TV Review: THE FLASH: Season 3, Episode 18: Abra Kadabra [The CW]

The Flash: Abra Kadabra Review 

The CW’s The Flash: Season 3, Episode 18: ‘Abra Kadabra’ finally brought in another member of the Rogues gallery in the form of Abra Kadabra (Dave Dastmalchian). It’s been difficult with how the show handles The Flash’s villains, but taking one of them out of the Rogues list was the right decision. The only problem was that Savitar had to be associated with what could’ve been a great episode. Despite Savitar’s presence being made, this week’s installment did bring in a huge change that would affect the entire season going forward.

Dave Dastmachian was the perfect choice to play the futuristic thief. The actor has been known for playing some small yet unforgettable characters in popular superhero films like The Dark Knight and Ant-Man. He was the right person to portray a magician from the 64^th Century. He brought some fresh vigor and craziness into the role. There were times when his performance would be campy, but if there were any villains from The Flash mythos who was a bit over-the-top, it would be Abra Kadabra that comes to mind. You have to understand that this man is from the future and is on a different frequency from other people.

Even his so-called powers made some great action scenes. Just his appearance alone should be good enough for the speedsters to get frustrated every time he gets away. It’s great that it all took Barry Allen (Grant Gustin) teaming up with Wally (Keiynan Lonsdale), Cisco (Carlos Valdes), and Gypsy (Jessica Camacho) in order to take this villain down. Abra was more than capable to take care of himself when taking on some superheroes. The show really got it right with all the sleight-of-hand tricks and other kinds of magic that Abra had to pull from his sleeve.

The only problem that the episode had was it focused too much on trying to get Abra in order to get information off him regarding the identity of Savitar. The villain should have become more than just a catalyst for the big secret behind Savitar. It was even more disappointing when the reveal didn’t come out this week. With another big hiatus for the show, it will be difficult to keep viewers invested in this big mystery that has plagued everyone since this season started. Until we get that big reveal, it’s nearly impossible for us to connect with Savitar like all the other speedster villains. We don’t even need Abra to tell us how the God of Speed is considered Flash’s greatest enemy.

One good thing that came out of this was that the episode got to dig deep into the family drama with the West family. Being a father, Joe (Jesse L. Martin) was out for answers this week as he struggled between justice for Abra’s crimes and protecting his daughter Iris (Candice Patton). Jesse had some powerful scenes when all of this was taking place.

Another big development we received was with Caitlin’s (Danielle Panabaker) transformation into Killer Frost. We had all this build up in the budding romance between Caitlin and Julian (Tom Felton), which was needed in order to give Caitlin some great material. Caitlin managed to pull through in that operating scene where she was supervising her own surgery. Once she got out of danger, her relationship with Julian became stronger than ever.

This arc really came together as it all let up to this big shocker when Caitlin was fighting for her life after she goes into cardiac arrest. It caused Julian to make the hardest choice to save her life, but at the cost of letting her alter ego out. This makes it even more difficult since this might be the end of having Caitlin and Julian on the team. Hopefully the writers have some plans going into the fourth season regarding the aftermath of Caitlin becoming Killer Frost. With the Savitar storyline still playing out, it would be bad if he overshadows Killer Frost.

The Flash pulled off another member of the Rogues for this week’s installment by bringing in Abra Kadabra. The villain turned out to be fun to watch, but his debut felt less about him and more about Savitar. The character drama stood out the most for this episode as everyone is tackling different yet similar problems, whether it’s Joe doing everything he can to protect Iris or Julian going against Caitlin’s wishes to save her life.

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