The Flash – The Man in the Yellow Tie review S8 E18

The Flash’s scattershot approach to building a capable Rogue’s Gallery for the Scarlet Speedster has always started and ended with other speedsters. Despite having a crew of villains that rival Batman and Spider-Man, The Flash series has never been able to quit the showrunners’ fascination with races.

This diminishes an episode like The Man in the Yellow Tie, which would have been so much more impactful if the writers didn’t smash the “In Case of Villain Emergency, Bring in an Evil Speedster” button so often.

Barry training Meena gives her exactly one tutorial more than Kramer, who Barry promises to help earlier this season. It’s silly how Kramer was this quasi-interesting foil trying to X-Men: Last Stand metas with her power zapper serum. Her powers were revealed and outside of one spotlight episode this season she’s been non-existent as an important character already.

Meena launches a lightning bolt that Barry realizes is Negative Speed Force energy. This is one of those rare times where Flash didn’t immediately reveal his secret identity to a potential new ally allowing him to head to Meena’s Fast Track Lab as Barry. He’s greeted by a huge surprise as her lab partner is none other than Eobard Thawne. Huh?

Time travel is tricky. And somehow this Thawne is not the same one wearing Wells’ face in Supermax. Meena’s Thawne conveniently has short-term amnesia and can’t remember anything personal from a year ago. We get a flashback to a year ago where Mena hilariously decides to have a face-to-face interview with someone who had a paragraph for a resume. He could tell she was trying to create a speedster and lands the job.

Naturally, Barry opts to try and shock remind Thawne he’s a villainous murderer. That doesn’t seem like the best strategy…

When that fails, Barry travels to Supermax in hopes that Wells Thawne can make sense of it or at least give some insight on the chamber that powers Meena. Wells Thawne explains the Negative Speed Force will eventually overwhelm Meena and cautions Barry about trusting Thawne. Wells Thawne’s visitors keep coming as Diggle arrives looking for some help of his own.

He’s still got that pesky cube that glowed green for a second and got Arrowverse fans all needlessly excited for a second. Wells Thawne explains the cube is a gateway to the infinite frontier. Cosmic Odyssey and the Source Wall are name dropped, but this show can’t be trusted to do justice to an easy layup storyline like Blackest Night so there’s no sense getting excited.

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Diggle peers into the cube and decides he doesn’t want it since no vision beyond shows him closer with his family. Well, that was a lot of time for absolutely nothing.

Flash tries to stop Eobard and Meena from using the oscillating chamber. Now she’s gone negative and apparently walking like a zombie craving more speed. Somehow Barry still wants to blame Eobard for Meena’s actions until Thawne tells him they’re in love. Wow, way to read the room there, Bar.

Flash tries to burn out Meena’s speed again, but it doesn’t fully work. This wouldn’t be the case if Barry was in Cobra Kai. Thankfully, Thawne’s love breaks through the Negative Speed Force influence. Well, that’s how it always works with Barry and what was his wife’s name was again…?

Ray (!) makes a surprise cameo to tell Team Flash that Eobard Thawne had redeemed himself actually sacrificing himself to aid the Legends. That’s good enough for Barry.

There’s a few codas to this episode — none of which are very encouraging.

Cecile was in a bank when it’s getting robbed and her powers level up so she can take the trio out herself. Then she opts to throw on some black leather (no complaints on this end of the TV for that decision, mind you) and actively go after purse snatchers without a mask. Secret identities really do matter, gang.

Chillbaine is still working on restoring Frost the storyline I wish would just stay on ice (completely intended). And Deon has a mission for Thawne so apparently I missed Deon’s latest heel turn?

I like Meena and the Thawne twist was solid, but the speedster plot has been worn out like Flash’s old sneakers. The other subplots aren’t exactly exciting and the show continues to strand Iris off camera for multiple episodes as if it doesn’t matter. It does.

Rating: 7 out of 10

Photo Credit: The CW

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