TV REVIEWS: FTN Reviews The Flash Season 6 Episode 8: The Last Temptation Of Barry Allen Part 2

The Flash has a curious record with mid-season finales. They started out red hot with “The Man In The Yellow Suit”, and yet ever since then they’re faltered. Sometimes doing well, other times not. “The Last Temptation of Barry Allen Pt. 2” is definitely one of the better outings, but it did suffer in certain spots.

Let’s start with the good. The plan of Ramsey to infect Central City with his “Blood Brothers and Sisters” was fun, and they once again nailed the horror element of the show with how the Blood Brothers kept getting up no matter how much they were beat down. Very much unlike what Team Flash has had to face before. What’s more, breaking it up into certain elements to show how far-reaching it was was fun. Like Cisco and Iris trying separate plans to save the city. Having Cecil and Camilla try and get out of the range of the zombies, Frost and Joe fighting them off, etc.

And the idea of using the Particle Accelerator to infect the city was not only fun, but a nice callback to how everything started.

The problems though began when it was clear that Barry wasn’t quite as infected as we were led to believe. The reason Pt.1’s twist worked was because we thought Barry was strong enough to resist the temptation of Ramsey, but now we find out that…he chose to get infected…to infect Ramsey back? How would he even know that would work?

I can somewhat buy Barry resisting because of the Speed Force and everything, thus giving the clues to Iris and Cisco, but the reverse infection thing is a hard sell. Plus, Barry noted later on that he could “feel Ramsey’s doubt growing”…but why would that be? Why would he doubt at all when his plan was working to perfection? He even infected Barry as far as he knew, he should’ve never been more confident! So…yeah, that was weird.

An upside was seeing the somewhat comic-accurate version of Bloodwork take form, even if the battle was cut short. Also, seeing Allegra saving the day was cool, even if there was a lot of “off-screen chats” with Frost apparently to build her up. And before you ask, yes, it does make sense that her powers would work because UV radiation can kill infections.

Thankfully, they didn’t kill Ramsey, so he could come back in the back half of the season. Which led to in my opinion the best part of the episode. The literal countdown to Crisis. Team Flash reminiscing about the better days, the simpler days, and all the fun they had together. Only for it to turn to midnight and the red skies appeared. I got chills, I won’t lie.

So in the end, “The Last Temptation of Barry Allen Part 2” did a solid enough job of ending the Ramsey storyline and building up to Crisis on Infinite Earths. But, they didn’t go far enough in some areas, and definitely pulled a “Deus Ex Machina” a few times.

Just remember…A Crisis Is Coming…