The Flash S04E09 Review: Kidnapped!

The Flash, Season 4, Episode 9: Don't Run

If I'm not misstaken, this is the mid-season finale for the Flash, so it ends in a huge cliffhanger and some status-quo breaking stuff. The problem is that the episode itself isn't particularly good. We go through two interlocking plotlines, with the Thinker kidnapping Barry, and Blacksmith kidnapping Caitlin, and our heroes are trapped between having to save both. Somewhere in there, Caitlin is dealing with the fact that she's overshadowed by Killer Frost (who her friends like a lot, and the city hails as a hero after Crisis) and she has to rescue a telepathic metahuman captured by Blacksmith. And the Thinker continues to be a mastermind behind everything who insists that his plans are way way way too complex for  us mere mortals (also Barry) to even comprehend. 

By the end of the episode, we get the revelation that, apparently, after rescuing both Barry and Caitlin, the Thinker still manages to escape, and either he or Blacksmith captured Dominic again off-screen, and the Thinker does a little body-swap into Dominic's body in order to get a new, healthy body. He also leaves his ailing, dead body within Barry Allen's apartment with evidence that points to Barry being a killer. Now I'm not sure why Barry doesn't run his way out of the apartment instead of just standing there and be captured (he did arrive to his apartment with superspeed, after all, and he could just say that he's hanging out in the West house all the while) so... yeah, there's that. And that's without the fact that Barry has super speed and he can get rid of all the evidence before Singh breaks down the door. 

I dunno. It's so contrived, and for all his talk about his master plan, the fact that the Thinker has built an anti-speed invisible force field box and deactivates it when Barry goes invisible with super-speed makes his smartness be called into question. Why not just kill Barry? Now don't get me wrong -- Neil Sandilands and Grant Gustin do a lot of great work in this episode, and we even get some neat moments of the Mechanic being a steadfast ally to her husband, but otherwise it's just... there. And I really do think that the huge plot twist at the end was relatively forced, even if it does feel a lot better compared to the clusterfuck happening in Arrow's mid-season finale. 

The Blacksmith/Caitlin plotline felt a lot better, in no small part because, yes, it's important to acknowledge that Caitlin and Killer Frost are different people. It's not a writing decision I'm particularly happy with, but if that's where they're going I'm glad we're acknowledging that, and Caitlin feels so terribly burdened with all this. Her scene moping in Jitters with Harry Wells is definitely well-done, and while Blacksmith is still a rather flat, overdramatic villain in my opinion, she serves well as a recurring villain. I did feel that the writers forced her into the pep-talk-giver a wee bit too unsubtly, though. 

Ralph and Cisco have a bit of an argument this episode over each other being a dick, which was... eh. We did get Elongated Man actually showing up (god, that shit costume) for some rescuing heroics and blocking Blacksmith's metal shards in the nick of time to protect Caitlin and Dominic, which is cool. And Ralph apologizing to Caitlin is neat. Iris being a team leader that has to make the hard choice of choosing to save Caitlin before Barry is a bit odd, but it's definitely better than just leaving her in boring old love interest mode. 

There were thankfully a fair bit of fun, hilarious moments here and there, like Cisco's not-a-breakup-cube, Barry's flotation mode (which was absolutely hilarious!), the Killer Frost themed drink in Jitters, Mick Rory's 40 toaster gift and Iris snarking about Felicity upstaging their wedding during Crisis. But ultimately, despite having some neat moments, I still feel that the Thinker is awkwardly handled and I really do hope that the second half of the season doesn't devolve into a mess the way that the last two seasons did. 

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Brain Storm is based on the New 52 rebooted version of a classic Justice League villain. The original-continuity Brain Storm is Axel Storm, a classic enemy who built a towering helmet that allowed him to make his thoughts manifest into reality. The New 52 version is renamed Dominic Lanse, who is a Mr. Terrific villain that developed a way to absorb machinery intellect into himself. Obviously, this version of Brain Storm is a lot more different than either one of his comic-book counterparts. Also, likely to be brain-dead after the events of the episode. 
• Barry being framed for murder isn't a plotline that I think originated from the comics (many other superheroes' alter-egos have been framed for murder, though -- I know for a fact Bruce Wayne has) but he was definitely in prison for accidentally killing Reverse-Flash in the comics, leading into the 'Trial of the Flash' arc. 
• All the way back in the season 1 finale, we see a glimpse of Barry in a prison back when he's travelling through time. It seems like this is a payoff to that particular bit of foreshadowing.