Reviewed by Louis Rabinowitz.

The Reverse Flash – murderer of Barry’s mother and the Flash’s archenemy, the yellow speedster has caused an awful lot of trouble for Barry in the comics. We’ve only seen snatches of the Reverse Flash on The Flash so far however, with the villain opting to stick to the shadows for the time being – and despite a couple of obvious candidates emerging (hi, Eddie and Harrison!), nothing has been revealed about the Reverse Flash’s true identity…

The villain of this week’s mid-season finale (and presumably at least the first season), The Man in the Yellow Suit, was of course the aforementioned Reverse Flash, an evil speedster with powers surpassing Barry’s. Thankfully, given the heavy teases and build-up, Reverse Flash’s first proper appearance was a thorough success – the character’s creepy vibrating and modulated voice lending the character a genuinely imposing air. The character’s powers were are also displayed rather well – after a walkover bad guy last week, it was exciting to see a properly formidable bad guy with powers that allowed him to (quite literally) run rings around Barry. There’ll come a time when the Reverse Flash is taken down – but for now, The Flash did an excellent job of painting Barry’s archenemy as a credible, powerful and imposing recurring enemy. He’ll likely be keeping his head down for a while, but the next appearance of Reverse Flash can’t come soon enough for this reader…

The metahuman fun didn’t stop at Reverse Flash, however, as we were treated to the first proper appearance of Firestorm aka Ronnie Raymond. The subplot centering on Caitlin and Cisco’s quest to find Ronnie couldn’t help but feel a little out of place in the episode – but taken as a separate entity from the rest of the episode, the subplot allowed Danielle Panabaker to display her acting talents a little more in a couple of affecting and emotional scenes, as Caitlin discovered that she should have been careful what she wished for. We didn’t see an awful lot of Firestorm’s powers (nor the ‘dual personality’ element of the character) this episode – but what we see displayed some strong effects and one terrific, surprising hero moment for the character (which we’ll get to later). Judging from this strong introduction to the character, it’s going to be very exciting to indeed to see more of Ronnie Raymond.

On the more human side, we had a surprisingly early revelation from Barry, as he declared his feelings towards Iris, in a scene that was acted superbly by Grant Gustin (who had a great episode overall). It’s a fairly bold move for the show to ditch the tried and tested (and therefore a little bit dull) ‘secret love’ element – but the confession allow the show to head into slightly more original and complicated territory for the Barry/Iris relationship. Eddie’s proposal to Iris… of her moving in (a neat proposal fake-out that fooled this reviewer) wasn’t a particularly earth-shaking development, but considering events this episode, it’s a satisfying twist that complicates the Barry/Iris relationship nicely without feeling overly rushed, as a proposal might have. Barry’s relationship with Iris has been a real sticking point for The Flash this year, but it’s encouraging to see the show go for some slightly more interesting and bold moves with pair’s relationship,

Barry also had a couple of short but sweet scenes with his father figures that fit the slightly more emotional mood this episode – one with Joe, and one with his real father. Henry Allen hasn’t been around much on the show lately, so it’s good to see John Wesley Shipp back as Barry’s dad – and in time to give a subtle but strong performance in the scene with Barry in jail as he told Barry to get on with his life. Likewise, Joe’s scene with Barry at the end of the episode gave the West’s relationship with Barry a little more development – the complicated foster relationship between Joe, Iris and Barry hasn’t been explored a great deal as of yet, but it’s a testament to the writing and acting this episode that Joe and Barry’s father/son relationship felt a great deal more fleshed out and real after just one small scene. The Flash, refreshingly, has done a mostly great job with its characters this year – despite a crop of underdeveloped foes and a slight lack of screen-time early in the series for some characters, the show has proved that it can ably balance emotional character work with the more bombastic superhero action. In particular, the character scenes in The Man in the Yellow Suit effectively and emotionally display the characters’ reactions to the slightly crazy events going on without seeming stilted or unnatural – and considering the show is still only nine episodes old, that’s an impressive feat.

Of course, however, there was plenty of superhero action to offset all the character scenes, as Barry took on the Reverse Flash in a couple of high-speed fight scenes. The fights were short enough to whet the viewers’ appetite for bigger battles to come later – but long and well executed enough to be genuinely thrilling (seeing the two speedsters sprint at each other was a perfectly comic book-esque visual). Surprisingly for a fairly family-friendly show, the violence felt a little more visceral this week, as Dr Wells received a vicious beating from Reverse Flash in a surprisingly shocking scene that seemingly removed the doctor from the suspect ring. The slightly more violent action felt appropriate, however – Reverse Flash is clearly a dangerous psycho, and there’s a brutality to the character that should help make him a formidable foe for Barry this season. We even had a brief hero moment from Firestorm as Ronnie showed up in the nick of time to scare off Reverse Flash – and while there’s a legitimate complaint to be made that Firestorm’s arrival was a little too convenient, it was (to go a little bit Cisco) just far too cool to see Firestorm in all his glory (flying!) to let the character’s sudden arrival feel like a particularly large blemish on the episode.

We concluded on two major plot developments – first of all, there were two speedsters the night of Nora Allen’s murder. Fans of the comics might not find this revelation that surprising – but it’s a twist that neatly deepens the mystery behind Nora Allen’s murder; and if that second speedster really was Barry as hinted, then there’s only one (very exciting) explanation: time travel! And then, after the hints at time travel… there was the stinger. Harrison Wells has always been the number one candidate for Reverse Flash (with some future knowledge and penchant for murder and manipulation) since the pilot – but after his beating at the hands of Reverse Flash, it couldn’t be Wells… could it? What we’re left on for 2014 is this – Wells possesses a Reverse Flash suit, has a ring with a familiar insignia, has a tachyon device capable of charging up the suit, can heal his wounds rapidly and can speak in Reverse Flash’s creepy vibrated voice. It’s an extremely well crafted, head-spinningly confusing reveal that throws up more questions than answers – is Wells Reverse Flash? Is he just a helper for the true villain? Are there two of them? Will my head stop hurting? All of those questions – and more – have to wait until the show (and Captain Cold!) returns in early 2015 with Revenge of the Rogues…

Verdict: 9.5/10

The Flash concludes 2014 with a terrific, emotional and tense mid-season finale packed full of answers, tantalizing hints and even more questions. February can’t come soon enough…

Scene of the Episode: Merry Christmas – The stinger that changed it all, as Harrison, fresh from a violent encounter with Reverse Flash, seemingly reveals that he is Reverse Flash. Yes, I’m confused too.