The Flash last week essentially reset completely after last season’s emotional finale, leading to this episode feeling more like a season debut, with new storylines building and character arcs teasing out for the rest of the season. Be warned, I will spoil some stuff along the way.
1. That Risky Business scene is shit and we need to stop referencing it
This is a public service announcement to the world at large: Risky Business is not a great movie, and it has aged especially poorly. But more than that, the ‘classic’ scene of Tom Cruise dancing in his skivvies is way worse than you remember. Stop referencing it.
First of all, what teenager in the early 80s was waiting until his parents weren’t home to unleash the primal scream of Bob Fucking Seger? A loser, that’s who. Then, add to that the song: it’s a song saying that new music sucks, and only oldies are good. My reaction to that song is always the same: then stop fucking singing. Let us listen to the oldies, as you are only compounding the problem of new music sucking by making new music. This scene has been parodied well exactly once, by The Simpsons in “Homer the Heretic.” All other references are dumb, this one included. Stop it, society.
Leaving that cardinal sin aside, Barry’s whole attitude in this part of the episode is really bizarre. I know he’s happy to be free of the Speed Force prison, I know he’s happy to be back with Iris and his pals; he says so all the time. The problem is that his actions are diametrically opposed to this. Instead of working with Iris on wedding stuff, he gets it all done himself. Instead of bonding with his teammates, he cancels practice. Barry is acting like someone who wants to be alone, racing through obligations to lead to solitude. There are lots of reasons that he could be acting that way, but the show doesn’t effectively explain it other than “Barry is happy!,” but that excuse just doesn’t carry water.
Cisco: Hey Joe, why is Barry wearing the same clothes for three days, not eating, and crying in the corner of the room?
Joe: I think he’s just happy, Cisco.
Cisco: Sure, that tracks.
2. Stereotype Junction
This show is not exactly subtle with anything, but when they introduce new characters that are defined by one trait, it paints in extraordinarily, comically broad strokes. Rich guy, buying a piece of property: “Is it the most expensive listing? I’ll take it.” Software developer, schlubby with a beard in a hoodie. For a show that has Cisco, a nerd who can still get the girl and be successful and likable, they really lean into the nerd shaming when another techie is introduced. Hell, even Cisco was insulted this week for collecting non-porno magazines. Thanks, Wally – weren’t you stealing cars like 15 minutes ago?
3. Dr. Fingal
I was so distracted by the name of the therapist – Dr. Fingal – that I actually had to rewind part of the episode so I could focus. The name is unusual, and shared with one of the greatest Mystery Science Theater 3000 protagonists, Aram Fingal from Overdrawn at the Memory Bank. I literally said outloud “I didn’t want to bungle or bobble the Fingal dopple!,” to which my dog didn’t react at all. Some fan she is.
But the therapy scenes were a combination of two impulses: the desire to show some bad, misunderstanding comedy that makes the Dude, Where’s My Car? tattoo scene look like “Who’s on First,” and to show why Iris has been chilly towards Barry since his return. The latter is important, and the show did a nice job getting Iris to articulate her feelings. Of course she would be upset that Barry left, but she also needs to understand why, and these scenes showed that quite clearly.
But the dumb comedy stuff? Ditch it. This was a bad week for the show trying to be clever.
4. Babel mode
Cisco building “Babel mode” into Barry’s suit was a really nice reference to “JLA: Tower of Babel,” one of the more iconic Justice League stories of the past 20 years, where Ra’s al Ghul finds Batman’s notes on how to take down all of the Justice League, in case he ever needs to neutralize them. The suit provided some more comedy, with Barry essentially wearing one of those sumo costumes when the suit expanded, but this stuff worked because it was so Silver Age-y and silly. It is also a commentary on how we try to gussy up our superheroes with gadgets, but when you can run faster than the speed of sound, you don’t need much more.
Continued belowSpeaking of the other kind of babel, the Earth-19 lingo of “schmoopy” and 1-1-1 Day was just barely acceptable. Another inch in that direction, and it would’ve been unbearable. But it is nice to see Cisco getting the girl and being more than just the tech geek in the background.
5. 11 new metas on Thinker’s screen, 11 new metas to hunt
When The Flash started, it was very much of ‘monster of the week’ type show, with various folks affected by the particle accelerator explosion on the night that Barry got his powers. As the show has moved on to introduce alternate universes, time travel, and more, it has somewhat gotten away from that. But this week brought back that idea, but expanded it: some metas were created without the dark matter experience from the explosion. The Thinker – not Metron, as I had hoped – shows a screen of 12 metas, with only Kilg%re’s square, Brady Bunch style, being filled.
I’m glad that the show isn’t doing yet another speedster, so I’m interested to see what metas they’re going to bust out in the coming weeks.
