TV REVIEWS: FTN Reviews The Flash Season 7 Episode 4: Fear Me

For the last few episodes, the team behind The Flash have been teasing something big in terms of a new storyline. We got a teaser via the Chronarch, but then we got Fuerza (more on them in a bit) and now, Psych. Who are beings that have certain connections with other primordial forces much like…the Speed Force. They’re playing out a storyline from very recent comics in Flash history. Mainly the storyline from DC Rebirth where The Flash has to deal with the other forces of the universe and it doesn’t exactly go well in certain ways.

But back to this episode, “Fear Me”. Where we got the entity known as Psych inducing various panic attacks in people and causing them to nearly lose their minds, including Barry, Cisco and Frost. Yes, Frost, not Caitlin, more on them in a bit.

Anyway, I do applaud the use of certain horror stylings and camera shots to try and make Psych seem even more menacing. And it worked…on a physical level. But the motivations of the character was frankly…weak. Psych didn’t even explain himself that well and even the heroes were confused. Then just as quickly as he arrived, he was gone and it wasn’t explained how he “died” via Cecil’s mental burst.

This brings us to another problem, Barry’s fear. Barry’s fear was everyone dying, and it crippled him. Now, you might think, “Well, that’s a rational superhero fear” and you’re right, it is. But here’s the problem, we’ve already had this arc with Barry multiple times. From his fear of losing Iris to Savitar, to losing his own life in Crisis and being afraid to accept it (and giving into Bloodwork as a result) to other times when all seemed lost like with The Thinker and so on. Yet THIS time it crippled him so much that he needed to ‘find the courage’ to move on? How does that work? It doesn’t.

Speaking of “not working”, the Caitlin/Frost storyline went from rushed to attempting to be heartfelt in a matter of a few scenes. After the most over-the-top explanation of how the splitting happened (and it still doesn’t make sense), Caitlin and Cisco all but rushed to fuse Frost and Caitlin back together, all without even asking what SHE wanted. After all, she’s alive, she has a brain and a heart, yet they just cut her out of the decision making process and expected her to deal with it.

Then when we DID get Caitlin’s answer to why she rushed things…it was a bit cliche, as well as selfish. Don’t get me wrong, finding out This Is Us is not only alive in the DC Universe but is a favorite show of Caitlin and Cisco (“the cast is too precious for this world!”) was beautiful but…they could’ve stretched this out over episodes and made it have more of an impact. Not unlike the reveal of the “mystery officer” who revealed herself to be after Frost. That was nicely handled and perfectly showcased why Iris is a boss as a reporter.

And using Cecil in The Thinker chair (does that make her the Thinktress?) was a nice use of past items to tie everything together.

Oh, and as for Fuerza, yes, she is a DC Comics character…but why they decided to go for a…*ahem*…She-Hulk (it’s taken) form instead of the more mindful form from the comics was just…odd.

“Fear Me” had its moments but many of them were overshadowed by odd and frankly dumb moments in other respects. And with next episode being about two characters going to the 90s…I’m not expecting it to get better for now.