The Flash: Borrowing Problems From the Future S3, Ep.10

This ride until the inevitable showdown with Savitar is going to be fun. That was the biggest takeaway from Borrowing Problems From the Future. Even if Savitar’s design continues to be uninspiring and the season finale will ultimately come down to Barry running fast, getting there won’t be boring.

For a show about a speedster, sometimes The Flash moves too slowly for its own good. That’s why it was encouraging that the episode’s biggest secrets got out in the open. I was worried Barry was going to carry the burden of the visions of Savitar killing Iris for months. Thankfully, he shared that necessary info to all of Team Flash with the exception of Joe. Because he’s prone to doing stupid, impulsive stuff like going back in time to fix mistakes. Oh wait, that’s Barry.

As always, Grant Gustin and Candice Patton knocked this revelation scene out in a really touching, emotional moment. Barry isn’t the kind of guy to move Heaven and Earth for his girl, but he will totally disrupt the time space continuum. And they’ve got four months to figure out how to change enough events to prevent the reality where Iris got killed from occurring. Sounds simple enough.

Maybe more importantly than Barry confiding in the team about Iris’ fate was the constant waffling over if Wally is ready to become Kid Flash ended. It didn’t make a lot of sense for Barry to willingly hold back his potential partner for fear of something happening to him. It’s Iris West in trouble of not seeing next Christmas, not Wally.

Even though the STAR Labs Museum subplot was kinda silly, Tom Cavanagh made the most of it. And HR Wells is definitely the type to run around on a Segway just because. Team Flash seriously needs to De-caffeinate the entire lab as HR is good for about five years at this rate.

While I’m leery of a potential romance, it was good to see Caitlin reach out to Julian for help curing Killer Frost. Caitlin has really become more than the nerdy tech geek thanks to this subplot and it’s done a lot to make her engaging outside of who she’s dating.

This week was more of the familiar Flash format. Toss in a disposable Rogue and let the team momentarily get distracted by the minor threat. Plunder was up this time and he suffered from a really uninspiring comic to TV outfit translation. He looked like a bootleg Deadshot with none of the charisma. What he lacked in style and personality, Plunder contributed some killer action sequences. For those wondering, no the fight scenes with Flash and Kid Flash racing into action will never get old.

And as a major 52 fan, I loved the nod to that series with Wells writing the foreshadowing headlines about future events they could possibly stop. Some of these events might not even happen, but it’s fun to speculate how Team Flash will try to resolve them. Anyone else find their ears perk up at the mention of gorillas?

It seems like next week the team will be spending a lot of time dealing with the T-8000 who’s searching for Wells. That won’t possibly end well.

Borrowing Promises provided a solid focus for the second half of the season. Hopefully this ensures Savitar largely stays on the sideline while Flash and friends occupy themselves with more interesting threats.

Rating: 9 out of 10

Photo Credit: The CW