The Flash season 7, episode 16 review: P.O.W.

“With a battle-tested soldier like you on our side, we’re gonna win.” Spoilers for The Flash season 7, episode 16 follow.

The Godspeeds are ravaging Central City with their war leaving Team Flash unable to figure out how to stop them or even why they’re doing it in the first place.

Luckily though, a close ally makes his way to Central City in order to help the team out.

Here’s what happened in “P.O.W.”.

The Godspeed war arrives in The Flash season 7

It really, really feels like the show is running out of budget and/or saving it because this episode does not start out promising in the slightest. We know about the Godspeeds racing around Central City causing havoc, but we just don’t see any of it. That breaks one of the biggest rules of television and film which is “show, don’t tell” within just a few minutes as Barry speeds in and just says that he was ambushed by Godspeeds while trying to evacuate City Hall. But, again, we see none of it. There’s also a news report detailing all the harm the Godspeeds are causing and yet again, we see none of it. All of this makes for an incredibly disappointing start to the episode.

However, once Arrow‘s John Diggle shows up (which isn’t too far removed from the opening scenes actually), that’s when the episode really begins to pick up. Sure, he conveniently just so happens to have the exact device required to capture a Godspeed, but that really doesn’t matter because it’s just great to see Diggle interacting with Team Flash. He just feels right on this team and while he won’t be present permanently, he makes the episode better just with his presence – often like he did on Arrow. It is a little weird how Chester just knows his entire biography though because he really shouldn’t.

As for the use of Godspeed in this episode, it’s probably the strongest usage of the character so far – and that’s just because of one interrogation scene between one of the clones and Barry. It ends pretty oddly, but it’s interesting in ways that character hasn’t been up until this point and it finally introduces the true Godspeed, August Heart, even if it is just a minor appearance.

Time is broken

Because of the Godspeeds in the present, Barry is now worried about how the present is affecting Nora in the future, but when he tries to go there, he gets pulled out of the timestream and lands at the feet of none other than Deon.

This part of the episode is great because of a couple of things, but mainly because of how it started. It echoes the times that Deon and Barry fought earlier in the season, causing you to immediately think that he’s turned on Barry again. It immediately builds suspense and then lowers it before showing the thing that we should be scared about, which is the fact that Iris is somehow phasing in and out of time.

It’s a great scene that brings about more questions than answers, but everything – from the performances to the writing to the directing – makes this land among some of the best scenes of this season. It’s too bad that the rest of the episode, while a good portion of it good, wasn’t up to the quality of this scene.

Outside the city

As for Joe and Kramer’s hunt for Adam, it once again feels like an afterthought. This narrative has a total of three scenes and while we do learn more about Adam and the fact that he is immortal, this story doesn’t feel like it has a purpose simply because it doesn’t yet connect to anything else happening within the show. This B-plot is just kind of… there, like its only purpose is to have Joe in the show, even if just for a couple of minutes.

As for Allegra and Esperanza, a somewhat major plot point occurs, where Esperanza dies and it just comes and goes incredibly quickly because, like Joe’s story, it has nothing to do with the Godspeed story. And because of this being barely focused on, the time spent with trying to help Esperanza over the past several episodes feels utterly worthless – like it was a waste of time. It makes you wonder why we spent all the time with them just to basically unceremoniously kill off Esperanza. It’s disappointing.

The Flash season 7 has one of it’s better episodes of the season this week, but even then, it’s still a very mixed bag.

What did you think of The Flash season 7, episode 16? Let us know in the comments below!