#flash 2.21

[inthenameofsephiroth]

I wrote this as a joke a few days ago, but it turns out it was actually 110% canon:

[melonatures]

al rothstein’s body was in the morgue all night so we can scratch off zombie attack

lol

[melonatures]

OH MY GOD

remember how the great thing about e2 westallen was that they weren’t just married, but were working as a team, as a unit? (no doubt it was easier for them than for e1, since they worked for the same organization--they definitely had the whole office romance thing going on.)

that’s what e1 iris and barry were doing in 2.21! the first part of the episode they are working in parallel, barry in the speedforce trying to get back to the real, physical world, and iris with cisco and the rest of the team trying to beat tony. and then they come together: iris enters the speedforce to help pull barry out, and barry joins in on the plans iris and cisco and everyone else already have in motion and helps them beat tony. while barry is away, there isn’t a sense that they’re just doing what they can or biding their time in the face of his absence; they aren’t simply waiting for him to come back; they aren’t despairing and resigned (like harry is at first), but rather proactive. they aren’t even barry’s “i have to try”; rather they’re i’m doing this—they’re iris’s “i believe we choose our own destiny,” they’re iris’s “what the hell?” they’re iris’s putting her name on her blog when everyone tells her to take the whole thing down. there’s a sense of recklessness in iris’s actions, but it’s no different from the the enthusiasm barry had for being the flash back in the early episodes of s01 (ep 1.02 especially comes to mind). 

after iris pulls barry out of the speedforce he reunites with everyone and cisco gives him the rundown, and tony breaks down the door—and without preamble, without any questioning, without any hesitation, barry looks to iris and takes her by the waist and speeds around star labs with her to lure tony in. what a contrast to s01, when that stupid, condescending lie was ~for her own protection~!

another wonderful thing i love about 2.21 is that it shows a change in how iris reacts to catastrophe. when barry was in the coma before we saw her run out of his room when he started convulsing; when faced with the secret of her mother’s having had another child, she keeps it to herself until she feels she can’t hold it in any longer. but iris doesn’t hide or run away in the face of barry’s death/disappearance. she acts. we’re seeing her turn into the woman who can write about her husband’s disappearance with professional grace and circumspection. 

...i also feel like a lot of s02′s episodes (that i’ve seen) were written as pairs, as opposed to s01, which had a lot more stand alone episodes. 

[vigilantewives]

2.21 - The Runaway Dinosaur Sneak Peek #2

[vigilantewives]

2.21 - The Runaway Dinosaur Sneak Peek