As with most episodes, there's a central theme that usually runs through most of the characters to give the episode a more fluid feel. With 'Fast Lane', it was quite clearly the theme of redemption. Whether it was Joe redeeming himself as a father to Wally, Wally redeeming himself as a brother and son to Iris and Joe, or Harry's decision to admit he was stealing Barry's powers, tonight was a very cohesive experience in terms of redemption.
I love that most of the titles of Flash have the speed puns in them and of course, Fast Lane is yet another. This time it was hinting more at Wally's life as an underground drag racer than it was about Barry. Like most fans, I've been pretty indifferent to Wally so far in the few episodes we've got of him and while tonight was more of the same bi-polar like personality, I think it was a step in the right direction. The drag racing came to head this week as Iris decided to take it upon herself and investigate his whereabouts and ended up running into a pickle of her own. This side arc had my reminded of most of her story-lines last season where she had the tendency to muck everything up, but It was handled with much more care than I thought. It's also worth noting that Wally described his passions at being "all about speed". Pretty subtle huh Wally?
The villain of the week was Tar Pit, another man who was effected by the Star Labs explosion a few years back, was on a path of revenge against the men who wronged him before. I'm not so sure we needed to see his origin story with the explosion as I think we've seen it a near 20 times at this point. With that said, it was yet another underdeveloped and particularly silly villain, even if the special effects were pretty solid for Tar Pit all night.
Tonight's episode gave plenty of chances for both father figures in Barry's life right now to show their talents as Tom Cavanagh and Jesse L. Martin were fantastic as Harry and Joe respectively. Sure, it's easy to remember the last punch Joe had on Harry as the highlight of the episode, but there's plenty more to praise them for. I've loved watching Harry go behind Team Flash's backs and his unfortunate motivations, but I love the decision to have him admit his faults to the team even more. Finally, we will get all of them working together without any secrets (fingers crossed). I believe that will be the first time in either season that would be the case. Plus, traveling to earth 2? Yeah, I'm in.
+Cavanagh and Joe shine
+West side arc is improving
+Harry's confession
+Iris didn't mess things up this time
+Earth 2 forthcoming
-Tar Pit was dumb
8.5/10
