Originally Aired: April 14th, 2015
All Star Team Up exemplifies why such a broad array of people look forward The Flash every Tuesday night on the CW, because as Ray Palmer found out Central City is just a pleasant place to be. Even as murder mysteries began to unravel and robotic killer bee’s arrive just in time for the warm weather, compared to the Arrow Cave, Star Labs looks like a candy store. Making the happy go lucky couple of Ray Palmer/The Atom and Felicity Smoke fit in so well. Brandon Routh’s ability to play up the Palmer hoke in such a natural way without the dichotomy of Oliver Queen, and never enter Schumacher territory is a testament to the actor’s charm. If nothing else this episode’s biggest triumph may be the hope and excitement it should instill in fans for the upcoming Atom team up series.
Aside from introducing awesome Atom action this episode featured the first appearance of the DC Villain: Queen Bee. While Queen Bee may not be the most dynamic villain in the DC Rogues Gallery it would have been nice to see The Flash show-runners add an little depth to the character. Rather they chose to turn her motives into a somewhat generic corporate revenge plot.
Episode 18 saw a strong focus on the people in Barry Allen’s life, and the issue of trust. While we get to see Eddie and Iris bicker in a predictable but at times entertaining CW dinner date scene, we also witness the evolution in the Felicity and Barry friendship. Here the show-runners succeed by reflecting on Felicity’s initial ability to trust Oliver Queen and Parallel that Faith in Friend Ship nicely to the situation that Barry faces with his S.T.A.R Labs team. A Team that will soon inevitably be shaken, based on foreshadowing in tonight’s episode. Foreshadowing that showed viewers we are dealing with the time is stream variety of time travel, and the stream always corrects itself. As sad as it may be it was good writing to remind us that despite Barry’s ability to time travel their will be consequences for his actions thus keeping the stakes of the series intact.
While some repetitive below the belt humor and a few too many bad one liner’s kept this episode from being flawless, you have to love DC and CW’s ability to add depth to the Atom character on an episode of The Flash. Even more impressive is that development of the Atom never feels detrimental to overarching Harrison Well’s story. Rather All Star Team Up reestablishes the stakes of that story.