This episode was supposed to show us Ralph beginning his journey as a superhero, but it managed to go all 40-something minutes without ever giving us a reason to get invested in him. In theory, he should fulfilling a similar role to Wally as a new meta and Barry’s protege, but his character doesn’t have even a fraction of charm, humor, or compassion that made Wally so beloved. There’s absolutely nothing compelling the audience to agree with Barry when he insists Ralph has a good heart deep down; most of the time it seems like Barry’s just trying to fit a square into round hole, and it’s hard to know what it is he sees in the guy. Ralph isn’t particularly smart or kind, and the less said about the way he treats women the better.
His comments would be insufferable at any time, but the spectacularly terrible timing of trying to present a man who addresses his female coworkers by their bust measurements and make creepy comments about college girls as a heroic figure in our the current climate can’t be overstated. Even our leading man Barry repeatedly encourages the women Ralph harasses to ignore his comments instead of actually saying anything to make Ralph stop or addressing his behavior head on. (The fact that the CW, including The Flash, is currently embroiled in a behind-the- scenes sexual harassment scandal of its own only makes this attitude feel even more tone deaf.)
Highlighting the absurdity of the storyline was the fact that, for once, the meta of the week had a quite a compelling motivation for committing her crimes and popped onscreen far more than Ralph did. An Indigenous woman trying to reclaim the artifacts stolen from her people locked up by robbing museums and wealthy collectors is a far more interesting character concept than another sleazeball white dude antihero. The fact that Barry treats her as an open and shut bad guy, despite her deeper reasons for what she does, while continuing to make excuses for someone as pig-headed and selfish as Ralph just showed how ridiculous the special treatment he continues to receive is.
Cisco’s so-called “Council of the Wells” was one of the episode’s only bright spots, and even that gag probably went on for a little too long. Seeing Tom Cavanagh continue to find new ways to be as outlandish and over-the- top as he knows how to be will never fail to get a smile from me, but since all the different Harrys were just stock character types like a sinister cyborg or Hugh Hefner, the jokes did start to wear pretty thin after a while. The meeting of the minds was fun, but we didn’t really learn anything about our leading Harry as a character and no progress was made on the Devoe front until the very end.
On that note, it is exciting to see the team finally get a little bit ahead of the game and actually meet their villain head on this early in the season. I’m not sure why exactly Barry seems to by thrown by the Thinker appearing to be a normal guy when they meet—hasn’t almost every big bad he’s ever faced masqueraded as someone else before unveiling their evil scheme?—but at least it looks like Barry will have the chance to develop a rapport with this villain, which is a rare treat. It’s honestly refreshing to dive straight into our supervillain’s masterplan without dangling a million pointless cliffhangers in front of us first; let’s just hope this change of pace is one that is one that takes in an exciting new direction, not a depressing and insensitive one we’ll be groaning about for weeks.
Written by Kaitlin Roberts, THE FLASH Beat Writer
Related Posts:
THE FLASH Season 4 Episode 5 Review: Girls Night OutTHE FLASH Season 4 Episode 4 Review: Elongated Into the Night
THE FLASH Season 4 Episode 3 Review: Moves and Counter-Moves
Comments
Post a Comment