The Flash season 7, episode 7 review: Growing Pains

“Looks like Frost has been busy.” Spoilers for The Flash season 7, episode 7 follow.

The Speed Force is now living with Barry and Iris, thus making The Flash’s life even crazier than it always was.

Meanwhile, Frost must deal with the criminal charges from her former life that is now coming back to haunt her.

Barry and the Speed Force’s new dynamic in The Flash season 7

Since the physical manifestation of the Speed Force had been brought into the real world, Barry and her haven’t really had much time to interact with one another. Iris and the Speed Force had several great scenes in last week’s episode, so it makes sense that this would lead to Barry and the Speed Force sharing the screen together in this episode. However, not much was as impactful with those scenes between Iris and the Speed Force.

There are a couple of decent scenes between the two, especially toward the beginning and end of the episode, however, everything in the middle is incredibly cliché. Every single scene they share during the middle 30 minutes of the episode – as the Speed Force attempts to assist Barry in his life but perhaps comes on too strong and creates problems for him – is a conversation that basically anyone can repeat verbatim at this point. The “’I just wanted to help you!’ ‘I didn’t ask for your help!’” conversation. Everyone knows what it is and it’s disappointing that many of Barry and the Speed Force’s interactions with each other during this episode revolved around that trope.

The Hunt for Frost

Over the past couple of episodes, The Flash hasn’t really done much in the way of doing anything interesting with the separation of Caitlin and Frost. There were a couple of scenes here and there that were fun, but nothing of substance in any shape or form. However, this episode finally does allows Frost to showcase her potential.

We get to see Frost trying to be the hero that we all know she is while on the hunt for a killer who framed her, even though she is being hunted by the police, which is nice. However, there are issues with this too as there is a point toward the end of the episode when she finally confronts Chillblaine and the first thing she does is threaten to kill him while holding an icicle weapon. It undermines her character arc because nothing about that feels right for where the character is at this point in the show and it’s a drastic departure from where her mindset was just a few scenes before.

As for who the actual killer is, we get introduced to him in the absolute worst way possible. He turns around and Frost acts like a schoolgirl because he’s, handsome? This doesn’t really feel like something Frost would do. Then, she gets into a barfight because a bounty was put out for her (now this feels like something Frost would do) and he helps her and gets beer on his shirt. He thusly takes off his shirt and “Hot in Here” by Nelly starts playing (because of course it does!). It’s insane and terrible. Hopefully Chillblaine will be better in his future appearances.

Caitlin arrested

This hunt for Frost leads to the most interesting thing to happen between her and Caitlin since they’ve been separated. Caitlin is arrested by Special Agent Kramer as her hunt for Frost leads to probably the best scene the two lookalikes have had for the past couple of episodes.

When Frost wants to break Caitlin out of the police station, right before she was released, the pair get a chance to have an actual heart-to-heart about who they are. Caitlin finally gets through to Frost about who she can be due to their new circumstances, highlighting that, even though Frost is on the run, she can still determine who she is. It’s something that’s been done before (and more effectively) on the show, but it’s still a nice scene that needed to happen sooner than it did.

Despite a couple of cool standout moments, this week’s episode of The Flash is full of clichés and bad choices that bring it down too much to say much of anything about it.

What did you think of The Flash season 7, episode 7? Have you been enjoying The Flash season 7 so far? Let us know in the comments below!