The Flash, S3 Ep12 – Untouchable

With the revelation that Wally is progressing at a faster rate than Barry initially did when he first got his powers, Barry has decided to assist in Wally’s training in order for Wally to be the one to save Iris from Savitar in the future. Interrupting Wally’s training is the emergence of a new meta-human by the name of Clive Yorkin, who has to ability to cause rapid decomposition through touch. With the emergence of Yorkin we find out that he is targeting people who were police officers in the Flashpoint universe and Joe West is on his list.

Iris is in trouble

“Untouchable” is a very Wally-centric episode. Wally has proved to be a much better character this season and this episode progresses him not only as a character, but strengthens his role as a superhero in Central City. Much of the episode revolves around Wally attempting to learn how to phase through solid objects as Barry does. While Clive Yorkin doesn’t seem to be a villain for which Wally can test out this ability on effectively at first, nearing the conclusion of the episode we find out Wally must phase his blood through Yorkin to neutralize his abilities. While this was a very convenient way of having Wally learn this ability, it made sense and felt like a natural progression for the story.

Wally successfully pulls off this ability after feeling guilty for not being fast enough to rescue is sister Iris from Yorkin. A lot of what Wally is going through we’ve seen Barry go through in previous seasons. It’s interesting to see Wally go through this now and see how he deals with it. There have been plenty of times in the past when Barry felt like he wasn’t fast enough to save a loved one.

With Yorkin at large for the majority of the episode we find out that he is targeting police officers from the Flashpoint universe, including Joe, who were responsible for his capture in that universe. It’s good to see that twelve episodes in we’re still feeling the effects from “Flashpoint.” Of course, Julian feels appropriately guilty as Yorkin was a meta created by him when he was Dr. Alchemy, and we’re informed at the conclusion of the episode that there is still another meta out there Julian is responsible for. That’s something to look forward to.

One of the better moments of “Untouchable” comes from Joe. Feeling afraid of what Yorkin might do to her father – having seen what he did to the others – Iris cracks and tells Joe the truth about what may happen to her in the future. Though we’ve seen this speech a hundred times before on both The Flash and Arrow, Joe has a great moment criticizing Barry, Wally, and Iris for not telling him the truth in the first place. Happily, by the end of the episode when Iris is saved, Joe is more glad his daughter is alive rather than upset that he was lied to. With Joe now privy to everything that’s going on and a vow from everyone that they will remain honest going forward, Team Flash is stronger than ever.

The truth is out

Overall, “Untouchable” was a highly satisfying episode. It featured it a lot of fun and emotional moments. Barry pushed his phasing ability more than ever before, phasing an entire train through rubble. Wally learned a new ability bringing him one step closer to stopping Savitar and saving Iris. We even got to see a bit of Caitlyn taking control of her Killer Frost persona. Clive Yorkin wasn’t that impressive as villain and had weak motivations for his actions, but this is pretty much the standard for The Flash‘s villains-of-the-week so I can’t complain.

The conclusion of the episode was also very satisfying as Jesse Quick returned from Earth-2 to seek out the team in order to help save her father, Harrison Wells, from Gorilla Grodd. The addition of Gorilla Grodd’s Gorilla City was an element I was very excited to see when it was teased in season two. Now we’ll get to see Gorilla City in all its glory next week on The Flash and I couldn’t be more excited. Check out The CW’s official trailer for “Gorilla City” below and feel free to let us know what you thought about “Untouchable” in the comments.