‘The Flash’ Season 6 Episode 19 Recap and Review: “Success is Assured” Finale

By
Kevin Finnerty
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The Flash Season 6 Episode 19
Tom Cavanagh as Nash Wells, Hartley Sawyer as Elongated Man, Kayla Compton as Allegra and Natalie Dreyfuss as Sue in ‘The Flash’ season 6 episode 19 (Photo: Colin Bentley © 2020 The CW Network, LLC)

The CW’s The Flash ended its sixth season early with episode 19 which saw Team Flash finally go up against Mirror Master Eva and revealed the exit (at least temporarily) of two members of Team Flash.

Season six episode 19, “Success is Assured,” begins with Eva (Efrat Dor) and Mirror Singh (Patrick Sabongui) planning to get rid of her husband. Eva’s now showing off a new outfit that looks very comic bookish.

Over at Caitlin’s apartment, Cecile (Danielle Nicolet), Allegra (Kayla Compton), and Nash (Tom Cavanagh) are helping Frost (Danielle Panabaker) pack for her trip north with her mother to find a cure for her serious wound. Allegra and Nash both tell Frost they’ll miss her and she admits to still being a little nervous to be meeting with Caitlin’s mother, Carla (Susan Walters).

And speaking of Carla, she arrives and after learning Killer Frost is just Frost now, she says she wants to run a few tests before they go.

At Barry’s CCPD CSI lab, Barry (Grant Gustin) tells Ralph (Hartley Sawyer), Cecile and Allegra he thinks if they can find one of the locations of the Black Hole hit squad, it will lead them to Eva. Ralph shows them the diamond Sue (Natalie Dreyfuss) gave him and Allegra uses her powers to reveal a map to one of Black Hole’s warehouses. Barry says he and Ralph will check it out, leaving Allegra and Nash back at S.T.A.R. Labs.

At the warehouse The Flash and Elongated Man find five security guards murdered and Mirror Singh spreading gasoline all over, ready to set the entire place on fire. The Flash tries to talk him out of it, attempting to connect with any part of him that might be connected to the real Singh. It doesn’t work. The Flash speeds Elongated Man and himself out (with one of Ralph’s feet catching fire).

Barry informs the team back at base they now need to protect Carver.

The next day Barry meets Carver (Eric Nenninger) at Jitters and warns him that his wife is gunning for him and that he can protect him. Carver shows Barry a video of Iris (Candice Patton) being sucked into the mirror dimension and tells him the human mind cannot survive in there, insisting both Eva and Iris are dead; what remains is not them. He walks off, assuring Barry he can handle his own protection.

In the mirror dimension, Iris’ mind is starting to acclimate to this prison and she begins to be able to read what’s on the computer screens and maps, although she still suffers extreme headaches while doing it. Kamilla (Victoria Park) warns her to stop, believing it’s too dangerous. But Iris continues, sure she can find the location of the real Singh.

Meanwhile, Ralph meets with Sue’s parents to deliver good news. When the warehouse went up, the records Carver was using to blackmail them were destroyed. But before he can say it, Sue appears and acts as though they’ve never met before. She thanks him for searching for her and tells a quick fake story about being at a retreat. As her parents try to pay Ralph, he excuses himself and asks for Sue to help search for a pen to sign the check.

Once alone in the hallway, Ralph fills Sue in about the records being destroyed. She explains Carver had a change of heart and called off the blackmail. Sue also tells Ralph to leave her and her family alone.

Using her mirror meta abilities, Eva kidnaps Black Hole assassins Sunshine (Natalie Sharp), Dr. Light (Malese Jow), and Ultraviolet (Alexa Barajas). When Carver enters the apartment where they were staying and discovers them missing – and sees there’s a hole in a mirror – he realizes he’s in real danger.

Back at Caitlin’s apartment, Frost and Carla have a heart-to-heart and Frost admits feeling like a third wheel and being seen as some kind of monster by Caitlin’s mom. Carla assures her she’s not a monster and has protected Caitlin more than she ever did. Carla fears she has made many mistakes in her life, but Frost says she’s a brilliant scientist and an awesome human being.

Carver finds Barry and asks him to get him into witness protection.

Back at the CCPD, Barry and Carver are waiting for the FBI to show up when Mirror Singh walks out of the elevator and tells Carver he will personally escort him. Singh says he needs a minute to talk to Barry and pulls Barry aside.

Mirror Singh offers Barry a deal: if he lets him have Carver, Eva will let Iris out of the mirror dimension. Singh goes on about how Barry’s protecting the wrong man and that Eva’s not his enemy. Nash, who is a few feet away, overhears the conversation and can see Barry hesitating and considering the deal. Nash uses a smoke bomb as a distraction and teleports Barry, Carver, Allegra, Ralph, and himself to S.T.A.R. Labs.

Almost immediately Carver wants to buy the tech Nash just used and Ralph tells him to shut up. Team Flash shows Carver footage of the mirror duplicates and informs him Singh is one. Carver says the safest place is in his panic room at McCulloch Tech and that he can bring down a whole force field around the building.

As Team Flash escorts him there, Nash pulls Barry aside and confesses he knows Barry was considering Mirror Singh’s deal. He says he saw Harry Wells who told him the Barry he knew would never accept that deal. Barry tells Nash he has to get Iris back, but Nash counters asking how she would feel if Barry traded a person’s life for her.

At McCulloch Tech, Ralph, Nash, and Allegra evacuate the building with the help of a few security guards while Barry escorts Carver to his panic room. Ralph sees Sue in the crowd of people and walks over to talk to her. It’s then he notices she’s wearing a Black Hole pin. He realizes she joined the Black Hole to actually get close enough to kill Carver. Ralph tries to talk her out of it, reminding her she’s a good person and he believes in her. (This was very reminiscent of season three when Barry tried to stop Caitlin from becoming Killer Frost, only not as powerful).

Sue knocks Ralph out with knock-out gas and gets on an elevator to find Carver.

Once everyone except Team Flash and the security guards are out of the building, Carver activates the force field around the building. It’s only on for a few seconds before it fails. Sunshine, Ultraviolet, and Dr. Light show up – now working for Eva – and take on Team Flash and the security guards.

The Flash Season 6 Episode 19
Efrat Dor as Mirror Mistress in ‘The Flash’ season 6 episode 19 (Photo: Dean Buscher © 2020 The CW Network, LLC)

Barry leaves Carver to go check on the force field and is met by Mirror Singh. Again Barry tries to talk him down saying he can resist her, but Singh only smiles and shatters. He’s replaced by Eva, wearing her snazzy new mirror battle armor suit. She blasts Barry with a ray and walks off in search of Carver.

In the building’s main lobby, the fight is now on. It’s shot and shown in multiple split-screens to cover all the action. (That actually was more distracting and chaotic than helpful.) Allegra’s saved from Ultraviolet by Nash. Sue returns to back up Ralph as the security guards are being taken down quickly by Sunshine.

In the panic room Eva uses the monitor screen Carver is watching the fighting on to enter and face him. He tells her he only did what he had to and that she isn’t his wife. She responds that she’s doing what she needs to and shatters the screen. She uses her powers to control the glass shards and sends them flying at Carver.

The Flash speeds in and gets in front of Carver, taking the hit instead. (WHAT! This is an incredibly dumb move when he could have just sped Carver out of the room.) Still standing but with the shards sticking in him, Barry’s efforts turn out to be in vain because Eva forces one of the shards through him and right into Carver’s heart. As Carver dies his last words are that Eva is not his wife, that his wife is dead.

The Flash is lying on the floor wounded when Eva uses her powers and pulls out the shards. She tells Sunshine, Dr. Light, and Ultraviolet to stand down; Carver is dead. Eva then offers The Flash a truce saying he and his friends are not her enemy. He refuses, warning he’ll find a way to stop her. She sighs and says he and his friends are trespassing on her property. She demands they leave before she calls the police.

The next day Eva holds a press conference, claiming she was being held prisoner by an international crime syndicate and that it was her husband who died rescuing her. She will now take over the role of CEO of McCulloch Tech.

Ralph finds Sue getting ready to go back home to her parents’ house. He tells her she can’t and shows her that Eva has framed her for Carver’s murder.

That night Barry visits Caitlin and explains what happened. She knows he’ll find a way to stop Eva and bring Iris home. Barry confesses how helpless and overwhelmed he feels losing his speed and Iris. Caitlin replies, “Maybe instead of focusing on what you’ve lost, you should try remembering what you’ll never lose. The reason you beat Zoom, Godspeed, Thawne is because speed isn’t what drives you…it’s love. That’s your true force and there is nothing artificial about that. So as long as you stay true to yourself, you will always find a way to beat the bad guys…and gals.”

Barry half-smiles and tells Caitlin he’s going to miss her. They hug. Carla comes in and promises she’ll have both Caitlin and Frost back to him and the team as soon as possible. Barry asks if Frost can hear him and Frost tells Caitlin she can. Barry tells both of them to get better and hurry back because they have a white water rafting trip to take. Caitlin says Frost can’t wait and starts to leave. She stops at the door and turns, asking Barry to tell the team she already misses them. He says he will and she turns and walks out the door in slow-motion with a look of real worry on her face. Barry stands in her apartment with a look of loss and concern on his.

Over at Barry’s CSI office, Nash and Allegra are getting on better since he saved her from Ultraviolet. Barry shows up to talk about saving Iris and Kamilla from the mirror dimension. Cecile arrives with Joe (Jesse L. Martin) and after everyone hugs him and welcomes him back, Joe declares, “Let’s go save some people we love!”

In the mirror dimension, Iris has been staring at the monitors and finally sees what could be the location of the real Singh in the mirror dimension at the CC Hospital. Iris then begins to see Kamilla in multiple glass realities. Iris screams in pain, bends over, and then glows like a crystal before vanishing into the air.

The episode ends with “To Be Continued.”

The Flash Season 6 Episode 19 Review:

Jam-packed with action, drama, and a few surprises, episode 19 sees the villain – Mirror Master Eva – defeat what was left of Team Flash, with Frost, Cisco, and Joe all missing from the big fight. It also ended with the disappearance or full acclamation of Iris into the mirror dimension. As a season finale, it’s weaker than most but that’s because this was not the planned ending for the season. It’s just the last episode completed before The Flash had to shut down production due to Covid-19.

Still, it’s a solid episode with strong performances by Grant Gustin, Danielle Panabaker, Tom Cavanagh, and Efrat Dor who really shined as she finally rose up as the new Mirror Master and completed her mission to escape the dimension and kill her husband.

GRADE: B

Review of The Flash Season 6:

Season six was different than the other seasons of the series because for the first time the showrunner and writers split the season in two parts, having two main villains instead of one. Episodes 1-8 focused on Bloodwork, played wonderfully by Sendhil Ramamurthy. Episodes 10-19 focused at first on Carver but eventually revealed Eva to be the main villain.

Part one of season six is the stronger of the two for many reasons. The main difference is the dynamic performance of Ramamurthy as an old friend of Caitlin’s whose fear of death turns him into a mad scientist and a monster for Team Flash to stop. The episodes had almost a horror movie feel to them. The first half also benefitted from the “Crisis” story arc which gave a secondary, emotional storyline for the cast to deal with in facing the foretold death of Barry Allen.

Part two was a bit slower and at times sluggish, with the feel of a crime mystery involving finding out who was behind the Black Hole organization and revealing him. However as it continued and Iris spent most of the story stuck in the mirror dimension and Eva was revealed as the new Mirror Master, the action and suspense seemed to dissipate.

SEASON 6 – PART 1 GRADE: A-
SEASON 6 – PART 2 GRADE: B-
OVERALL GRADE: B




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