The Flash Review: The Exorcism of Nash Wells (Season 6 Episode 15)
The Flash Season 6 Episode 15, “The Exorcism of Nash Wells” thankfully wraps up the return of Eobard Thawne in under an hour, a surprising and welcome twist that proves that the showrunners are very aware that as much as we might all love watching Reverse Flash, he’s also a villain the show doesn’t need at the moment.
Sure, they still leave the door open for his potential return — Barry is nothing without his ultimate nemesis, after all– down the road. But, hopefully, we won’t have to cross that bridge until some point well in the future. (Say, at least after Season 7.)
“The Exorcism of Nash Wells” is kind of what it says on the tin, just without the projectile vomiting and overt religious elements that we all mentally associate with exorcism.
Team Flash is trying to figure out how to force Thawne’s consciousness out of Nash’s body, which makes for a lot of science and technobabble that somehow manages to lead into a legitimate emotional arc for Barry.
The Flash, as you’ll remember, is slowly losing his speed, thanks to the fact that the Speed Force is no more. Barry’s existential crisis about his worth as a person and hero in the wake of all this is somewhat predictable, but admirably sold by star Grant Gustin.
Unfortunately, The Flash doesn’t spend nearly enough time on the most interesting angle here — which is Caitlin’s attempt to step up and fill Barry’s shoes as the team’s lead meta hero.
There’s a really intriguing story somewhere in here about Barry’s refusal to respect Caitlin’s instructions and/or capabilities, and the wrongness of his insistence that he knows best in this instance, but this episode pretty much glosses over it with an apology from one to the other at the end.
Maybe we’ll come back to it — I hope so, because the idea of Caitlin as the de facto team hero since she’s the only one with functioning powers at the moment is fascinating to me, and something that the show hasn’t really addressed in the past.
On the whole, the sort of episode that really benefits from airing when we’re all trapped in our homes and desperate for new things to watch. It’s not a bad hour, to be clear. But I think we might not feel so kindly toward it had it aired at a different point in our collective histories.
It’s a bit of an overstuffed hour, trying to cram in not just the primary Nash/Eobard Thawne plot, but a new meta threat, a new secret mission for Eva’s Mirror Girls, Barry’s ongoing speed crisis, the existing tension between Flash and Reverse Flash, Joe’s growing suspicions about Iris and the continuing mystery of whatever Eva’s trying to do with and/or in the Mirror universe.
It would still be a lot of ground to cover, even if the episode only picked a couple of these issues to deal with. As it stands, it’s probably too many for this one. That said, for the most part the episode handles its many spinning plates admirable and it generally feels like there’s progress on most of these stories.
Though some, of course, are better than others.
Of course, this episode would have been miles more compelling if the character of Nash Wells were more fleshed out, or mattered to us, as viewers, beyond simply being another in a long line of Wells-es, but I guess you can’t have everything.
Plus, most of us guessed a long time ago that Allegra was the doppelgänger of some sort of lost relation of Nash’s, so that bit of the story didn’t exactly come as a shock. Seeing the tragedy of her death play out was pretty moving, however, and a good reminder of why Indiana Jones!Nash was originally such a good concept.
The problem though is that Maia’s death proves that Nash’s Allegra obsession has nothing to do with Allegra at all. In fact, it has even less to do with Allegra as a person than we’d originally thought.
Instead, it’s literally just about how she looks. Which unfortunately just ends treats Allegra like an object in someone else’s story. It’s creepy, and both characters deserve better. Surely there has to be a better way to build a connection between them that is based on something substantial.
Stray Thoughts and Observations
- I haven’t loved everything about this Nash story, but Tom Cavanagh really deserves all the praise for his performance this week. He played virtually three different versions of Wells and did it all flawlessly.
- Love every moment of these random Original Team Flash meetings re: building an Artificial Speed Force. It’s been too long since Barry, Cisco and Caitlin were part of the same storyline, so at this point I’d watch them build a LEGO village if that’s what it took for them to be together.
- Also loved Caitlin’s eyes icing out when she got annoyed at Barry.
- Cecile bringing a bag full of exorcism tools was legitimately hilarious.
What did you think of this episode of The Flash? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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The Flash airs Tuesdays at 8/7c on The CW.
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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.