To be sure, Joe has never been a 'by the book' kind of cop — who can forget the days when he helped run the team’s private metahuman prison in the STAR Labs basement? But even so, it was off putting to see him be suddenly so determined to fly solo in a show that espouses the virtues of teamwork regularly. At one point Joe scolds Barry for thinking he's striking out on his own to be macho, but I'm not sure we really have any other way to interpret it based off of the sudden way it became an issue. It’s also not clear whether going into witness protection means this is the last we’ll see of Joe for a bit; I’ll certainly be disappointed if this is his last appearance for the season and we miss out on his reunion with the real Iris.
This episode was also notable as it marked the reappearance of Sue Dearbon. The constant banter between her and Ralph didn’t work quite as well in an story lacking the noir detective vibes of their previous encounter; their cat-and-mouse dynamic was cute enough to keep things interesting, but it'll need some fine-tuning to continue being engaging once the newness appeal wears off. Still, Ralph's character undeniably has more purpose when he's chasing her down instead of being a benchwarmer at STAR Labs, so it's a step in the right direction.
If only I could be as optimistic about every character’s storyline. Once again, the Mirror Iris plot proved to be tedious, exasperating, and verging on a waste of time. Mirror Iris spent the entire episode guilt tripping Barry into using up his remaining speed to protect Joe until she eventually blew up and kicked him out of the loft. It should have been a really heartbreaking moment — our hero’s devastated and the show’s central love story in tatters! But instead the whole thing felt completely empty and melodramatic. Everything about the argument is fake; we got zero insight into the actual West-Allen marriage by watching Mirror Iris be mean to Barry, and neither character is being developed by this con.
I mean, what exactly are we as the audience rooting for Barry’s takeaway to be at the end of this story? That he's way too easily fooled? You'd hope he would have gotten that message after Thawne, Nora, Zoom, Harry, and the whole laundry list of others all successfully tricked him. The real Iris might as well be locked away in a tower for all the impact she's allowed to have on the story. And unlike with the other people who’ve duped Barry, revealing Mirror Iris as a fraud won't blow up their relationship - it actually gives Barry an easy explanation for why his marriage is suddenly on the rocks. There's no actual drama to any of this, just the constant, irritating feeling of waiting for the penny to drop.
It is clear at this point that the season is going to be forcibly cut short because of the pandemic, and while that's obviously no one’s fault, it has highlighted the series’ persistent problems with pacing. It's been seven episodes since the Mirror Master plotline started in earnest, and we still only have a vague idea of what Eva wants and how her powers work. If past years are anything to judge by, most of these answers were probably being saved for the last two or three episodes of the season that will never come. We have to at least hope the pace picks up enough to actually have this season get some sort of story shape instead of this continued aimless wandering or it may be one of the show’s roughest years yet.
Written by Kaitlin Roberts, THE FLASH Beat Writer
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