Subject 9 has one good scene and that is it. The rest is the usual fare you’ve come to expect from this season so let’s run through this shit.

Devoe’s still being vague about his long-term plan, even though he needs to accelerate it due to acquiring the powers of most of the bus metas and dumping them into poor Becky Sharpe’s body. As much as I liked Sugar Lyn Beard’s performance as the bubbly luck manipulator, she can’t be menacing in the least and I did like that this week’s meta du jour didn’t take her seriously either.

We also have a side-story about Harry and Cecile bonding and it’s probably the weakest pairing I’ve seen in a while. I think playing the extroverted HR then going back to the stoic, beliggerent Harry has messed Tom Cavanagh up a bit because he’s dialled it back too far to the point where Harry can barely speak to Cecile. It’s just weird and that’s a shame because I like both actors.

I should give a special shout-out to Miranda MacDougall, playing Izzy Bowin, for delivering a great performance over all. This is her first role outside of the short film she starred in and she knocked it out of the park, playing a genderbent southern belle version of obscure Flash villain; The Fiddler.

She did an amazing job and acted really well alongside Hartley Sawyer’s Ralph Dibny and I would have liked to have seen her become a recurring character but, alas – “fuck being interesting”, this show says.

The scene I was referring to earlier was Izzy, after going off half-cocked to fight DeVoe, getting mind-swapped in front of Ralph and Barry. Enclosed in the same force field that held Barry (that I’m almost certain Barry can vibrate through because he escaped) and without the fiddle she used as a focus with her power, she succumbs to DeVoe’s mind transfer, all the while Ralph tearfully tells her to focus on him, repeatedly. It’s awful to watch, especially when DeVoe rubs Ralph’s nose in it afterwards, planning to make good use of his new body.

I wish we’d gotten more time with Izzy but what we did get formed enough of a connection, to make it gross and awful and DeVoe into even more of a terrible person. Something that’s been escalating more and more recently.

Oh, and Barry is out of a job for now. Until people are convinced the DeVoe who rolled into the courtroom is the real one. So I guess we can say goodbye to Barry’s job at CCPD and we can expect more hijinks with Ralph.

Overall, a extremely mediocre episode with only a couple things I can really say I liked. Next week promises big things as a nuclear bomb goes off in Central City and the Flashes of three worlds must unite to save it in Enter Flashtime.

I mean, yeah, there’s a couple funny gags but it’s not enough and I felt myself drifting off much like Team Flash at the beginning of When Harry Met Harry… which brings me to my major gripe; The Council of Wells.

While I’m usually riding Tom Cavanagh’s dick for his range, they had the perfect chance to expand the lore of their established multiverse and they utterly squandered it on some comedy accents that were utterly awful. Not only that but two of the parallel Earths have significance in the wider DC lore.

The Nihilist-Wells is from Earth-12, a world which, in the comics, is inhabited by the extended cast of Batman Beyond. Lothario-Wells comes from the psychedelic Earth-47, which is like a 60’s Hannah-Barbera interpretation of DC and the most egregious of all… Mad-Wells, from a “post-apocalyptic landscape where man and machine are one”, Earth-22 which SHOULD be the world of Kingdom Come, the seminal Mark Waid/Alex Ross graphic novel. That said, Supergirl is from Earth-38, which is nothing like it’s comic counterpart but I actually know these ones so it bugs me something fierce.

Thank the maker, then, for Hartley Sawyer. Ralph’s journey to becoming a hero continues here as he starts going out on missions and learns a valuable lesson in humility. His stupid expressive face got me through most of this episode.

Your villain du jour is Mina Chayton, a reimagined Black Bison (played by Chelsea Kurtz) who has the ability to bring inanimate effigies to life, a rather cool, unique power considering the Black Bison of the comics is the biggest Native American stereotype outside of Apache Chief. Solid performance and casting so good job, production team!

We end up at DeVoe’s house thanks to the Council of Wells, all tooled up and ready to kick an ass when a humble looking man in a wheelchair greets them as Clifford DeVoe, automatically disqualifying him as a villain no doubt because no real villain would be handicapable, right? Barry should have learned his lesson after Season 1! Weird to see Neil Sandilands with hair given we’ve only seen him in Metron cosplay up to this point.

A solid enough premise for the episode but brought down by Cavanagh’s ropey performances and an ultimately forgettable villain (and maybe by my own lack of sleep) but next week we’ll see how Barry handles his new foe (spoilers: not very well!) in Therefore I am.

HAAAAA! Puns, I’ve got them! I’ve not felt this good about an episode of The Flash since last season so excuse me if I gush a little. Elongated Journey Into Night introduces two new characters and is the second episode directed by our boy Tom Cavanaugh (the other being The Once and Future Flash), which probably explains why it was really fun!

We’ll get the boring stuff out of the way first: after the shocking revelation of Cecile’s pregnancy, Joe spends a lot of the episode being defensive, flinching at the word baby and insisting that he isn’t ‘glowing’ but after being held at gunpoint by Mayor Bellows, he just blurts it out and is actually fine with it? Did we miss a scene where he actually worked through his feelings? Hm, odd but breaking out the cigars is a nice little celebration’ one shared by Legends of Tomorrow with the birth of Professor Stein’s grandchild!

In the B-plot, Cisco gets a shocking visit from Gypsy’s father, Breacher, and spends the rest of the episode trying to either win his favour or survive his wrath. Danny Trejo is a delight but his no-nonsense character doesn’t really use him to his fullest potential though there are some hilarious line deliveries. This brilliant little sub-plot Cisco finally wins Breacher’s respect (but not his affection) by standing up to him in defence of an innocent meta which brings us to…

Ralph Dibny! Waheeeeeey! An endearing character in the Justice league mythos and Hartley Sawyer is just the goofy-looking weirdo to bring the character to life. His history with Barry is a good conflict and while he is known to break rules, we know he does it for the right reasons, something Barry cops to later since they frequently lock up metas without trial (not to mention those couple guys Barry merced in season 2).

Ralph’s elasticated body is suitably disgusting and gross-looking to emphasise the silly-putty analogy and isn’t too bad considering the TV budget.

Flash Fact: The bottle of Gingold in Ralph’s office is a nod to his comic book origin where that drink is the reason for his elastic abilities.

Overall, a really enjoyable episode, especially after the last couple and hopefully the good times will continue to roll when the ladies of Team Flash and Team Arrow have a Girls Night Out!