The Flash season 9 episode 10 review: A New World, Part One

“What’d I do this time?” Spoilers for The Flash season 9, episode 10 follow.

Barry, suddenly, gets transported to the year 2000 and he begins to see all the people who made him into The Flash.

But then the ever-present pain in Barry’s side appears.

The Flash season 9 episode 10 review

Eddie

Welp, this episode immediately starts off well with you being pulled out of the first scene due to the frantic for no reason editing. It’s honestly headache-inducing. It’s just about a minute, but it does not set a good tone for the rest of the episode. Also, hiding that it’s Eddie is just dumb. You can hear his voice and if you’ve watched this show for nine seasons, he has a recognizable voice.

But it turns out that it makes sense as to why this is happening, Eric Wallace directed and co-wrote this episode. He’s been making really odd choices this entire season and if his directing is indicative of his showrunning style, that makes sense. Things just happen. No tension is built, no real emotion is felt, but it technically moves the plot along.

This then comes back around when Eddie (or not Eddie, just a different character who looks like him) is struck by lightning from the Negative Speed Force. This is after having him not appear at all for the rest of the episode. It just happens because it needs to happen to move the plot along.

Back in time

But the real meat of this episode is that Barry is suddenly transported back in time, with no build-up, but that’s honestly to be expected by this point. Just sudden things happening with no actual tension to them, just confusion because there’s not even a hint that anything will occur.

At least Grant Gustin immediately gives a fantastic performance. He’s always been great, and has been the best part of the season and yet, HE WASN’T USED SO OFTEN FOR, I GUESS, REASONS.

But hey, this is all Barry’s episode once he gets transported to the past. Seeing him struggle not to tell the people he cares about who he is so as not to mess with the timeline, but also having meaningful conversations with them, works so well.

And then Thawne shows up. God, Thawne, every version of him is such a great villain and that’s doubly so in this episode. Just the conversation between the two simply sitting in the bar is fantastic and hearing Barry admit that Thawne wins. Chills. Literally chills down the spine. Where has this been the rest of the season? Actually using the interesting actors and characters leads to good episodes, who would’ve thought?

Oh, and hey, the Negative Speed Force is a sentient entity now. That’s just dumb as all of the other forces being sentient entities too. Why does the good of this episode have to be derailed by the dumb villain? And then there are presumably three more episodes with the Negative Speed Force as Barry’s final villain? That’s disappointing. It’s also incredibly dumb that the main fight scene in this episode is basically just a gunfight with lightning. It’s like Eric Wallace is averse to doing anything interesting with speed fight scenes.

Nothing

WHO CARES ABOUT ALLEGRA AND CHUCK? WE ARE IN THE LAST FOUR EPISODES. THERE SHOULD NEVER BE A SCENE WITH THEM NOT PERTAINING TO THE OVERARCHING PLOT THAT LASTS LONGER THAN 10 SECONDS. AND YET, IT’S THE THIRD DAMN SCENE OF THE EPISODE.

Phew. Well, that frustration has been building all season, unlike any plot build-up.

The Flash has its second actually good episode of the season as it heads into its 4-episode finale, but it’s still plagued by its season-long issues.