THE FLASH Season 4 Episode 19 Review: Fury Rogue

Although Ralph Dibney has been a polarizing figure even at the best of times, his prominence over the past season made it inevitable the show would need to take a beat to register his loss. As the episode wasted no time in reminding us, Barry is hardly a stranger to tragedy—Nora Allen alone has died at least three separate times in front of his eyes. This time, however, Barry consciously attempted to temper the bad decision- making he’s oh-so prone to while in mourning by keeping a stiff upper lip and not dwelling on the matter. His subsequent journey to accept grief as a natural part of life is nothing you haven’t seen in every dime-a- dozen series with an emotionally repressed hero, but, as was already pointed out, Barry’s reactions to his loved ones passing away are often quite over the top. Changing things up with a more subdued, lowkey reaction helped to steer things away from a maudlin “everyone I love dies” attitude that wouldn’t really fit with the upbeat tone The Flash normally has. 

Leo Snart also helped in this area, as he spent his (seemingly) final appearance on the show making puns galore and balancing out Barry’s angst with continued levity. The original Captain Cold faced off against/with Barry a handful of times before he was hastily shuffled over to Legends of Tomorrow, but his impact on The Flash continues to this day because of Wentworth Miller’s magnetic performance. While there will always be a wistful “what if?” aspect to Snart and Barry’s interactions, the episode gave a fitting coda to the odd frenemy relationship between the two. Although Snart’s departure was more of a soft farewell, with the writers leaving the door wide open for a return appearance should Miller ever have a change of heart (as the DC execs are no doubt praying for), the ending he got was neat enough that there are no lingering loose ends to plague fans in years to come. 

Of course, the return of Citizen Cold also meant the regrettable return of Earth-X, which this time introduced Siren X (Katie Cassidy), the counterpart to Black Canary. (Because the one thing that was missing from the crossover was seeing more beloved characters reimagined as Nazis trying to engage in ethnic cleansing, right?) Her presence served no purpose except to highlight the Thinker didn’t account for parallel earths in his planning, something Leo’s presence already made perfectly clear. 

Still, DeVoe wasn’t so distracted that he failed to rave about “the Enlightenment” half a dozen times, all while still speaking so broadly we’re left in the dark as to what it really is. I get that at this point in the season the big bad has to up the stakes somehow, but I wish it didn’t at the cost of DeVoe losing all interesting in anything not related to his masterplan. One of the reasons he was initially so captivating as a villain is that unlike Zoom or Savitar, he wasn’t mustache-twirlingly evil— he was a respected teacher with a happy home, and even after his descent into depravity, he was shown to value love and family as much as he did outmaneuvering Barry. Sure, his all consuming obsession illustrates how far he’s fallen in his lust for power, but it also makes him less nuanced and interesting to watch. 

His shifting attitude has at least made Marlize even more of a wildcard, although it’s taking a frustratingly long time for the constant hints of her growing doubts to turn into anything substantial. There’s only so many times we can watch Marlize silently weeping before it loses any sort of potency it originally had, even with a compelling actress like Kim Engelbrecht at the helm. I worry that the writers may even be intending to keep her treading water like this until the finale, by which time much of the anticipation surrounding her inevitable betrayal will have given way to apathy. Marlize has been a consistent bright spot in an uneven season, and whether it be as an unexpected hero or rival villain, she deserves to end this year on a high character note, not feebly fizzle in the background.

Written by Kaitlin Roberts, THE FLASH Beat Writer

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