Jim’s Thoughts

To get the negatives out of the way, this two-episode Gorilla City arc doesn’t appear to be doing much to advance the main plot of the season. Yes, there’s mention about changing the headlines in the future, so they’re not ignoring the main plot, but the connection feels tenuous.

Taking the episode at face value, it’s an entertaining start to the story. Grodd forces the show to dig deeper into its comic book source material, and that’s what got me into the show to begin with. Seeing Earth 2’s Harrison Wells was a nice throwback, and seeing him contrasted against “HR” had a nice payoff to it.

The action sequences were well executed, as was Gorilla City itself. Some of the shots looked like they could have been pulled from the panels of the comics themselves.

If I’m going to nitpick anything else from the episode, it’s got to be the lack of clarity in the powers between Barry and the dual Gorilla threats in the episode. To keep the fights competitive, they seem to be either nerfing Barry or overpowering his enemies a bit here.

There are a few plot points to pick on here, but this week gave us an entertaining installment. They’re still leaning too hard on romance stories, pairing off Wally and Jessie, Julian and Snow, but I’ve begun to expect that from The CW. All things considered, I think they accomplished an interesting setup for next week’s big showdown.

Kyle’s Take

“Attack on Gorilla City” was fun. If nothing else, it can hang its hat on comic book nostalgia and exciting action. I’d temper the praise with the main storyline not advancing, romance bubbling up in odd places, and a nebulous “something” dampening Barry’s powers. But this is the usual CW midseason lull and Grodd’s a great way to fight the doldrums. Unlike most episodes this time of year, this week’s Flash was enjoyable.

If I had to nitpick one other thing from the episode, it’d be the length of Grodd’s story. The visuals and narrative are ripped from the comic book, but that same comic took multiple issues to get through the story; Grodd gets two episodes. Grodd also plans an all-out invasion of Central City, much like Zoom last season, and Grodd still gets two episodes. Zoom received eight times as many episodes for a similar invasion. This story isn’t at warp speed, it’s at ludicrous speed.

I like how Flash kept Caitlin/Killer Frost in the forefront. It’s easy to do when Caitlin returns to Earth-2, but viewers are invested in her wellbeing and could maintain a level of tension with her wellbeing threatened.

The two Harrison Wells played off each other in interesting ways. The payoff was priceless.

I’ve come to accept the CW throwing in romance as much as it can, but Wessie (Wally and Jessie pairing) is bothersome. Flash suggested Wally and Jessie as a couple over a year ago, and hasn’t done anything with them. Why should we care about these two when Flash hasn’t cared about them for more than a year? There’s a right and wrong way to handle romance. How Flash handled Wessie is more the latter.

That sounds like a lot of negative, but I did enjoy “Attack on Gorilla City.” It’s one of the better CW superhero episodes that air this time of year, and I credit Grodd. Like Jim said, Grodd forces Flash to dig deep into its comic book source material. That’s usually a great thing for fans.

Thanks for reading.