The Flash season 6, episode 13 review: Grodd Friended Me

“Crisis has changed so much. I’ve been obsessed with trying to keep things the way they were before. But I can’t.” Spoilers for The Flash season 6, episode 13 follow.

Barry is alone as the rest of Team Flash are off doing their own things, forcing him to learn more about the changes Post-Crisis by himself.

Meanwhile, Iris tries to escape the Mirror World and Nash confronts his own demons.

Everything changes

It’s clear that all the changes to the Arrowverse have yet to make themselves known and probably never will, considering that there is over three trillion of them. However, we do quickly see several changes of consequence in this episode.

Pied Piper makes his first appearance since the season 2 episode “Flash Back,” where his character was changed from villainous to heroic. Now though, Crisis seems to have reverted the character back to being a villain, and has also given him powers in the process. For one, it’s nice to see Hartley return after all these years as it allows the series to organically show some pretty drastic changes to the world, while not changing anything massive about the main characters themselves.

This isn’t the only change to the world shown in this episode though. It’s revealed that Barry can no longer find his parents graves creating an emotional tether to the changes, as well as set-up to some solid jokes in this episode. The Flash has always struck a nice balance between the emotional portions of the show, as well as the comedic, so the fact that this episode manages to do so with a brutal change is a testament to its balance of tone.

This balance isn’t perfect here, namely because of Chester Runk being extremely over the top, but it’s few and far between, so it’s not that big of a deal. They try to make him the “new” Cisco, but it doesn’t really work. Honestly though, some might take issue with the dour tone of this episode as it is dourer than much of the rest of the series.

The real crux of these changes comes from Grodd though. With Barry falling into a coma due to his search for the changes to the universe Post-Crisis, he’s easy pickings for Grodd to control. Turns out though, Grodd has seemingly changed and wants redemption for his past actions. This is probably the best part of the episode for one reason and one reason alone: the moral dilemma.

This episode willingly asks the question about Barry’s role in the punishment of his rogues and whether he goes too far in said punishment. It doesn’t necessarily give a straight answer, but rather creates a new paradigm for the audience to consider. How far is too far and does Team Flash get to decide who deserves redemption and who doesn’t?

No exit

Not much headway is made in Iris and Eva’s attempts to escape the Mirror World, but what is shown really makes their presence in the alternate dimension all the more dire. Eva is seemingly terrified to leave for good reason too. This episode does a really good job of showing why Iris and Eva can’t leave the Mirror World and does so in a smart, yet kind of predictable way. This is going to come to a head in the next few episodes and the set-up being done so far is going make it impactful.

As for Fake Iris, her cracks are beginning to show. Her anger is rising and it’s clear that the façade will not last for much longer. It’s pretty surprising that no one has questioned her yet, but hey, the focus was on Grodd and Barry in this episode so it makes sense why it didn’t happen here. It’s just makes the characters look a tiny bit dumber and less perceptive than they have previously been shown as.

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Ghost of Wells’ past

Nash’s Post-Crisis struggles continue in this episode as well as he continues to hallucinate. This time he doesn’t see Harry, he sees Sherloque instead. This brings forth a new idea that he is still being haunted. He’s still Pariah, paying for his past sins. Just like Iris in the Mirror World, this is definitely set-up for a future episode this season, especially given the final scene.

Really, that final scene is 13 episodes in the making and completely takes away from the Nash/Allegra subplot that was being used throughout the episode. This is a good thing though as that subplot wasn’t all that interesting and it’s not even that big of a deal that Nash isn’t able to explain that he knew a doppelgänger of her by the end of the episode.

The Flash delivers another solid episode dealing with the Post-Crisis fallout. However, it has some minor hiccups and storytelling flaws that keep it from being among the season’s best.