TV Show Review

TV Review: THE FLASH: Season 1, Episode 7: Power Outage [The CW]

Michael Reventar The Flash

The CW’s The Flash Power Outage TV Show Review. The Flash: Season 1, Episode 7: Power Outage takes Barry (Grant Gustin) out of his comfort zone as he finds himself facing a new meta-human with an electric personality…Farooq / Blackout (Michael Reventar). The Flash faces one of his most deadly challenges without his powers.

 After 6 episodes and a pretty compelling end to the last episode, I thought the show would raise the ante. What appears to be happening is the formula is being followed a bit too tight. The last villain was powerful but had no real ambition or goal. He was also able to almost kill Barry with little effort. With Barry’s speed, that really shouldn’t have happened. The problem with a show like this is, it has to continue to grow. The characters need to get smarter and adjust to their situation. We expect the villains to come in smarter and more dangerous. That said, Girder (Greg Finley) was a pretty weak character and as fate would have it…expendable. We will get into that later. Starting off episode seven, we watch Farooq / Blackout (Michael Reventar), get baptized into his new powers. He becomes a super cat with electro powers. When he and Barry cross paths we witness him filling his cup with more electricity. They tango and once again Barry is easily busted up by a meta-human who is not bothered by his speed. Blackout should have never been able to catch Barry…much less siphon all his powers out like that. He may as well not have the speed at all and as it turned out, he spent the majority of the episode without his powers. Now we have two villains who were able to easily level the playing field with The Flash and that shouldn’t be. To make matters worse, Blackout’s makeup looks like something from a Halloween party. It really felt like this character was just thrown in this episode. While the team tries to help Barry get his powers back, Blackout infiltrates the S.T.A.R. lab and just rolls around like he’s visiting a museum. Apparently he decides to blame someone and wants to kill Dr. Wells (Tom Cavanagh). After walking around the lab and defeating Girder, Blackout finally gets in position to kill Dr. Wells. Then as easily as he lost his powers, Barry gets his juice back in time to save Dr. Wells. In the process he kills Blackout by allowing him to overdose on his power. All of this was a bit of a step back in the writing. We understand the writers are aiming their efforts at a select audience but the story lines cannot continue to be so simple with one-dimensional villains. One episode is forgivable because the show does have a charm to it. We are on number two and you know what happens when you swing and miss three times.

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While Blackout was terrorizing the super team, another meta-human was causing trouble. William Tockman / Cock King (Robert Knepper), gets the drop on the police and ends up holding court at the police station…with Iris West (Candice Patton) and Det. Joe West (Jesse L. Martin) as his guests. Clock King didn’t come off as being dangerous till he ends up shooting Eddie Thawe (Rick Cosnett). So after watching Blackout roam around and not appear to know what to do with his power, we get to see Clock King hold hostages waiting for an escape helicopter. This whole part of the episode never really takes off. We understand Iris is waiting for The Flash to come and save the day while her and her father have a close call. The problem is the only way a threat stays a threat, is if the threat is a threat to begin with. Even when Cock King takes Iris hostage we know he is not going to get away. There is just too much talking taking place. I would assume Clock King would do something to show how serious he is. He never does. He waits till Iris decides to take him down by herself. Her motivation is her boyfriend laying on the floor bleeding. Like Blackout, Clock King is taken out as easily as he rolls into this episode. This is a dangerous trend-taking place on the show. You have two meta-humans causing trouble and both are about as one-dimensional as you can get. I hope this is corrected in the next episode.

With all that is going on we didn’t get a chance to deal with the murderer of Barry’s mother visiting Joe in the last episode. Joe should know by now that the meta-humans don’t play by human rules. Joe has said nothing and by doing so he is placing everyone in danger. He is smarter than that and knows the police have no chance against this character. Maybe he will say something in the next episode. Even if he does…story wise it’s too late. He has connected with Dr. Wells, he could have told him. This is a major concern and something to keep an eye on.

Dr. Wells and his strange behavior just keep getting more and more disturbing. We see him concerned with Barry not showing up on his computer in the future. Which could mean he doesn’t live. Not sure where all of this is going but they need to start tying some of this up. It’s supposed to look like Wells is the character who killed Barry’s mother. I don’t think it’s him. Even if it was, they still need to raise the threat level in the story and with the new meta-humans… otherwise the show could find itself facing a power outage.

Leave your thoughts on this review and this episode of The Flash below in the comments section. For more The Flash reviews, photos, videos, and information, visit our The Flash Page, subscribe to us by Email, “follow” us on Twitter, Tumblr, or “like” us on Facebook.

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Brian Fire

Brian is a screenwriter and visual fx Artist who loves science fiction, drama and follows many TV shows. He is a versatile writer who is published and has written copy for: CompUsa, The California State Lottery and Princess Cruise lines. Every year he attends The Sundance Film Festival and the San Diego Comic Con filling up on his other passions…indie films, comic books and video games.
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