After a month or so of not having to look at beautiful people drink coffee at CC Jitters, The Flash is back! Let’s dig into “The Trial of the Flash,” a story that shares a title, and little else, with a classic comics storyline.
1. Barry’s secret identity remains secret
Although they tease a different outcome throughout the episode, the central idea of this episode is that Barry values his secret identity, and how it protects his friends and family, more than anything. While he is slightly better than Oliver Queen about letting the cat out of the bag with his secret identity, Barry isn’t exactly a lock box when it comes to sharing his secret. Every villain figures it out in about 20 seconds, and he has enough allies/team members that everyone in Central City knows someone who knows who the Flash is.
But Barry’s point stands – if people know who he is, his family will never be safe. But there is a middle ground between that and allowing yourself to be locked up for lief in prison. Sure, he believes his innocence will be proven, but he has no way of knowing that. And we, the audience, know he’ll be out sooner than later, but from a storytelling perspective, it seems really lazy. Barry is willing to break all sorts of laws all the time, but not when it could save literally thousands of lives. How is Central City better with the Flash behind bars? Especially with Wally gone and Jesse back on Earth-Two, the city needs a hero, and Cisco just ain’t cutting it yet.
There are any number of ways that this could end. Barry can vibrate through the walls and escape, and then just live as the Flash for a bit. It seems like serving a life sentence for a crime he didn’t commit is about the worst use of his powers, no?
Also, the last 3 minute went all on on The Shawshank Redemption iconography. I was expecting Barry’s cellmate to tell him to get busy living, or to hear Morgan Freeman’s dulcet tones say “Next time on The Flash.”
2. Fallout
While I think that Fallout may have been the best of the monsters of the week thus far this season (a low bar, I admit), the show really doesn’t need to do both that and tell the overarching story every single week. The only reason Fallout existed in this episode was to give Barry a reason to leave his own trial, and that was a weird choice as well. The show couldn’t decide if the trial was the biggest deal of all time or a minor inconvenience.
3. Mrs. West-Allen
Did anyone else find it incredibly distracting that everyone kept referring to Iris as “Mrs. West-Allen?” I know that is her last name, but we’ve never heard her referred to in that way before, and then all of a sudden she’s called that a minimum of 5 times tonight. I get why the judge would do it, but DeVoe’s wife? I think they are essentially on a first name basis, no?
4. Shotty defense
Why did Cecille think that showing DeVoe’s wife boning down with another man would be proof of her murdering him? Sure, it casts a little suspicion as to her teary testimony, but there’s a far line between shagging a piece and murdering an old one.
She really needed to mount a better defense than “Barry’s a good dude!,” but that’s all she did. To be fair, I don’t know what she could have done really, but even going the full Lionel Hutz works now and then; I don’t know if “He didn’t do it, he’s a cop!” really works.
Oh wait – Barry is white. He’d have gotten off for just being a cop in the real world.
5. Heavy handed juxtaposition
I know the end of the episode was supposed to highlight the difference between what a hero the Flash is, with what a supposed heel Barry Allen is. It is, essentially, the concluding scene from The Dark Knight. It wasn’t exactly subtle, but it made its point. Let’s see how long this status quo lasts.
