TV REVIEWS: FTN Reviews The Flash Season 01 Episode 11: The Sound and the Fury

Truly, past, present, and future, are beginning to collide in Flash, and it is awesome! “The Sound and the Fury” truly gave fans NUMEROUS things to talk about, especially near the end of the episode.

At its core, this episode was rather simple, but in a good way. A former co-worker of Star Labs, Hartley Rathaway, was back, and wanted to make Harrison Wells life a living heck.

Right off the bat I’d like to note how interesting it was that Wells walks freely in his own home. Probably a mixture of arrogance and comfort knowing that no one would ever knock on his door due to the particle accelerator incident. Yeah…that backfired!

At his core, Hartley, aka Pied Piper was a decent villain. On one hand, he had a believable backstory. He was shamed by his parents, Wells took him in, then when he actually tried to do the right thing and prevent possible loss of life, Wells fired him. Then, because of the explosion, his hearing was impaired. On the other hand though, as we got to see numerous times, Hartley was a grade A jerk from LONG before the accident. This made it REALLY hard to like the guy on any level.

One thing I did appreciate was the fact that he wasn’t a metahuman, he was like Captain Cold and Heat Wave, using wits and gadgets to outwit Flash. This led once again to a pretty cool science lesson about resonance frequencies (yes, they do exist, and they can do massive damage). This was culminated in the final battle where Hartley used scans of Barry to find HIS resonance frequency. Cool stuff.

Truly though, this episode was all about Wells and his “sins” both known and non. It’s amazing that we’re eleven episodes in, we still don’t know that much about Wells, and I don’t care. And I mean that in the best way possible! Tom Cavanagh is killing it as Wells, showing both the light, the dark, and everything in between. Just as a character in this episode we go to see numerous sides of Wells, and yet we still have no true idea which side is his “real one”. We also got a first true look at him being the Reverse Flash, as he used his speed in spurts twice this episode. Which of course led to the final scene…which I’l get to soon.

An unexpected twist was Wells coming forward for that press conference. I hope this doesn’t become a one note thing, as it shouldn’t be. This was a big reveal to the world at large, and it shouldn’t be taken lightly.

Cisco and Caitlin also got to shine because of the arrival of Hartley, Cisco again did great in his scenes, and I hope we get to see more of what he (hopefully will become). As for Caitlin, she’s no doubt going to be getting some big moments soon, as the Firestorm story is heating up big time!

Though small, Joe had a significant story here as well. It’s good to see that though Joe “trusts” Wells to a degree, he’s not above suspicion, as he is with Barry. I also loved how both he and Eddie noticed that it was impossible that Wells couldn’t have been in hurt in the attack on his house. This is something that Barry either didn’t notice, or failed to account for because of his connection with Wells. This will no doubt be a big thing for the season going forward.

Sadly, once again, Iris was the big downpart of the episode. For the record, I LOVE that she is now a reporter. I HATE though that part of her story is that she got hired because of a possible connection with the Flash. Now sure, papers need to sell, but…research? Please? Also, the “stuck up coworker” angle? Really?

In the end though, “The Sound and the Fury” was another solid episode that showed why Flash is such a great series. Sure, it had a few hiccups in this episode, but the core of it was solid. The character work here was excellent, and that’s what matters.