The Flash S03E17 Review: He's the Music Meister

The Flash, Season 3, Episode 17: Duet

Okay, so maybe my expectations for the 'Music Meister makes Flash and Supergirl go on a musical' episode is a little off, mostly because I've already watched the awesome Batman: Brave and the Bold episode that starred Music Meister in the first place, and I'm bummed we didn't at least get a cover of the titular Music Meister's villain song, or indeed anything from that episode.

It's going to be a very polarizing episode, though, simply due to the format. Musicals ain't for everyone, though I certainly like them, having been involved in several musical plays during my high school days as well as being raised on Disney movies. At the same time, though, the titular Music Meister barely does any singing, only doing a brief cover at the start of the episode. And the entire episode isn't fully a musical, but rather more an episode that's half a musical-parody-dream-world, and the other half's just our normal cast doing normal crossover stuff. Don't get me wrong, cast members do get to sing a lot, and in addition to the Supergirl cast members, we even get Victor Garber (actor for Martin Stein) and John effing Barrowman (actor for Malcolm Merlyn) making a guest trip from Legends of Tomorrow to show off their wonderful singing voices.

So after Winn, Mon-El and J'onn show up on Earth-1 after the Music Master 'whammied' Kara, the Music Meister himself shows up on STAR Labs, easily manhandles Flash and Kid Flash, and transports Barry into the same nightclub world where Kara is performing and absolutely gorgeous cover of 'Moon River'. It's not long for Barry and Kara to be given an introdump by the Music Meister that this dream-world is caused by the two of them binge-watching musicals recently, and they're going to have to figure out how to get out of this musical-world, in which they play the roles of two singers working for Malcolm Merlyn! Or, well, a character in the musical that's played by John Barrowman, anyway. Characters played by the actors of Cisco, Winn, Malcolm, Joe, Stein, Iris and Mon-El all show up in this dream musical world, acting out their own version of West Side Story, and it's a thinly-veiled allegory to let Kara and Barry work their love problems out. Music Meister even acknowledges it as such near the end of the episode.

Just to be clear, I absolutely enjoyed the musical aspects of the episode. Kara and Barry's absolutely corny 'Super Friends' duet, Barry's equally-corny solo at the end when he proposes to Iris, Kara's Moon River solo, Music Meister's jumpy jig, and most of all the absolutely great sing-a-long between Joe, Stein and Merlyn. Victor Garber, John Barrowman and Jesse L Martin have absolutely wonderful voices that they show off, and while Stein and Joe have sung in various episodes before, I didn't expect John Barrowman to have that angelic voice.

It's definitely a surreal episode that also lampshades the musical genre, with Barry and Kara being equally huge musical geeks that they relish singing and playing along, while also recognizing the absurdity of how quickly a song can just progress the plot of the story. And the show has absolute fun by showing off familiar characters in strange roles, like Iris as a smartass gangster's daughter, or Joe and Stein as a pair of lovers that lead a gang, or Malcolm Merlyn as a smooth-talking nightclub owner.

Honestly, I thought there was just simply not enough musical numbers. You'd think that the big climactic moment where Barry and Kara confront their feelings for Mon-El and Iris would deserve a big, touching moment, but we didn't get that. Also the fact that neither Music Meister nor the gangster daddies get a good old-fashioned villain song is also a missed opportunity. I guess having the whole romance problem between the two main pairs be resolved in this corny musical episode is as best as we can get without extending the romantic plot tumour longer than it should, so good for the showmakers for sneaking in this resolution to a plotline no one really cares about in the first place. (Kara's problem with Mon-El last Supergirl episode felt more like a tantrum than anything anyway, and Barry breaking up with Iris didn't make sense at all in the first place)

Meanwhile, in the real world, Music Meister apparently... siphons the powers of those he puts in the dream-land? It's all part of the act, but while Music Meister himself isn't malicious (if anything, he's like a sane, not-asshole version of Mxyzptlk) he does end up giving us a big team-up between Vibe, the Martian Manhunter and Kid Flash, something I didn't realize I needed so much in my life. Hell, I just need J'onn J'onzz do more Martian Manhunter things, and honestly a little part of me just absolutely geeked out when J'onn reveals his martian self to Cisco and the others with a grin and says "Call me Martian Manhunter".

And, again, that team-up? Amazing. It's short, with Vibe using portals to send J'onn and Kid Flash to whack the Music Meister, but it's still pretty cool nonetheless.

The episode ends almost all-too-perfectly, with Barry and Kara making up with their respective love interests (it's amazing how well the two of them work as platonic buddies), the Music Meister revealing that he shows up because he doesn't really want to deal with any of this mopey romance bullshit that the audience doesn't care about before disappearing, and Barry proposes to Iris for real-realsies. Oh, and Kid Flash gets over his confidence issues.

So yeah. You're either going to hate this or love this, but come on. This episode really has all the dorky cheesiness that both make Supergirl and Flash so lovable in the first place, and after a streak of depressing episodes and nonsensical romantic developments, it's nice to have everything be resolved with some singing. Besides, you get to hear Malcolm Merlyn, Professor Stein and Joe West sing a song together! How many episodes get to do that? I don't think this episode is superior to the Brave and the Bold's musical number, and I'm a little disappointed in the Music Meister here, but I'm honestly not complaining that much.

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• This episode takes place immediately after the Supergirl episode "Star-Crossed".
• The Music Meisssster sings the song that the world wants to hear! Let's not fight, let's get a-long for our hypnotic puppeteer! The Music Meisssster is the man that the world shall obey! So do your job, steal all you can, while you're under his sway! -ahem- The Music Meister is an original character from the Batman: Brave and the Bold episode "Mayhem of the Music Meister", the unquestionable best episode of that series. While in this episode he's a strange godlike being that pretends to be villainous to solve our heroes' funk, in the original source material he's a straight-up villain who takes over an entire city (and several superheroes and supervillains) and mind-controls them, as well as causing every one to speak in song and dance.
• Originally voiced and sung by the (wait for it) legendary Neil Patrick Harris, the Music Meister here is played by Darren Criss, who is a Glee alumni just like Grant Gustin (Flash) and Melissa Benoist (Supergirl).
• Jesse L Martin (Joe), Victor Garber (Stein), John Barrowman (Malcolm) and Jeremy Jordan (Winn) all have performed in Broadway, whereas both Barrowman and Carlos Valdes (Cisco) both have musical careers alongside their acting ones.
• "I'm Your Super Friend" is, obviously, yet another nod to Superfriends, one of the earliest DC comics cartoon adaptations.
• Barry briefly mentions Superman while singing his duet with Kara. Though the two never met before, presumably Kara told Barry about her cousin off-screen in one of their previous team-ups.
• Caitlin noting that she remembers Barry's singing voice happens during their one-time date in episode 12, "Crazy For You". (Incidentally, I don't often ship characters... but Barry and Caitlin were absolutely cute together in that episode)
• While every single character in Barry and Kara's dream-world gets a new name, Mon-El gets the name 'Tommy'. In the dream-world Mon-El's counterpart is the son of Malcolm's counterpart, whereas the real-world Malcolm's son is also named Tommy.