The Flash (TV Series) Potential Energy (2016) User Reviews

Plenty of Potential

[ThomasDrufke · 7/10 · 19 January 2016]

Finally, after 6 long weeks of seeing Star Wars several times, The Flash and DC are back. On a pretty big night for DC television and film, The Flash kicked off the festivities with an okay entry for season 2. This season has been very good (perhaps even better than season 1) but with all the build up to Zoom and the relationship Barry has formed with Patty, there's a lot to deliver on. While there wasn't much progress with the Zoom story line, this was supposed to be the episode where the 'Patty-not-knowing-Barry's-the- Flash' was resolved.

Sadly, that wasn't the case. The Patty character has been the biggest bright spot to this season, in my opinion. The dynamic between her and Barry far surpasses anything that Iris and Barry shared last season. This episode had plenty of great material for them, but it once again put off the one thing that it needed, honesty. I'm getting pretty tired of the CW shows holding off secrets for really no reason whatsoever. Patty has every reason to be upset at Barry. Remember, Barry gave up his secret to Linda within the blink of an eye a few weeks ago. So story wise, the secret keeping just seems like yet another ploy for more filler episodes in the coming weeks. That is until the chaos goes down in the final 6 episodes or so. I'm not buying that she will indeed move away either. She just told Barry she wants to be closer to him.

Besides the illogical decisions from Barry with Patty, I was glad to see that Iris was actually helping Patty instead of destroying another one of Barry's relationships. Iris has been much better this season. Her brother, Wally, is now in the fold for better or worse, as he was one of the side plots this episode. When Wally wasn't trying to be Dominic Toretto he half attempted to make things work with his father. While I don't expect this to be the last time they have their issues, I was glad to see a pleasant ending for this episode. I just worry their issues will be another side story that goes on for far too long.

The villain of the week was none other than the classic DC villain, Turtle. To be honest, I had no idea who he was before the episode, nor do I really know who he is now. The character has potentially cool abilities, pun intended, but the character development and writing just wasn't there. It was nice to see Barry take on someone with unique powers, especially because they turned out to be pretty threatening, but the motives for why Turtle was doing what he was doing weren't all that clear. Even when they attempted to explain them, it just made it sound more illogical and goofy to go after Patty. A much better approach to the character would have been to take him down a similar path to the Arrow villain, Dollmaker.

Harry had a pretty big week as he took a step forward with his plans to steal Barry's powers by using Turtles abilities against him. While it was utterly convenient that Turtle just showed up as he was trying to devise a plan/formula, I don't think it will be as easy as it seems to take Barry's speed and give them to Zoom in exchange for his daughter. On a side note, it was pretty haunting hearing about what Zoom is capable of, described by Harry's accounts from Earth 2. It also helped that they included some nightmare sequences with Zoom killing Patty. Seriously we have 13 more episodes till the finale??

I guess it's also worth mentioning that Reverse Flash made an appearance and Jay revealed he's sick. Everything with Jay tonight seemed strange and off, so I'm not sure what to think about that. Seeing Reverse Flash on the other hand was pretty cool, but also just raises way more questions than it answers.

+Iris helping Patty

+Turtle had interesting and unique abilities

+Harry on a mission

+Ominous Zoom moments

-Tell Patty already

-No character development for Turtle

7.6/10

The Flash -S04E10 Potential Energy

[j_forbesy · 8/10 · 27 January 2016]

Overall, I felt this was a great welcome back to the CW/DC universe. While it wasn't a stand out episode of the season, it laid a great platform for the second half of the season.

I really loved the opening sequence of this episode. The use of Zoom in this episode without actually featuring was great. The dream sequence gave us a healthy dose of Zoom while acting as a great plot point. It is later revealed that nightmares is now a common thing with Barry. This really shows the fear factor Zoom as a villain present. He brings a sense of fear that effects Barry on a psychological level.

This weeks villain was The Turtle. Usually a Jay Garrick comic book character, the use as The Turtle as the main focus of this episode was a good building platform to build off. Using The Turtle really brought the show back to its roots of what The Flash was early in season 1. Using the familiar premise for the episode really allowed use to explore other aspects of this episode, the main one being Barry trying to tell Patty about his secret.

Since early in the season I always felt Barry was going to have a problem revealing himself to Patty. I've really enjoyed the chemistry the two present on screen and I've found myself very invested. This has made the moment that Barry tells Patty a moment I have been looking forward to for a long time. Unfortunately though we will have to wait another week to see if he does it as Patty reveals she is leaving Central City to pursue a new career. I'm not completely convinced she was actually leave though. I feel that they can't build up to this moment without having to pay it off.

The other main event happening this episode was between Joe and his son Wally. I overall was a little let down with their interactions during this episode. As a character I was looking forward to since the start of the season, Wally doesn't appear to be what I thought he would. Although I really liked the street racing aspect of his character. It really showed the big hearted side of Wally as he reveals to Joe that he races to pay his mother's medical bills. Apart from this though I didn't feel very pleased with Wally as a character until his final scene of the episode. In this scene it is the first time he appears as though there is no attitude to him. His attitude really confused me as he was the one that reached out and made the connection to Joe in the first place. I felt the last scene was very sweet though. This is the first time we get to see Joe have a proper family interaction with his biological son.

This episode was a great platform to build off for the coming weeks. As always, I find myself excited to see next weeks episode and again enter the DC universe.

8/10 - See more reviews at https://thenotsonerdynerd.wordpress.com/

Slow it down

[tenshi_ippikiookami · 7/10 · 27 January 2016]

"The Flash" has a down episode, as "Potential Energy" is far from what the show can offer.

As the Flash seems unable to gain more velocity, they decide to catch a meta-human called the "Turtle" because he can choose what or who to make move sloooower. They think that if they know how to use his power, they can take the speed from Zoom. But the episode doesn't seem to know what to do with Turtle (Battlestar Galactica's Chief Galen Tyrol's Aaron Douglas, doing a good job; it's nice that the show keeps bringing popular actors to play the meta-humans) and his powers are not well developed (or maybe not so interesting).

But it's not only that. Wally West's storyline seems taken from the "how to make your first script" book bin discount and is quite ridiculous, as it makes the character quite lame. And how the show deals with Patty and Barry relationship is also not very smart writing, and lame too.

The show is great, and all its strengths are in this episode. Too bad there're a lot of unusual weaknesses too.

Ranking/Reviewing every Flash episode: Potential Energy

[lbramson · 8/10 · 11 June 2023]

Patty is endangered by the Turtle, so Barry must decide whether or not to tell her his secret. This episode had a lot of potential (😉) and it makes use of all of it! This is relationship drama done right. Instead of stupid mellow drama, this episode's drama is life threatening, putting Patty in the line of fire! I was actually really invested and engaged in Episode 10, it an underrated gem within Flash's quickly growing catalog! While it doesn't do anything shockingly good, it treats viewers with one heck of an enjoyable time. Yet another fun episode in the Flash's greatest season!

8.3/10-Great!

Mixed feelings

[okraievskyi · 7/10 · 10 September 2022]

Again, this is one of these episodes where I don't have much to say, but I have some notes anyway. First of all, why the heck didn't Cisco tell Barry about the Turtle? The explanation felt really weak. They deal with random metas all the time, and Cisco didn't bother telling Barry about a dangerous one? How did Barry not find out himself? Overall, though, this is just a decent episode. The acting was pretty good, the character arc with Joe and Wally was good, Barry was in character with him constantly worrying about stuff, and Dr Wells becomes more and more interesting. The big Jay reveal didn't feel as big as it should've, but the reveal at the end was interesting. I loved the Turtle's backstory, it was really creepy and made the final showdown so much better. It's weird how easy Flash defeated him though. Overall, pretty good buildup episode.