Likewise, the return of Harry and by extension his snark-filled best frenemies dynamic with Cisco—probably the show’s greatest source of comedy during Season Two—fits perfectly into the new status quo. The jokes seem to write themselves whenever the two interact, largely due to the excellent chemistry between Tom Cavanagh and Carlos Valdes. The fact that HR and his odd friendship with Cisco never really took off like the previous Cavanagh characters only made the return to form that much sweeter.
Unfortunately, as the Thinker would put it, for every move there’s a counter-move. After being relegated to a goofy sidekick role, Wally was once again made the butt of many jokes after getting humiliatingly dumped by his girlfriend’s dad in front of all their friends. Ouch. Hard to remember he was treated as something of a bad boy when he first appeared. The writers seem to be aware on at least some level that Wally has gotten the short end of the stick lately, given his to leave a team where he doesn’t feel needed. But even this departure felt off.
It’s true that Wally hasn’t had much to do these past few episodes (or in the last third of Season Three for that matter), but having him just up and leave so suddenly and without discussing with anyone is just plain weird. Wouldn’t it have made more sense to show Wally and Barry butting heads over sharing the speedster mantle and have Wally come to the decision over several episodes that he needs to be his own man? The show spent plenty of time in last week’s episode showing Iris re-adjusting to having Barry back, it seems like it would have a natural fit to show her younger brother going through something similar. Just having a previously upbeat and cheerful Wally decide to uproot his whole life at the end of an episode he had less than five minutes of screen time in seems like a pretty unceremonious way to dump a beloved character.
The producers and cast are being a little bit coy about Wally’s status on the show going forward, but I suspect he’ll be back at some point, if only because of the hint his departure is somehow connected to the Thinker’s master plan. Perhaps it’s something we’ll see after the Christmas break. One hopes that by that point they’ll have come up with some slightly more creative material for an iconic hero.
Moving on to the episode’s surprise ending reveal of Cecile’ pregnancy—I’m not buying it. Call me a cynic, but I’ve seen way too many false positive TV plot lines to accept a confession like this at face value, especially on a show where bad guys mess with the heroes’ bodies on an alarmingly frequent basis. It’s not that I don’t think the story couldn’t work if they went about it the right way (although there’s no getting around the fact that it would be weird to give Iris a sibling almost thirty years younger than her), but I can’t help but feel like it’s a waste of time to even bother pondering the potential ramifications until we see something more concrete on the subject. If nothing else, Cecile has shown she’s way more surprising than even the Thinker could hope to be!
Written by Kaitlin Roberts, THE FLASH Beat Writer
Related Posts:
THE FLASH Season 4 Episode 2: Love in a Time of Meta-HumansTHE FLASH Season 4 Premiere Review: Evolve or Die
Comments
Post a Comment