The Flash, Season 4, Episode 2: Mixed Signals
It's a fun episode, that's for sure. The episode's divided in old-school season one where the main plot is just, well, a villain-of-the-week (relatively obscure character Kilg%re that I'm surprised I actually recognize, and will be parsed as 'Killgore' for the rest of this review) while Team Flash learns a valuable life lesson (tm). This time around, it's just basically Barry and Iris, as well as Cisco and Gypsy, getting through their relationship communications problems.
Meanwhile Caitlin and Joe take over as the resident punchline deliverer. How perfect is Danielle Panabaker's delivery of "A-MEN!" in that conversation? Poor Wally, though. He's been relegated to just the punching bag. Between his snide comment that his costume didn't get a crapton of improvements that Cisco gave Barry, or that the showrunners kept him out of the finale by having him get conked onto the wall and be knocked out and ignored even by the villain... poor Wally.
So yeah. I don't think I have any problems with this episode. It's fun, Barry gets to be a tool for a bit, and then talks his problems out to Iris through a fun little couples' counselling session, all the while dealing with the menace of Killgore. Between fun scenes like Barry zooming around making breakfast (and taking coffee from Jitters), binge-watching Game of Thrones at super speed, or Barry inflating up like a balloon or the unexpectedly fun-yet-gory scene of Killgore shaking a man to death in an elevator... it's basically Barry's cockiness being called to question by Iris, and, well, he's now engaged and needs to be part of a team of two and yadda yadda yadda. The whole "believe me, electrocuting yourself will work!" bit was a bit too much cheese for me, though.
Killgore is an okay enough villain. He's no longer an alien AI, but has the same power set and arguably the more interesting backstory as an awkward geek who is shortchanged by his business partners, and now having obtained his powers from a mysterious source (Thinker's just going to show up at the end of every episode to be cryptic, then?) he's going around murdering people. Hacking someone's insulin system has to be one of the most... ingenuous way to kill someone.
Cisco and Gypsy is a whatever B-plot, but I really enjoy Carlos Valdes's performance through it all and it's fun stuff. But it doesn't hold a candle to Barry being inflated like a balloon or having a self-destruct sequence, and Joe, Iris and Caitlin's collective "you put a what in his suit?" every time something stupid happens. (Also, why didn't Barry super-speed his way through the instruction manual?)
Overall, it's an okay episode. Definitely fun to watch, definitely one that I have no problems with. It's too early to tell, I think, if the show's going to be better by being more upbeat and fun and less broody (it's a better tone, at least), or if it'll lapse into feeling too 'samey'.
DC Easter Eggs Corner:
- Killg%re (sometimes parsed as Kilg%re) is a sentient computer virus that fought the Wally West version of Flash. Unlike the version depicted here, he's not actually a human with powers, but an actual living AI. He's apparently made by aliens, and Kilg&re that apparently consumed its home world before being trapped in space, until it was accidentally released by Wally.
- The self-destruct sequence in Barry's suit, 'Babel Protocol', is probably a reference to the infamous 'Tower of Babel' JLA story where Batman is revealed to keep precautions to take out every member of the JLA in case they went rogue, and Ra's al Ghul's agents stole them and did exactly that.
- In a bit of a black comedy moment, Barry and Iris list the friends they've lost over the past three seasons: Eddie, Ronnie, Francine, H.R., Laurel, Henry and Snart. No love for
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