The Flash Review: Death of the Speed Force (Season 6 Episode 14)
Keiynan Lonsdale finally returns for The Flash Season 6 Episode 14, “Death of the Speed Force,” but Wally West’s long-awaited reunion with Barry Allen ends up being something of a dud, involving a lot more angry lectures than crime fighting.
Oh, and also the Speed Force dies. Literally.
It’s difficult to know how seriously to take this storyline, muddled as The Flash attempts to anthropomorphize the Speed Force have always been. It’s never made a ton of sense to me to conceptualize this…whatever it is, as a person, or even something sentient, and every time the show goes back to this well the mythology gets both worse and more confusing.
In short: Bring on Cisco and Caitlin making an artificial Speed Force if it means we never have to watch Barry have awkward and uncomfortable interactions with a godlike being wearing his mother’s face.
To be fair, the idea that Barry — and by extension, Wally — is losing his abilities as part of the fallout from “Crisis” is an understandable, and possibly even necessary twist.
It makes absolute sense that the Spectre’s power corrupted the Speed Force. And, yes, the fact that the two mixed was indeed Barry’s fault. But it also happened because he had to literally save everyone in every universe that exists.
These are the breaks, guys. Is there anyone that doesn’t think that’s a fair trade?
The Flash has always loved to emotionally dump on Barry, though, so of course we’re due for a long sequence of Barry angsting, doubting himself, and beating himself up over saving all of humanity no matter the cost.
Furthermore, even though Wally is mostly right about Barry keeping secrets and not cluing him in about the problems with the Speed Force — this is hardly the first time he’s done it — he doesn’t have a ton of moral ground to stand on here, either.
After all, it’s not like he was really hanging out in Central City when Barry was having his existential death crisis last year, and he wasn’t around to help with the whole “Crisis” situation, either. Yes, that was clearly for external reasons — Lonsdale wasn’t available to film — but the world of the show doesn’t know that.
Wally’s return may not be everything we needed from a narrative perspective, but wow, it sure looks cool as heck. The sequence in which he saves a helicopter full of people and stops the chopper from crashing into a building by disassembling it in mid-air is probably the coolest display of speedster ability this show’s ever done.
The Flash is feeling particularly overstuffed right now, character-wise, but even so it’s still always nice to see Wally, especially since the character feels as though he’s grown so much since his last appearance.
Technically, he’s still Kid Flash, but Wally has grown into a seasoned hero in his own right, and his interactions with Barry should and do reflect that growth. He has his own relationship to his powers and the Speed Force, and it’s exactly right that it should be a very different experience than Barry’s is.
Granted, Wally’s newfound spiritualism comes off a bit overbearing in places, even if his explanation of the Speed Force as a chain of lightning that’s chosen to touch and move through all of them (i.e. speedsters) is the most satisfying and clear explanation of this concept the show’s ever managed.
Elsewhere, Cisco finally returns from his multi-episode absence. Ostensibly, he was sent off to catalogue differences in the timeline that emerged thanks to “Crisis”, but mostly it felt as though the reason was that his character simply had little to do.
It’s great to see Carlos Valdes again, though. I hadn’t realized how much I missed him until he was back.
The show clearly still doesn’t know what to do with the character, but this episode seems to strongly imply that Cisco will be heavily involved with the whole Eobard Thwane-has-taken-over-Nash’s-body plot, which is at least a good sign.
Or is it?
One has to wonder whether it’s maybe time for The Flash to admit that, no matter how much we all love Tom Cavanagh, it’s time to cut all variations of Wells-es loose.
The show can’t keep going back to Thawne as its ultimate villain every other season, and Nash has been such a massive disappointment that it’s unclear where that character could even go from here. Is it time for one final face-off between Barry and Reverse Flash?
Stray Thoughts and Observations
- Did anyone else find the scene of Cisco beating the crap out of Eobard Thawne incredibly cathartic to watch? Just me?
- Earth-Prime now…has an Atlantis apparently? (Hi, Aquaman!)
- How wonderful was that brief Cisco and Caitlin BFF chat? We haven’t seen nearly enough of Caitlin this season anyway, much as I do love Frost, and no one does bestie moments like these two.
- How does Wally even know about Crisis anyway?
- I hope we don’t have to wait too much longer before we find out how the connection between Eva and Mirror Iris works. Is Mirror Iris some sort of projection of Eva’s? Is she powering her ability to move outside of the mirror?
- No one actually thinks Kamilla’s dead, right? Worst case she’s like, hanging out in the mirror world with Iris next week, if you ask me.
- What did you think of this episode of The Flash? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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Lacy Baugher
Lacy is a pop culture enthusiast and television critic who loves period dramas, epic fantasy, space adventures, and the female characters everyone says you're supposed to hate. Ninth Doctor enthusiast, Aziraphale girlie, and cat lady, she's a member of the Television Critics Association and Rotten Tomatoes-approved. Find her at LacyMB on all platforms.