhero we’ve seen on any of the CW DC shows ever, and it shows. Perhaps a little surprising, though, is just how well he has managed to distinguish Jay from Henry Allen. Unsurprisingly, Shipp is terrific as Jay. Normally, I might complain about this, but seeing as how this season has done almost nothing but make the right choices in terms of the big picture so far, I have no reason to doubt that the next five months or so of this show will be anything less than thoroughly compelling. I can’t imagine that this vision won’t go in some way unfulfilled, likely right when Barry has started to forgive himself for his recent mistakes to drag him back down again.

It seems unlikely that Iris will meet the fate that we saw here, but that doesn’t mean that somebody else won’t have to take her place. But no, Savitar is perhaps far scarier, because while his claims of divinity are surely nonsense, his ability to see the future is probably, at least a little, legitimate.Īnd instead of playing the mystery game like Arrow did (to its detriment) in season four with the grave, we now know exactly who is doomed this season. His beatdown of Jay Garrick initially felt a little bit like how Zoom treated Barry like a ragdoll in a similarly excellent (atypical) season two episode. “The Present” also solved some of my worries about Savitar, who I was beginning to fear would become just another speed powerhouse, kind of like Zoom was last year when there was still some mystery attached to him. After all, now that he’s warming up to everyone and the audience is warming up to him, he’s surely a dead man, right? Albert Desmond (more on that down below!) wasn’t revealed as some mustache-twirling dickhead, but rather, a run-of-the-mill misguided dickhead, and one who I imagine has more of an arc to fulfill. We got a satisfactory explanation and wrap-up for the Alchemy story tonight, hopefully one that means we’re done with the “Flashpoint as metahuman story engine” phase of the show.

Watch flash season 3 episode 9