The Flash S06 EP11 spoiler review

Flash is back this week with a Valentine's episode to celebrate the holiday on friday! Thus, it was a big episode about love and couples and definitely a filler of the worst sort. There were things I did like in the episode, but they were few and while I don't like to say that I outright dislike an episode, this one is one I probably would not revisit. Here is my review for the Flash season 6 episode 11, "Love in a Battlefield."
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Starting off with the smallest story of the episode, one that literally had no point in happening and I think we would have been better off not having, is Frost trying to help Allegra hook up with an old flame. I haven't bought into the character of Allegra, I just haven't found her very charismatic or fun, mostly just dreary. So having a story line focused on her is already a negative for me, then Frost is thrown in as a love councilor and I've voiced how I feel about this character's interpretation at this point. I'm not into grunge Killer Frost trying to be a human, partying, acting like a teen, being a love councilor; I'm a bit tired of "cool" Killer Frost and I'd rather have Caitlin back. Allegra is sad because she isn't with a boy she once knew, and Frost decides to get them back together. It obviously doesn't go as planned, and suddenly I feel like I'm watching the same story line we got with Chester and Cecile. Literally episodes apart, except this time it wasn't Chester making himself a fool because of something Cecile did, the boy already had a girlfriend and somehow Allegra finds this as Frost's fault and gets mad at her. Nash talks to Frost, telling her some basic advice to give Allegra which makes her happy again and Frost suggests that Nash's advice was "parental." A lot of leaps, but I see what their doing, and I'm not very interested. Nash seeing what seemed to be a hallucination of Harry Wells could turn into something but I'm not holding my breath, these three characters are currently my least favorite part of the season.

The main chunk of the episode involved Barry and Iris taking down Amunet Black and Goldface. Following up Iris being pulled into the mirror, we have Iris cooking Barry breakfast and it not being awful, then she knows how to speak french when they go to a french restaurant! It is obvious it isn't our Iris, but things seem to get a bit tricky when she talks about specific events that transpired like planning for Barry to die in Crisis, and the acting from Candice Patton really got me to question whether or not it was Iris or not. There was a really great interaction between the two of them when Iris confronted Barry about not wanting to be his damsel in distress anymore, she doesn't need him to save her at every turn, and she is growing as her own person capable of handling herself. I definitely think that her as a journalist fits better than Team Flash leader, and she was definitely right in that Barry was a bit overbearing in situations Iris clearly handled well. Her trek into the bar for information showed her girt, she was able to smuggle out the containment unit during the fight between Amunet and Goldface, and then she was able to convince Amunet that she truly wanted in on the job. This second of the season seems to be where Iris is really flourishing as a character, as long as she isn't surrounded by other characters like Allegra and Kamilla who I don't care for. Barry worried about the two of them drifting apart, leading to another awesome Joe-talk that involved a tree metaphor that my brother joked, "You're losing me, Joe!" but I thought was great! They're both growing as people, but they're not going to grow apart. The two reconciled by the end of the episode...but in the mirror behind them Iris pounds on the glass screaming to Barry that, "That's not me!" while the fake Iris looks back at her coldly.

Then, because I guess I have to mention it, the episode did feature the return of both Amunet Black and Goldface as villains. Goldface I find fun at least in a silly way, at least I did in his original episode, but Amunet Black I've always found insufferably cheesy, cartoonish, and while I know the Flash can be silly sometimes this character always breaks the atmosphere of the show for me. I do not like the character's fake accent, the awful looking forced grin, and she just acts annoying. Goldface in this episode did a lot more whining, and as a duo it was just a ridiculous focus for the episode. They were fighting over a flower that they could synthesize into telekinetic gas, but when Flash exposed both of them to the gas it revealed both of their inner thoughts that they still loved each other and I guess they started making out in the warehouse they had been fighting in. I'll say that it was cool at least seeing Barry send a jolt of lightning by snapping his fingers, that's new.

The mirror plot remains something I've very interested in seeing progress, and if Mirror Master is the main villain for the second half of the season in the form of Eva McCulloch, alongside the Black Hole organization I think that the future is looking good. I'm just not thrilled about off shoots like this, especially nonsense storylines like the one following Allegra's love life. We haven't even seen Ralph since Crisis; and I think the show should shave down its number of supporting characters come next season. The new ones they've been introducing lately, Kamilla and Allegra, both really don't fit in for me and don't add much to the team. Neither seem like they have much relationship with the other characters (Aside from Cisco and Kamilla, just because the show is forcing that relationship), and while I enjoyed Nash being a jerk who became Pariah, having him now just become another Wells who joins the team is horribly repetitious. I hope things can become more focused and give us a great second half of season 6, and I don't want it to be ruined by poorly written side characters and uninteresting sub plots.