The Flash season 6, episode 11 review: Love is a Battlefield

“Behind every great man is a woman, rolling her eyes!” Spoilers for The Flash season 6, episode 11 follow.

It’s Valentine’s Day in Central City and love is in the air for Team Flash. But even so, Barry and Iris can’t escape the villains of Central City.

While Iris and Barry contend with the villains though, Frost tries to help Allegra find love.

Amunet Black returns

The first returning villain Post-Crisis is here and it’s Katee Sackhoff as Amunet Black. Last seen in season 4, she makes a welcome return to The Flash here. Sackhoff seems to have an enormous amount of fun playing Amunet, making it hard to not enjoy watching her. Yes, she’s very over the top. Yes, her performance seems like it be a slightly better fit in the ‘60s Batman series. That doesn’t matter though because her performance, like her appearances in season 4, is so much fun.

Not only does Amunet reappear though, but Goldface does as well. It feels a bit odd that these are the first two reappearing villains Post-Crisis, but it feels like the right move right now. There’s the larger story of Black Hole, but by introducing a budding gang war, it allows the show a bit of a breather between larger stories. In a season that has felt nothing, but non-stop with its plot, this is absolutely a good thing. Small stakes help both the audience and characters reset in-between the larger stake stories acting.

By doing this, this episode pretty much acts like an interlude in a novel or comic. This isn’t an episode that anyone is really going to remember. It’s a middle-of-the-road episode to be completely honest, but not every episode needs to be groundbreaking to be enjoyable. Well, that’s not true about the groundbreaking point. This episode confirms Alexa and Amazon exist within the Arrowverse. That’s groundbreaking.

Something’s wrong with Iris

Being drawn into the giant mirror at McCulloch Technologies obviously has had a huge impact on Iris. She’s not acting like herself from minute ways, like being a better cook, to larger ways, like breaking a bottle over a bouncer’s head. Something happened to her in that mirror that has taken her inhibitions away, which is good in some ways and troubling in others. There’s a constant sense that something’s not right the entire time in this episode while also presenting some real truths about the relationship between Iris and Barry.

This namely extends to how Barry treats Iris. He catches on that something’s not right with her, but when he confronts her, all she does is throw truth in his face. Truth about plans Pre-Crisis. Truth that she’s not a damsel to be saved. Truth that she’s changed as a person. So, no matter what the truth behind Iris’s slight personality change, Barry’s hears things that he absolutely needed to hear.

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So, even though this is an episode that doesn’t have the heavy heart-to-heart conversations that the series is kind of known for at this point, that doesn’t mean that the characters don’t have solid moments together. The scene where Iris calls Barry out is the main example of this and pushes the characters, as well as the plot, forward in subtle ways. But, as is implied throughout the episode, that isn’t Iris as revealed in the final moments.

The frosty life coach

While Barry and Iris search for Amunet though, Frost attempts to help Allegra find some love for Valentine’s Day. Turns out though, things aren’t as simple as they appear. When they find out the guy Allegra is interested in is possibly seeing someone else, things fall apart.

This storyline is quite traditional and nothing new, but the way it’s handled in this episode is quite effective. A story like this is ripe for bad comedy, but it doesn’t go this way in this episode. The story is taken quite seriously for both Allegra and Frost. Frost is still trying to figure out herself and other people, so by helping Allegra, she hopes that she can help herself. As for Allegra, this entire episode is about her coming to grips with herself and her powers, as well as mistakes that she has made. It’s a surprisingly wonderful portion of the episode just seeing two broken people, who are so incredibly unsure about themselves, help each other. It’s such a little thing, but it really helps build both characters.

This week’s episode of The Flash acts as an interlude between larger storylines, providing an enjoyable, yet unremarkable installment.