Earth X! Brain drains! Angry villains! Let’s dig in.
1. Barry’s guilt
A lot of this episode dealt with Barry dealing with, and not dealing with, his guilt and grief over Ralph’s death. A good amount of this stuff tracks with Barry’s character, but there were a few moments that felt a little forced or tacked on here. Barry’s lost a lot over the life of the show, and he never really broke down the way he did over Ralph. His grief never rendered him ineffective before, and here it almost led to not only trouble for himself, but for his team as well.
I would understand it more if Barry spoke of the cumulative effect of the losses piling up, but this seemed to be 100% Ralph-based. And yes, he’s never had to fight literally the body of a friend possessed by a madman before, but Barry is made of tougher stuff than this. By the end of the episode, when he was dealing with things more, he showed that characteristic strength.
Side note: that therapist must be so fucking confounded at Barry and Iris’s life.
2. Citizen Cold
Earth X was once again raided of its greatest hero, with Citizen Cold, aka Leo Snart, hopping back over for a visit. Snart is such a fun character because he’s so over the top, but I couldn’t help but be a little distracted by him in this episode. At one point, he’s trying to tell Barry what a good guy he is, but it just drips with insincerity because of the way Wentworth Miller delivers the lines. It all sounds so sarcastic. “You know Barry, you are such a good guy.” Stuff like that just doesn’t work from him. I hope if Miller returns as Citizen Cold, he can tone down his performance a bit.
3. Thinking cap? More like thinking crap, amirite?
I thought Harry’s struggles this week were quite relatable. He’s right, his intellect is his super power. If he loses that, it’s easy to see why he might feel he’s lost everything. But Cisco’s response also was true; the best scientists in the world work on Team Flash, they can help him.
I also want to shout out Tom Cavanaugh playing yet another iteration of Wells, this time ‘pretending he knows science stuff’ Wells. I’m losing track of how many varieties he’s played at this point.
4. Siren X
I wonder if Katie Cassidy still has her ‘across all the CW shows’ deal, because this seems like a pretty lame use of another Laurel. I mean, sure, it was fine, but it could’ve been literally any villain from Earth X and it would’ve been the same. Alt-Laurels only work when the folks facing her have longstanding histories with her, and Team Flash doesn’t really have that.
That said, Cassidy is always good in these evil roles, and that continued here.
5. DeVoe is such a dick
There is very, very little about DeVoe at this point that is the slightest bit understandable and/or relatable. With so many of these villains, we can understand their motivations, even if we disagree with them. I get none of that here. Dude is mean to his wife when she gets dolled up for him – that shit doesn’t happen all the time, bro. Take advantage of a nice gesture while it’s in front of you!
But not only that, the show still hasn’t adequately explain DeVoe’s whole deal. Say what you want about Savitar or Zoom, we knew why they were doing what they were doing. Someone give me a brief synopsis of DeVoe’s motivations that don’t use the words “wants more intelligence/power.” You can’t, there’s nothing there.
This season has been shaky for a few reasons, but DeVoe is first on the list.
