It’s Christmas time in Central City, but does “The Man In The Yellow Suit” bring us any gifts to cherish this year? If you haven’t peeked at the content inside yet and don’t want some spoilers, come back later; otherwise, click on.

Christmas episodes generally fall into three categories: adaptations of A Christmas Carol, adaptations of It’s a Wonderful Life, and those episodes that generally remind us of the importance of the generosity of mankind at a time when families are coming around to celebrate one of the happiest days of the year. The Flash, however, doesn’t bother with any of those: instead, it almost seems to have taken the reverse direction, using the moment of solution to the question of who is the man in the yellow suit to tell all the characters to be careful what they wish for.

Don’t believe me? Let’s look at all the gifts this season….

First, we have Barry’s giving Iris the replica of her late mother’s wedding ring, a ring Iris lost on a school trip to the zoo many years ago. Barry also reveals some of his feelings to her, but she doesn’t reciprocate; in fact, she gives him the most unromantic gift of all: a brand new microscope for work (since we never see Barry doing science at home). Barry gives her the key to his heart, and she gives him the brush off.

Iris’ other gift is the key to Eddie Thawne’s apartment, though when he finds she equates the importance to the ring – and realizes Barry has feelings for her – Eddie is clearly jealous. Iris’ gift to Eddie is the pledge she is his, but what she’s going to get in return is a boyfriend jealous of Barry’s affection and wanting to turn an ally into an enemy.

Speaking of Eddie and enemies, Eddie warns Joe about his need to run his task force when it’s established. We know Joe sides with The Flash because he shares Barry’s secret. If Eddie is going after The Flash and, by extension, those who are helping him, this is about to break up the partnership in a very serious way.

Meanwhile, Caitlin discovers Ronnie is still alive. This should have been the greatest gift of all but she’s repulsed by what he’s become and recoils from him when she first sees it. At the end of the episode, Ronnie tells her to stop looking for him and flies off, clearly breaking whatever emotional bond had been trying to rebuild. For Caitlin, all she gets this year is heartbreak.

Barry beats her in that department when it comes to his father, though. All this time, Barry has been seeking the man in the yellow suit and when he finally gets a chance to catch the villain, he fails. Henry Allen doesn’t want his son to suffer any further, but Barry clearly does: it hurts him deeply that he lost the one chance to prove his father’s innocence.

Which, I have to admit, surprises me. We understand why Detective Joe West wasn’t following up before – he even admits to Barry in this episode that the man in the yellow suit threatened Iris – but now that far more members of the police force have seen him (especially Thawne, who has no personal connection to the original case), wouldn’t it be easier to note that the case needs reopening and that maybe, just maybe, the key witness’ statement that there was a yellow blur much like the one we see now prove Barry’s father is innocent of all charges?

Obviously, the resistance would be that the man in the yellow suit today is not the man in the yellow suit of the past, but that’s explained to the viewer in the very last scene. The man in the yellow suit is Dr. Harrison Wells, Barry’s mentor – and a man already shown to have knowledge of what comes next in the future. Wells, then, is the comics’ Professor Zoom, who runs through time in the “reverse.” (Despite Cisco’s various attempts, we never get the full codename Reverse Flash applied, aptly because they don’t know the full extent of the villain’s powers like before). There have been hints of this throughout the series: Wells heals fast like Flash, he took Barry’s energy, and there’s even the name, H. Wells (because H.G. Wells is the author of The Time Machine, the very first classic about time travel).

One clue didn’t point that way, and that’s the comics: there, Reverse Flash was Eddie, though in New 52 it became Iris’ brother… so it malleable no matter how much the series makes mention of different aspects of the comic past outside the fact that The Flash’s arch enemy is really Reverse Flash.

But the story isn’t complete. For one thing, Wells battles Reverse Flash in the temporary holding cell; for another, Wells is given a past before the explosion that created The Flash, so he’s clearly moving forward, not backward; and then there’s the fact that Wells wants Barry to become The Flash, while Reverse Flash wouldn’t be so supportive (and probably wish he’d be undone). The fact that Reverse Flash gets away, pretty much promising a future rematch, indicates we will get more later…

…Which is a perfect draw for future episodes. Ronnie Raymond’s transformation into Firestorm is another hook to return you to the series when it returns to screens in the new year. However, there’s an issue with “The Man In The Yellow Suit” that needs to be stressed above all else – and that is the fact that the storylines really don’t seem to come together.

Firestorm is the greatest example of this: his one tie in to the conflict between Flash and Reverse Flash is to show up unexpectedly at the end and then fly off once the hero is saved. Every other scene with him establishes his presence in Central City, but not in a way that connects to appearances of Reverse Flash. It’s as if the writers needed some device to help Barry out, figured this would give Caitlin some more story this episode, and threw it in without worrying about how it connects to the rest of the story.

Same goes for the relationship triangle between Barry, Iris and Eddie: neither of Iris’ presents has anything to do with Reverse Flash or what he represents to our hero. If anything, Eddie’s possessiveness of Iris should have come with reference to Flash’s attack last week because it would have indicated Eddie sees the same aspects of his attacker with this threat; instead, it’s a distraction from the real threat, and that distraction has nothing to do with Barry’s inability to win this fight – that comes more from his lack of training than everything else.

Even the bookends, in which Barry and the Wests celebrate Christmas through preparation and gifts, doesn’t really hook into the rest of the story because Reverse Flash could have come at any time the series wanted it to. There is nothing specific to the battle between speedsters that demands it occur now.

All of which points to an episode that is highly disunited. This is highly unusual for such a finely crafted show; The Flash continued to aim for the bar that Arrow set of being able to keep the action revolving around the hero in every which way to make them grow as a character, but this episode doesn’t get as far. It’s either a question of the series jamming together some smaller pieces into an episode before the next sweeps buildup… or a series that’s pushed itself too hard and needs the break to recharge.

Hopefully it’s the former and not the latter.

FINAL VERDICT

A disappointing entry from the series that has done so well up to this point. Until the series gives us a better take on Firestorm (which is promised given that Dr. Martin Stein and Jason Rusch have both been cast) or Reverse Flash (which should be coming), this episode will have to do — and then it can be replaced.

An okay episode at best, nothing more.