You don’t need to look any farther than Team Flash to see how just how bad matters have gotten. Frankly, the group has been unnecessarily overcrowded for a few seasons now, but recent events have made the team balancing act the worst its ever been. Joe and Harry now seem to regularly take turns vanishing for episodes at a time, despite Barry constantly repeating on how the team needs all hands on deck to deal with DeVoe. Cisco and Caitlin meanwhile are given little to do beyond blurt out technobabble exposition, and the lengths gone to in order to keep them from utilizing their powers have begun to border of the absurd, as clearly shown at the end of this week’s episode when both characters were unable to try and stop DeVoe murdering Izzy and absorbing her powers because… Cisco banged his head against a wall? Which merited Caitlin’s medical attention more than woman being hunted by a serial killer?
Instead, the bulk of the focus was once again on Ralph, a character introduced as Barry’s new protégé after but one episode Wally, a character rooted in THE FLASH mythos who had strong ties to much of the main cast, was ungracefully booted off to another show. Since then we’ve seen him upstage more senior characters in order to play out many a superhero cliché—or more accurately, we’ve seen him play out the exact same superhero cliché many, many times, as he learns almost every week that being selfish is bad and hero stands up for others.
This episode added a slight quirk to the formula by giving him a love interest to play off of, but I’m sure it surprised no one when she was brutally killed in order to give him some brand new angst fuel (and it has to be said that this already sexist women in refrigerators plot line was even more annoying than usual to watch play out because of the gross way Ralph treats women in general). From a story perspective, the whole thing was utterly unnecessary. What did giving Ralph a tragically murdered musician girlfriend add to his character? He already had every reason in the world to have a grudge against DeVoe considering the man is actively trying to kill him and has thrown his friends in jail.
Switching to a spectacle lens only makes the moment more of a dud. A shoehorned Gwen Stacy death could have given Ralph or even Barry a burst of rage that led to an epic fight, but instead they just sort of stand there sadly. I understand not wanting to have DeVoe on an all out offensive with this many episodes still left, but having him stand twenty feet away and wrist-flick the team’s tech is just awkward and unexciting to watch.
Brief though the break may have been, you’d at least hope there’d be some new twist to propel the rest of the story forward when a show makes a return. But besides Harry and Cecile’s beautifully unsuccessful friend date, I don’t think there’s a single thing that keeps the episode from being skippable—from an action, character, and general entertainment standpoint. Even if the season miraculously manages to back a triumphant comeback, at this point it’s hard to imagine the good episodes will outnumber the growing list of bland and forgettable ones.
Written by Kaitlin Roberts, THE FLASH Beat Writer
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