REVIEW: The Flash – Season 9, Episode 8, “Partners in Time”

Television Reviews

“Partners in Time” is yet another filler episode, but at least it’s a decent one that’s grounded in character. It also revolves around Barry and Iris for a change, which is good because I’ve grown sick of the supporting cast and their boring nonsense. They’re here, of course; God forbid we go a week without catching up with Chester and Allegra acting like pre-teens who hold hands or Khione being obnoxious. But this is better than The Flash has been pretty much all season – which is sad because it’s not great.

As Iris adjusts to her pregnancy and Barry prepares to be a dad, a team of government inspectors shows up at STAR Labs to evaluate the facility. In other words, it’s the perfect moment for a time anomaly that traps them all in The Speed Room. Khione meets with someone from Caitlin’s past. Allegra and Chester sit on a couch and talk; chaos ensues.  

“Partners in Time” opens in the future, with a break-in at The Flash Museum. A cloaked intruder is looking for some wacky sci-fi doohickey, but sets off the alarm and makes a hasty escape through time – to the date this episode aired! After the opening credits, the scene shifts to Barry and Iris’ apartment, where Barry has built and painted a crib for the baby and stocked the freezer with cookie dough ice cream, Nora’s favorite. (She has good taste.) This is a good comparison: Barry being too focused on the future (as Iris points out, Nora is going to be a baby, so she won’t be eating ice cream anytime soon) and a thief stealing from the future. Barry is robbing himself of getting to know Nora naturally as the thief is robbing the museum of an artifact. And both are stopped, Barry by Iris reasoning with him and the thief by a laser tripwire. Then, the inspectors show up.

***SPOILERS***

The inspectors run the gamut of government employees; there’s the bored one who just wants to get the day over with and punch out, the over-eager young one who wants to be everybody’s friend, the all-business one who doesn’t seem to know much about her field, and the one who seems better at what she does than the rest. They’re not all that much fun, but they do get Barry and Iris to work as a team to try to push them out the door as fast as possible. That’s good; Barry and Iris have had almost nothing to do with the last few episodes, and The Flash has suffered greatly in their absence. After so many years on the air and the characters going through so much together, they don’t even have to do much anymore; we can almost feel what they’re thinking when they’re together. And “Partners in Time” doesn’t go the lazy route of generating some annoying fight between them; they act like a married couple tackling a problem together.

That problem spins out of control when they convince the inspectors to leave The Speed Room (before they have to think of a reason for its existence other than “Barry is The Flash”), only to take them across the building and walk… into The Speed Room. Time is being wacky again, and the group can’t escape The Speed Room. There’s also a mysterious cuckoo clock that suddenly appears in the corner. Barry travels to the future to see if he can find a solution, but he’s deposited back to the present almost as soon as he leaves, and everyone is suddenly dressed in strange outfits. “Partners in Time” reminds me of one of those weird Star Trek episodes where a bunch of crazy stuff would happen on the ship, and Kirk had to figure out what was going on while crewmen were disappearing or turning into mint juleps or whatever. Here, they turn into statues; the bored inspector suddenly vanishes, and a pewter bust is left in his place.

“Partners in Time” then shifts into a locked room mystery because the sole competent inspector figures out that one of them is causing the anomaly – in other words, one of them is the time thief who’s infiltrated the group. Nobody on the team knows each other, so the imposter could be anyone; this is funny because it’s a commentary on how interchangeable these people normally are. And they know for sure it’s not Barry and Iris, because they decide to tell the inspectors that Barry is The Flash. This seems a little hasty to me, but I guess it’s life or death, and they can’t waste time having the bureaucrats (as Iris calls them because she’s awesome) suspecting them. It also leads to the only line that made me laugh out loud: the doofy mold inspector referring to Iris as “Mrs. Flash.” Once the time thief is revealed – it’s the electrician, and she goes by Lady Chronos, if it matters – Barry and Iris have to get her back to the future (tee hee) before she kills Iris with a glowy sci-fi staff, which is what’s causing the time anomaly.

All of that is fine; it’s nothing special, but it’s not terrible either, and certainly not as bad as the last few standalone episodes – or that awful Red Death arc. Barry and Iris both learn to appreciate the present in their own way; Barry is thinking ahead while Iris is feeling the burdens pregnancy brings, but they’ve got each other, and… yeah, you know the drill. I’m glad they’re the focus of the show again, though; the supporting cast has been gutted of its good characters, so now we’re left with Chester, Allegra, Cecile, and Khione. (Blaine sits out this episode, thankfully.) Chester tells Allegra he loves her, she freaks out because people she loves have died before, Cecile gives her sage advice, she tells Chester she loves him too, and these people are so boring you look forward to commercials when they’re in a scene. They also decide to have sex (not in so many words, of course); no points for guessing if Chester is flustered instead of being cool for two whole seconds. Khione meets with Caitlin’s mom, but it happens off-screen because sometimes this show is merciful. It ends with her going to dinner with Barry and Iris, who still don’t seem to care that their best friend is dead. I believe “Partners in Time” is the last filler episode, and a certain hooded fellow who doesn’t care for people who fail their city is on his way for the final arc; I hope that one turns out better than the first one did. But it’s nice that the filler section didn’t end on a bad note, if a mediocre one.