Gorilla Warfare follows the lead of all the other Flash episodes of this season and continues to be solidly entertaining.

Grodd’s return is very welcome and he even comes back with a redesign, looking a little more realistic than last time. Not sure I like that but it’s kinda reminiscent of  a change in artist for the comics which I smiled at, even if it was unintentional.

Of course, Harry gets a huge chunk of characterisation. Both because he’s determined to fight Zoom solo and is brought back into the fold by Caitlin (shipping forecast for this week calls for copious amounts of Snowells). He earns his place on the team by, surprisingly, acting like his Earth-1 counterpart. Donning the Reverse-Flash costume and mimicking Thawne-Wells’ voice should be chilling but it’s kind of fun to watch.

Oh, Kendra… You’re going to break that fool boy’s heart. The HawkVibe date ends before it can really begin as Cisco vibes a winged figure when he holds Kendra’s hand. When they kiss later in the episode, he finally twigs that it’s Kendra (or he realises the person is female, at least). We’re probably going to see this crash and burn soon when Hawkman is introduced but for now, it’s cute but Ciara Renée hasn’t really had enough screen time to make me like her yet.

Henry Fucking Allen. He’s been off in the god damn woods! I really hate what they’ve done with John Wesley Shipp’s character. He’s just so… Useless. He might as well still be in jail for all the time he’s actually here… Plus he made Joe sad! Fuck this guy! Joe is best dad.

Barry recovers almost in a flash (geddit?) but the psychological trauma of getting his shit pushed in letting the city down is limiting him. Luckily his dad takes time out of his fishing trip to give some words of encouragement and dump Grodd through a portal. Everyone goes home in time for tea.

GORILLA CITY! Yooooo! That’s awesome! I’m liking Earth-2 more and more, it’s got all the goofy DC places they can’t get away with usually. We’ll definitely be seeing Grodd again, hopefully sooner than next season.

Gorilla Warfare is a pretty fun episode like usual but as I said in this week’s SHIELD Exposed, it just falls short of being better than S.H.I.E.L.D. for the first time since the show’s came back. The streak is broken! Will a new reign begin? Found out next week when take a look at Legends of Today.

Grodd Lives delivers on what we’ve been waiting for ever since we saw a certain busted cage in the pilot and that’s Gorilla Grodd and all manner of monkey business is occurring in this episode!

I’ll get this out of the way early doors because I HATE Iris right now. She’s every distaff character who was kept out of the cool secret in sister-show Arrow rolled into one. She’s Season 1 Laurel and I want to put my foot through the TV because I’ve seen this shit! I think this is the one problem to arise from being related to Arrow, every episode has a god damn heart-felt/emotional scene between hero and love interest and it’s BORING. The one thing that saved Arrow recently was Felicity’s fun relationship with Ray until it was FUCKED UP FOR EVERYONE. Oy vey… It’s probably gonna get worse when Eddie gets rescued and dumps her because of his knowledge of the future.

Teenage high school angst aside, this episode was pretty damn cool! Grodd is the puppeteer of Wade Eiling, who has been missing for 3 months in-universe. Is it just me or is the masked identity Grodd gives Eiling Goldface? He’s robbing gold shipments and his mask is gold-ish? That’s kind of weird, but maybe someone else will use the costume in the future and we can have a proper Goldface! Clancy Brown kills it as usual, even as a meat puppet for Grodd.

Grodd himself is pretty damn cool! The CGI looks solid and the voice actor is bang on point! David Sobolov has voiced some fantastic characters in the past, including Drax The Destroyer in every animated incarnation this side of 2013, Lobo in Young Justice, Shockwave in Transformers: Prime and, my favourite, Depth Charge in Beast Wars! That’s so damned cool!

Wells is only in a couple scenes but he’s basically here to torment Eddie, tinker with some machinery and then reveal his ultimate goal. This side of Wells is still impish but is a massive dick and it’s still entertaining to watch. The stinger reveals that his secret lair has been underneath the pipeline of STAR Labs this entire time as the device he was working on activates the tunnel.

What a fantastic episode (barring the scenes with Iris) and we’ve still got hypeness to come when some old friends (and old enemies) come to visit in Rogue Air.

Ronnie and Stein separate in the wake of their (not-nuclear) nuclear blast. I have to say that I adore the way that Robbie Amell and Victor Garber play off each other. They start off very antagonistic towards each other but ultimately bond in the truest sense and the resulting bond gives birth to Firestorm. It’s the first true superhero team-up for The Flash (yes, there was Arrow but he doesn’t have powers, unless it’s the power to angst.) and while it’s quite short, I was smiling ear to ear the entire time. I loved it.

Iris is helping her co-worker, Mason Bridge, to find out secrets about STAR Labs. This is padding. Moving on.

Clancy Brown returns as General Wade Eiling and he’s just as delightfully evil as ever. He tries to snag Ronnie in Jitters (tranqing the entire coffee shop to do it) and then nails The Flash with a special shrapnel grenade that looks painful as fuck. He later takes the piss out of Wells’ disability and snags Martin Stein and would have killed both him and Ronnie if not for The Flash. Luckily, this delightful dickbag does get his come-uppance by way of a double cold-cock, one by Ronnie and the other by Barry, as well as something else…

God DAMN IT, Wells! You’re making it real hard to defend you, bro! I’m starting to realise I’m like those Ward apologists for SHIELD but, y’know, fully aware that I’m rooting for a bad guy. It’s quite the paradox for me because a lot of Wells’ actions can be construed as both heroic and villainous. Yes, he’s killed people but to protect others. He’s been seen to want to use his speed to help others, especially Barry. I keep saying I’m not convinced he’s the bad guy but he’s making it real hard for me to keep that stance up. Nice to see Cavanagh in the suit though!

KING GORILLA! Grodd struts his stuff and gladly accepts Wells’ present of Wade Eiling and drags him off, presumably to eat him or wear him like a finger puppet. He does have some dialogue this time and it is quite chilling. “Not God. GRODD.”

Final thoughts are an immensely entertaining episode that introduces a new hero. Between Arrow, The Flash and the upcoming animated mini-series, Vixen, CW is building itself quite the Justice League. When The Flash returns on March 17th, we may finally get a definitive answer to the question that is Harrison Wells so join me then when we are Out of Time.

Crazy for You is, ultimately, a pretty weak episode but is saved by the characters and the stinger.

Basic rundown of the plot involves Barry and Caitlin getting over their respective love interests, Cisco letting Pied Piper out of his cell for revelations about Ronnie and a teleporting villain of the week who is pretty weak sauce.

Peek-A-Boo (yes, that’s her real codename from the comics) frees her jailbird boyfriend from Iron Heights, garnering the attention of the CCPD and The Flash. Barry’s investigation eventually gets some help from Henry Allen, who plays cop on the inside and gets his ass beat for his trouble. Still, it’s nice to see Gustin and Shipp add some physicality to their father/son scenes and it gets pretty emotional by the end. Oh yeah, Peek-A-Boo! Her powers don’t work in darkness so she’s quickly dealt with, her boyfriend abandoning her and off into the pipeline she goes. NEVER TO BE SPOKEN OF AGAIN.

Cisco gets to deal Piper, and while he does get a pretty cool fight scene (with a shockingly obvious stunt double) he gets betrayed and Piper escapes. At least we find out more about Firestorm, and that Dr Martin Stein is in control of Robbie’s body; the two having merged due to the accelerator accident.

The big thing in this episode, for me, is the character relationship between Barry and Caitlin. They end up going to a karaoke dive bar under the pretence of a stakeout but Caitlin ends up drunk off her tits and calls Barry up to sing. Gustin gets to flex his impressive Glee pipes and Panabaker is an adorable drunk, a far cry from her usual default state as the team’s serious one. Barry and Caitlin (especially drunk Caitlin) is a delight to watch, it makes me squee on the inside and the whole affair leads to Caitlin setting her sights on Barry but unfortunately…

Linda Park enters the Love Triangle! Malese Jow (of Vampire Diaries fame, according to my watching-buddy) is now in the mix for more high school drama BS. She gets a nice enough intro and I’m sure she’ll also become a better love interest than Iris, who is left mouth agape at the revelation of Barry dating one of her co-workers.

Flash Fact: Linda Park is actually the girlfriend/wife of the second Flash, Wally West. Whatever could be the game plan with her dating Barry?

Stinger for this week is pure monkey business as we finally get our first proper look at Gorilla Grodd, making his presence felt in a straight up Jurassic Park homage. Get hyped!

All in all, a weak sauce villain of the week means more room for characters to develop and mysteries to deepen but next week seems to get back to brilliance as we finally meet The Nuclear Man.

Plastique aka Bette Sans Souci is played by Kelly Frye; known for roles in The Mentalist, NCIS: Los Angeles and Rake. I’m not familiar with her work but her performance is pretty solid, playing Plastique as someone who believes she was betrayed by the country she laid her life on the line for and is now on the run. Just like every metahuman, she gained her abilities from the particle accelerator explosion, fusing the dark matter with bomb fragments left in her body because SCIENCE. Solid performance, it’s just unfortunate that she won’t be returning (especially after what the conniving Harrison Wells does!)

Clancy Brown kills it as General Eiling, being a veteran of the DC Universe’s various projects. He’s voiced Lex Luthor in a ton of DC animated series and various other DC characters in animated shows and movies and if there’s one thing he knows how to play, it’s bad guys! Eiling wants to use Plastique as a human weapon, something Wells knows all too well, having worked with him in the past on a project to give subjects telepathy. Brown plays Eiling as the smuggest jackass and it’s a delight to watch because you just love to hate him, another thing Clancy excels at.

Joe West is another highlight of the show, continuing to be the best side character for snark, emotional moments and being the best TV dad I’ve ever seen. Seriously, I want Jesse L. Martin to be my dad… Joe gets the best line in the show for me, expressing his total boredom with the concept of metahuman criminals now. It’s only five episodes in and Joe is DONE with this superpower BS, I love it!

A fair amount of screen time is taken up by Barry and Iris, arguing about her blog and the subtext of Barry’s feelings for her (which Joe knew about. Again, best dad.) and it’s pretty trite. This is the worst kind of Smallville faux-drama and I just wish Barry would get together with Caitlin or Felicity. I know Iris is the canon love interest but, frankly, she is the DUMBEST character on this show. Hop on the SnowBarry train, writers!

Stinger this week reveals the project Eiling and Wells worked on, the telepathy subject; a gorilla named Grodd. YOOOOOOOOO, gimme that monkey magic!

The Flash was brilliant and it gets more and more fun with every episode. Come back next week when the Scarlet Speedster makes a name for himself in The Flash is Born!