The Flash, Season 2, Episode 9: Running to Stand Still
Star Wars Episode VII will be premiering in less than two weeks so naturally Mark Hamill showed up for a surprise return in this week's episode of The Flash. I wasn't keeping up to date with news and I didn't expect, well, an episode starring the Trickster, Weather Wizard
It's mostly a fluffy filler episode with the main focus on the villain team-up, really -- neither Weather Wizard nor Trickster individually really pose much of a threat to Barry Allen... well, Weather Wizard certainly still can, but he's a bit of an idiot. Plus, all the villains featured here are core Rogues in the comic and seeing them actually team up should be a big happy time for me. And, well, don't get me wrong, Trickster and Weather Wizard are absolutely entertaining, hamming it up and just being hilariously awesome. Especially Trickster, who's totally channeling Mark Hamill's Joker at its finest.
There's no mention of the Axel Braun Trickster. Apparently Jesse James just doesn't give two shits about his alleged son.
But as an episode it kind of fell flat. Sure, the villains bit was entertaining enough, with several pretty impressive visuals like Weather Wizard flying through town by expelling wind from his hands, or Barry juts lightning-bolt-ing zipping up and down buildings and hopping over helicopters, or Trickster's insane dreidel bomb army, or the sight of the magnet sucking up all the bombs into the rift in the sky (people in Earth-2 must be kinda pissed at all these random shit that Earth-1 chucks their way). That was a bit of a dumb random 'magnetize everything to the same polarity' non-science that felt a bit weird. You'd think it would be a perfect opportunity for Jay to bust out his super-speed and recover the 100 bombs, but no...
Captain Cold ended up showing up, getting broken out, making good on his honour thing and ends up walking away from the big plan to kill the Flash. It really would've been more entertaining to either have Cold help out the villains initially and walking away or helping out, or outright form an alliance with the Flash, but as it is it really feels like they're pushing all out for Legends of Tomorrow and kinda shoving aside Cold's role as one of Flash's main villains and that felt off. It really felt like a missed opportunity where so much could've been done with Cold and his increasingly-friendly rivalry with Barry, but here we have a rather dry and boring 'bad guy decides to be good' situation.
Trickster's an absolute riot, though, his overtly Joker-esque lines notwithstanding. Weather Wizard isn't bad himself, it's just that, well, when you're up against the Trickster you really need to be resigned to be overshadowed.
What also felt off is how Weather Wizard was integrated into Patty's backstory. It's not that giving Patty a backstory is bad, nor did the actress bungle up her job, but it really is the matter of not really handling the pacing and the scripting well. I guess it's better to get the Patty backstory stuff over with in a filler episode like this instead of a big Zoom one, but even so it felt like a distraction in an episode that is already all about distractions. Patty's huge storytime in front of the Flash really should've been an emotional moment where she ends up spilling her dark story of going for vengeance (i.e. 80% of superhero origin stories) to what's essentially a stranger, but the sheer length and narminess of the scene made it feel like nothing more than an inelegant messy introdump. Yeah, it's a good thing she didn't shoot Weather Wizard in the head or I'd be describing her far worse adjectives than 'messy'. It's predictable, yes, but I'd rather have Weather Wizard on the show. She's been really annoying and her character's been handled rather badly, but at least she's got development.
I still don't understand why Barry hasn't revealed his identity to Iris, when he really very casually reveals it to like every other person around. Carter Hall, Linda Park, Kendra Saunders... they're definitely building up for a big emotional trainwreck of a reveal and that thought really makes me want to punch someone in the face. We've got enough of these in Arrow and in Flash's first season please stop.
Small niggle, and I admit to having it out for Patty, but how is it that she is able to figure out everything about Mr. Jiggle Wiggle and the factory toys in the same time that Harry, Caitlin, Cisco and Barry took to do the same and get there at around the same time that the Flash did? Yes, author's pet, but that's just stupid.
The other B-plot running throughout the episode is Iris realizing that keeping secrets from family members and causing friction when they are inevitably revealed is a banal and trite plot point, so she tells Barry and Joe about the existence of Wally West, who shows up randomly at the end of the episode. Wally! I like Wally West. But Joe West truly steals the scene, with his little sad moment in the STAR labs basement where he talks about how he has this feeling in his stomach whenever Iris is in trouble; what kind of father would that make him if he isn't even aware Wally exists? The moment where Joe gives Barry the watch is another powerful moment that says more than it should -- even with a biological son in play, Barry is still Joe's son. I thought it was kinda dumb of the show to have the Joe-Francine forgiveness call take place offscreen... wouldn't it make more sense to show it instead of Barry talking to a glass wall about Wells? That's dumb.
The other other B-plot involves Zoom! Who shows up all scary and awesome at the beginning of the episode, wanting to make an alliance with Harry... we even get to see Jesse show up and hug Harry before she gets cruelly snatched out of Harry's arms. Apparently Zoom wants Harry to... help Barry Allen be faster. So he can drain even more speed from him. An overtly simple plan for a villain that's been built up to be something... far more sinister, so I'm curious if that's the simple endgame which would be slightly disappointing, or if there's more.
Harry's fun in this episode, though, deadpanning and recognizing that the doll is "Mr. Jiggle Wiggle", going all "yeah, he's flying", going all "your toys... give them to me" to that poor, traumatized kid. Or going all "every universe has the Godfather" to which Jay nods all sagely. Man, Harry's a riot.
The B-team... really don't do much. Cisco gets to rebuild the Weather Rod from the wiped-out timeline, with some references to what I believe to be exact dialogue taken from that episode. Can I say how hilarious it is for Weather Wizard's signature rod to be the thing that shuts him down instead of his power source? Jay Garrick gets actual screentime here, and Caitlin shows up to make up for basically being nonexistent during the crossover, but they're still mostly there to be romantic and stuff, even though, y'know, Caitlin's husband just died less than half a year ago. Even Iris was still grieving! It really kind of tears down the impact of the whole Ronnie Raymond arc when Caitlin barely acknowledges his passing. Caitlin's close to being nonexistent in this season other than the Grodd episode, and alongside Jay the two's functions seem to just revolve being each other's (nonsensical) love interest... and considering how awesome Caitlin was in the first season it's a big, big shame.
We get a couple of nice little meta-nods, with Iris buying the official toy for CW's Flash. I think she says that there isn't one of Green Arrow... and I think they haven't actually made one for the Green Arrow, since the character has been just 'Arrow' so far. Also, Mr. Jiggle Wiggle is found in the Okamura Toys factory. Okamura is a reference to Hiro Okamura, otherwise known as Toyman III in the comics. While the first two Toymans have been Superman villains, the third Toyman is a Japanese supergenius kid who's on the side of angels, with prominent roles in Superman/Batman comics.
Overall, though, as entertaining as Trickster is in this episode, and as heartfelt Joe West is in this episode, it really ends up feeling rather weak thanks to the disjointed feel, with the Zoom and Captain Cold bits really not feeling like much, whereas the Patty stuff is just flat-out handled poorly. I honestly am just hoping Zoom zooms Patty in the mid-season finale next year or something. Why does everyone like her so much, I can never understand. Hopefully Flash can really pick it up, because all the problems it has in its second season really made it feel, well, nowhere as good as Agents of SHIELD or even Arrow, which isn't a thing that I thought would happen to this show comparing their standings last season.
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