Null and Annoyed is a mediocre episode that’s only interesting thanks to the the director, a returning Kevin Smith, giving what felt like more time to the sub-plots.

I’ll touch on the main plot briefly as it shows us the next Bus Meta, Janet Petty aka Null. Null’s gravity powers are cool but as with most metas, that’s pretty much all she is. Janet Petty isn’t even her proper name because Null is a gender bent version of a guy who didn’t get one! But she’s the villain du jour and helps Barry learn a lesson about Ralph’s seeming goofing off and I swear we’ve done this before but to hell with it, I don’t care, because the only part of this plot line that I liked was…

The cameo of Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes as Bob and Jay, the Central City Museum’s most hapless security guards! It was nice to see them together, paying homage to their most beloved roles.

In the first side plot, we see Breacher (played by a returning Danny Trejo) come to Cisco for help after his vibe powers cut out before he can finish a vampire lord. Through some comical and sincere dialogue, we find that Breacher has gained some modicum of respect for Cisco, but Cisco is trying to please Gypsy’s father into letting him see more of her. Eventually, after a close shave with the aforementioned vampire lord, Cisco comes clean and Breacher departs furious.

It’s weird that his offensive vibe powers don’t work but his breach ability remains intact but regardless, Breacher, or rather, Joshua returns in his retirement best, to reconcile with Cisco and to offer his thanks and to offer Cisco a job; as the new Breacher.

Meanwhile, at DeVoe’s Dungeon, Marlize’s character goes through some very interesting development as she discovers that her husband has not only been lying to her but also drugging her using the euphoric tears of the Weeper. Kim Engelbrecht offers a stunning performance as she leaves herself a tearful message to warn herself of Clifford’s deception… only to discover that she’s done so at least once before.

It’s a pretty neat twist and Clifford reveals that this scenario has played out multiple times before and he drugs her once again, a similar version of an earlier scene playing out like some demented Groundhog Day.

Throughout the episode, we see harry use his own thinking cap more and more and becoming increasingly frustrated but it’s not until the end of the episode that we see Harry access Thawne’s secret room, place his thinking cap where the Reverse Flash suit once resided and activate Gideon, his tone of voice becoming darker. For me, this seems like they’re following through on Cisco’s warnings about the thinking cap and cementing Harry’s heel turn by making comparisons to ThawneWells, which has actually been foreshadowed in previous episodes.

Overall, it’s a mediocre villain of the week episode with a couple instances of good character development but this slow spiral down in quality is only exacerbated by watching the other CW shows for me. Black Lightning has continued it’s streak of strong writing and intriguing plot while Legends has been mucking about and not taking itself too seriously while also being incredibly endearing as the visibly cheapest of the five shows. And I guess Supergirl’s coming back but meh.

I’ll see you all next week when Team Flash goes on the offensive and invades the DeVoe Dungeon in Lose Yourself.

Killer Frost is an interesting episode, indeed. Kicking off with a vicious display of speed, we instantly get a feel for how powerful Savitar is. Being so fast that he’s invisible to regular vision is a nice way to save some money but also acts as a passive display of power. He’s clearly not just a guy in armour either which is interesting.

This is clearly a big bad that will need more than one speedster to deal with and luckily we have at least four, now that Wally’s got his speed. One of the minor missteps of this episode is Wally’s resolution in the final act but that’s an unfortunate story pacing issue that’s not really on Kevin Smith’s shoulders as director.

Flash Fact: Greg Grunburg stars as Detective Tom Patterson and while known for his similar cop role in Heroes, he also hosts AMC’s Geeking Out with Kevin Smith. At least it isn’t Mewes again!

Yes, the Bluntman returneth and while I didn’t really notice any significant jump in camera work like The Runaway Dinosaur, I did like the direction of Panabaker and Valdes’ performances.

If there’s one thing Smith knows how to do, it’s how to direct friends being pissed off with each other and it’s beautifully done here. I like Gustin as an actor but he doesn’t play guilty very well. He’s too much of a scolded puppy who casually admits his faults knowing full well he’ll get away with it. Because he always does. And that makes his performance pretty weak.

Panabaker plays Snow’s schizophrenic dissent into villainy quite well; gradually sloping downwards as she gets angrier at Barry and his time-fuckery, eventually exploding in the pipeline in a diatribe that is absolutely spot-on. He’s selfish and everyone else can only suffer in his wake.

Despite Smith’s involvement, there’s very little fun to be had in this episode but one thing that makes me giggle every time is Tom Felton’s tremendous pratfall after getting socked in the gob. Felton’s got a pretty good role in this episode too. After being taken hostage by Killer Frost, Julian blackmails Barry into quitting the CCPD.

Again, Julian is bang-on with his assessment of Barry, especially from the perspective of someone not on Team Flash. Barry is often absent, acts like an incompetent weirdo and now is going to bat for a criminal. He wants to see justice done and Barry just isn’t pulling his weight and this makes him a fantastic antagonist for Barry, not the Flash, which is unfortunate because…

Oy… I think we can all agree that this reveal was both stupidly obvious and utterly absurd. I mean, we all figured that Julian would be Alchemy but after seeing his character develop, it makes no sense. The coming episodes really need to explain why Julian is Alchemy because nothing so far has pointed to why he would be.

But I imagine that will have to wait because next week will be part of the Heroes vs Aliens crossover between all of the CW shows so, like previous years, come back Tuesday through Friday as we cover…

The Runaway Dinosaur sees cult filmmaker and comic book man, Kevin Smith, stick his neck into our woods alongside Thor and X-Men: First Class screenplay writer Zack Stentz. What can these Flash newcomers bring to the table?

A pretty damn good episode as it turns out! While Barry finds himself undergoing an existential trial in the Speed Force, Team Flash has to contend with their grief and the reanimated corpse of Girder and while the jumps between scenes can be somewhat jarring, Smith’s directorial style actually improves the scenes themselves.

Flash Fact: There’s an iZombie reference twofer in this episode as not only does Cisco reference the show as a nickname for Girder but Greg Finley has also been a recurring character on that show too!

Both myself and others were concerned about Kevin Smith’s involvement in this episode because when was the last time he did something genuinely good? Clerks 2? That was A DECADE AGO! But, thankfully, Smith manages to deliver in both humour and gravitas, making every scene visually interesting and compelling. His comedic timing, coupled with Valdes and Cavanagh’s natural chemistry makes for some exceptionally funny scenes.

Something else that I noticed in this episode was Candice Patton‘s performance. I think this was the episode that Iris as a likable character to me. She has so much agency and sass in this episode that I actually really like her. Her friendship with Cisco, embracing her role as the self-rescuing princess and even her burgeoning relationship with Barry.

I’ve never been a fan of the WestAllen ship, mostly because it’s the expected canon so waiting for the inevitable is dull but now that we’re here, I’m looking forward to see how it builds on their friendship and the fun shenanigans Barry and Iris can get up to.

Grant Gustin absolutely kills it this episode, bursting at the seams with raw emotion and ugly crying. Again, Smith’s direction for these scenes is especially good and elevates what could have been a repeat of what we’ve seen before and makes something truly impactful. I also liked the inclusion of the “Sit, Barry. Sit.” inversion of the established line, forcing him to slow down and confront his issues.

The final scene sees Zoom give Caitlin an ultimatum before speaking with the LEGION OF JOBBERS! *dramatic stinger* But seriously, who are these clowns? The only one I could kind of guess at was Jack Knight due to the staff he’s holding but the rest look like they were caught in the crossfire of a simultaneous explosion at Hot Topic and that vintage thrift store across the street.

Overall, The Runaway Dinosaur is one of the better episodes of the season despite the potential to be one of the worst but with our boy Barry back in red and Zoom bringing his posse to conquer the city, we’re streaking toward the finale and the possible establishment of more heroes. I’ll catch you next week when we hear the Black Siren’s call in Invincible.

The section devoted to seeing various people walk into the store and see if they can sell their wares is A) wholly unrepresentative of what that scenario is like and B) very awkwardly acted. I say ‘acted’ because it feels like these people were chosen specifically to come into the store and asked to do multiple takes of their lines. There’s also the fact that almost all of these people bring in rare collectibles that are actually worth money. During my brief stint working in a comic shop, I never had someone walk in with a Bob Kane original sketch. We had a lot of folks trying to sell Zero-issues and supposedly “valuable” Image comics because they had foil covers or trading cards attached but never something that was worth money. The closest thing to the reality of comic book stores in this segment was a douchebag in sunglasses carrying a handcuffed bag (See? Douchebag.) full of Dawn of The Dead memorabilia that, while pretty awesome, wasn’t worth nearly the price he was quoting. Once the guys brought in their special guest, popculturalist Robert Bruce, the guy was soon heading out the door when Rob pointed out how much his collection was worth. Still collectible but nowhere near the $1,000 dollars he wanted. It’s baffling and extremely watchable to see a succession of people with rare collectibles walk in but hopefully we’ll see the real nutters as the show goes on.

The Challenge section revolves around the guys getting rid of some dead stock that’s cluttering the place up, so they take it all down to the Collingswood flea market, splitting it into thirds and seeing which guy makes the most money out of Ming, Mike and Bryan. Various dirty tactics are employed, Bryan gets accosted for being a dick and it’s a fun segment for what it’s worth.

The third segment is the podcast which cuts in during the valuation segments, to allow for Walter and the others to discuss what happened with Kevin Smith. It allows them to freewheel and tell anecdotes about their lives and what some of the merch shown in the episode means to them. Some of the stories have been heard before if you’re a fan of the SModcast but it’s the best part of the show as a whole.

As the title suggests, this show is a complete sausage fest but AMC did want a female within the cast at one point. Zoë A. Gulliksen was cast and even filmed the pilot but was tragically cut from the show entirely. There’s no trace of her in there. Kevin Smith had described her as “perfect” for the show but whatever was going on behind the scenes meant she could not appear which is a damn shame. She might have been able to bring something to the show that the core cast could not.

For a pilot, the show is good but not great and, in my personal opinion, not nearly as bad as some reviews are making out. I can see their point but upon watching it myself, I found some of the stories told to be funny, the dynamic of the group was solid and I see potential in this show but I do want to see something closer to actual comic book store life. Where are the long-boxes full of waterlogged dreck?

You can see Comic Book Men on AMC on Sundays.