Season 7 Episode 17 “Barry and Iris greet their future children, XS and Bart, only for a shocking secret to threaten their new familial harmony; the Godspeed war intensifies and threatens to destroy Central City.”
What I Liked?
1. The episode begins in the future, 2049 to be exact, we see the “original” Godspeed running through the city, eventually making his way over the rooftop’s until he gets caught in a lightning whip, Nora has arrived to stop him, although he gets the best of her and this is when Impulse makes his entrance and immediately gets wrong off Nora for running and phasing through Godspeed. This was hands down the best opening sequence that The Flash has had in a long time, I loved this.
2. The original Godspeed makes his way to the Flash museum and onto the cosmic treadmill where he eventually makes his way through time to the past, Nora and Bart run through as well and this is where we are at in the present day. We then get our first trio team-up to stop a pack of Godspeeds from fighting, although when they see Impulse, all Godspeeds halt fighting and eventually chase Bart. Now for me, this was weird and immediately brought theories flooding to my head, one of which was that Bart was the key to the Godspeeds speedforce.
3. The big reveal we are waiting for happens, Impulse explains the story between him and Godspeed, it is revealed that Godspeed is essentially Bart’s “Thawne”, his arch-nemesis, his “big bad”. Later on, in the episode we get this reveal expanded on when Nora and Bart have a conversation about it. We come to learn that Jay Garrick is a huge part of Bart’s life, different from what Barry and Wally are, he loves Jay cause he helps him through stuff, this is what Godspeed took from Bart, he killed Jay in front of him, this is why it’s personal.
4. This next part was originally my favorite scene, simply because I loved the team-up between Barry and Nora, just like old times, however, their plan doesn’t exactly go correctly, they use a machine to stop Godspeeds artificial speedforce, however, since they didn’t use the correct source (Allegra), the Godspeeds get a huge boost in their speed and eventually nearly kill both Barry and Nora, only to be saved by Frost.
5. My final point is towards the end of the episode where Barry enters August Hearts mind to try to find the reason and to try to stop him, when we see Barry inside August’s mind, there is a huge sanctum for Godspeed, this is where the original version of Godspeed is hiding, my theory is this original, brutal, and ruthless Godspeed is trapped because he hasn’t got enough speed to leave because of all the clones.
What I Disliked?
My only dislike to this episode was sadly Allegra, while I love the character, she’s coming off an entire episode of strong character development, and I get that she lost a family member, but being moody, lashing out at Chester, and just taking a step back on her development was a huge letdown. I hope this isn’t the case going forward.
Favorite Moment
My favorite moment came from when we got to see Godspeed absolutely bait Bart out to be captured by kidnapping Jay Garrick first, Bart, as he always is, impulsive and runs in without thinking, and immediately gets caught and surrounded by Godspeeds, Barry and Nora arrive and Nora leads the pack of Godspeeds away while Barry saves Bart, Bart is left in a comatose state while Barry, Jay, and Nora get prepared to fight the many Godspeeds until Cisco arrives and saves the day.
Standout Character
As much as Barry, Nora, or even Godspeed deserve it, I have to say Bart fully gets this standout this week, Bart was perfect and only made better because of Jordan Fisher.
The Verdict
Overall an amazing start to a 2-part finale. This episode delivered so many great scenes, reveals, and somewhat action throughout the entire episode. The episode was great right from the beginning, always kept me invested in the episode. Seeing Carlos Valdes return as Cisco was also amazing.
Rating: 9/10
Photo: The Flash Season 7 Episode 17 “Heart of the Matter – Part 1”.
Rating
Story - 9
Action - 7
Characters - 10
Entertainment - 10
9
Amazing
Overall an amazing start to a 2-part finale. This episode delivered so many great scenes, reveals, and somewhat action throughout the entire episode. The episode was great right from the beginning, always kept me invested in the episode. Seeing Carlos Valdes return as Cisco was also amazing.
