The Flash battles multiple Godspeeds as a speedster war erupts

For its first few seasons, The Flash’s Big Bads inevitably turned out to be speedsters. The show took a break from the pattern for a while, but now it doubles down…and that’s only the beginning. As “Enemy At The Gates” opens, there are two versions of Godspeed on the loose in Central City at once, which shouldn’t come as too much of a shock to a team that has battled multiple other versions in the past. By episode’s end there are twelve Godspeed clones, which would seem to be an insurmountable challenge were it not for the fact that they don’t all like each other.

Before we can get to that, there’s the ongoing drama of Barry and Iris attempting to reproduce to deal with. “Drama” is probably the wrong word, however, as the show mostly continues to play the situation for laughs, though not very successfully. The whimsical music that appears on the soundtrack every time the subject comes up has begun to feel oppressive—the show’s creators trying desperately to convince us that some not-all-that-hilarious moments (Barry trying not to reveal the real reason he and Iris are taking a sudden tropical getaway, Cecile showing up at the door just as Barry is trying to leave the apartment with blood and urine samples to test) are gut-busters.

Having dreamed about Nora—not his mother or the Speed Force, but the speedster daughter he and Iris lost several seasons back—Barry wakes up convinced that Iris must be pregnant. Making this even more awkward is the fact that Candice Patton doesn’t appear in the episode for the second week in a row, resulting in a lot of Barry calling to her offscreen or on the phone. After all is said done, the test results are negative, leaving Barry puzzled as to why his dream didn’t foretell the future. (It’s because dreams don’t work that way, buddy.)

Speaking of unrewarding subplots, the saga of Frost and Chillblaine continues as she rescues him from a beatdown at their favorite bar. Since he’s alienated every other medical practitioner in the city, Frost takes him to STAR Labs to get patched up, which means he’s on the scene when the Godspeeds attack. Chester has rigged up a force field to keep them trapped outside, but the Godspeeds are able to sap it of its strength and break in. With Gideon’s help, Chester attacks them with an overload of their own electronically distorted voices. That temporarily disrupts them to the point where Frost and Chillblaine are simply able to beat up on them (why they don’t freeze-blast them, or why these two Godspeeds lose their speed while the one Barry is battling retains his, are the main questions going through my head at this moment), but this advantage is short-lived, and soon the Godspeeds are powering up the vibrating hands of death.

Barry leads them on a merry chase through Central City, and it looks bad for him when all six of them the catch up and start draining his power. Luckily it is at that moment when six more Godspeeds show up and start fighting the others. They cancel each other out and and disappear, leaving Barry to ponder the reasons for this civil war of speedsters.

While all this has been going on, Caitlin has been busy operating on Ultraviolet, who has finally given in to her cousin’s urgings to trust Team Flash. The surgery to remove the Black Hole microchip from her throat is a success, in part thanks to Cecilia’s ability to share her peace of mind with the increasingly anxious Esperanza. Does this mean we have two ex-villains potentially joining up with the good guys? Not necessarily, as Chillblaine is still shadier than an oak tree (and Frost’s feelings for him still mysterious, unless she’s all about those abs).

With this crowd of subplots, the one involving Joe and Kramer is almost subliminal this week. It’s as if the writers were caught off-guard by the shorter than usual episode order this season and are trying to cram in everything they had planned anyway. Kramer continues to behave as if Joe’s trust in her is unjustified, but both of them are seemingly caught in the vehicle explosion that ends the hour. It’s hard to even regard this is a cliffhanger, however; the creative team has made some questionable decisions lately, but killing off Joe West would be a bridge too far.

Stray observations

• “Wait, do you have a Flashmobile?” Sadly, no. Not yet anyway.
• Next week: Diggle to the rescue!