The Flash, Season 4, Episode 5: Girl's Night Out
Feminism episodes are tricky. Done poorly, you end up detracting from the whole point of gender equality, or just end up being a half-baked attempt at a speech the way Supergirl's first season ended up being. We've got episodes in Flash that focused on Iris, Caitlin or Jesse before, but as I've often complained about how much Caitlin's storylines in seasons 2 and 3 end up revolving around her romantic pursuits, Flash isn't the best show to point at for a proper 'feminist' show. I'm not saying that Iris and Caitlin aren't written as strong independent women, because they are, but this episode's constant usage of 'hashtag-feminism' is honestly pretty unnecessary.
Let's talk about the men first, because their plotline is basically 'BARRY GETS DRUNK LOL'. Which, I kid you not, is pretty damn funny. What starts off as a pretty somber, quiet night between four friends that are basically a family (yes, even Harry) ends up gate-crashed by jackass Ralph Dibny, who assumes that they invited him, and brings them to a stripper club. The show's going all in with Ralph being the resident douche friend who no one really likes but is too pushy to know when he's not needed, and I am all for it.
And seeing Grant Gustin act as a drunk Flash (thanks to some juice from Cisco) going around shouting "AYYYY'M DEFLAAAASHHH" is pretty motherfucking hilarious. Developing Ralph a little so he's not super-heroic (yeah, he's totally a composite character of Plastic and Elongated Man) is also fun. Between Barry getting drunk, Harry's deadpan commentary of everything that's going on, Cisco being skittish, Ralph being a dick and Joe still struggling with the realities of being a new papa at his age, it's honestly a hoot.
And then we shove in the weirdly-conceived subplot about how Cecile's daughter Joanie (who I think had like three seconds of screentime in the past?) apparently working as a stripper in the club because she wants to write a book about feminism? Because apparently being a 'real' open-minded woman you have to experience all the experiences a woman goes through, even demeaning ones? It's... it's oddly presented, a strange topic to mention without much follow-through beyond a combination of Joe accepting it because Joanie's an adult and Joanie deciding not to do it because being a stripper isn't exactly progressive no matter how you dice it.
The main plot is hashtag-feminism, though, and once more I'm reminded of how relatively few female characters count as 'main' characters in the show, because it's honestly just Iris and Caitlin, whereas the man party I could definitely think of some absent members of team Flash that's either unavailable in other shows or dead. With the ladies, it's quite literally just Iris and Caitlin, and they had to drag over Felicity down with balloons all the way from Star City to hang out. Cecile's there, too, but honestly, her personality boils down to "Joe's Babymama".
Thankfully, we follow up on the mysterious plotline we've been teased with Caitlin in the pilot for the season, with the mysterious organization she's working for trying to hunt her down and... poor Blacksmith/Amunet Black ends up kind of being a crazy gang lord that's honestly pretty bland, and as a bit of a Blacksmith fanboy I'm sad. She sends his creepy snake-eyed henchman Norvok (Felicity thinks he's a stripper ha ha!) to menace Caitlin, causing Iris and later Caitlin-as-Killer-Frost to put the everloving smackdown on his ass. Norvok is an amazing henchman, by the way. From his wacky and creepy power, to his whole gimmick with the glass eye hiding his creepy alien tentacle to his haircut to his demeanor...
Of course, the revelation why Caitlin and Killer Frost are both so scared of Amunet is because she's basically got Magneto powers... although I think unlike Magneto or Magenta she can only control a specific type of metal or some shit? And as huge revelations go, it's honestly not super-duper engaging. Caitlin and Killer Frost's relationship as basically a Hulk (Felicity actually name-drops the Hulk, a rare DC/Marvel bit here). And honestly? Considering Amunet Black's abilities... there really isn't anything super-duper-scary about her that Caitlin has to hide everything from not just Iris, but Flash and Vibe and the rest of the superheroes on their speed dial. It genuinely feels dumb, and I'm definitely not a big fan of rehashing yet another 'I know some part of you is good' storyline that made season 3 Caitlin's plot arc so weak.
Also, I'm not sure why they let Amunet Black go and not hand her off to Iron Heights. Was there any real reason? They've quite literally disarmed her, and she clearly is the vengeful type and knows who Caitlin Snow's real identity is. Also, also, did our heroines have to wear those stupid boas and bachelorette party getups throughout the entire operation?
So yeah. In theory, not a bad episode, but there's a general sloppiness to it that makes me not enjoy this episode as much.
Oh, and the mysterious 'Weeper', whose tears Amunet Black turns into a weird psychoactive love drug, gets set free, he runs away and no one bothers to follow up on it, until Thinker shows up in a weird hoverchair to catch him. Because for some reason, more than, say, Hazard or Elongated Man, Weeper's drug tears are super-crucial to the Thinker's plans? Huh.
DC Easter Eggs Corner:
- Amunet Black is the Blacksmith in the comics, a criminal mastermind that has spent several decades running the Network, an underground black market in Central and Keystone city that caters to supervillains. She would gain superpowers to fuse her flesh with metal and control it, and later would organize a brand-new group of Rogues, giving them technology to properly keep their powers in control, and would become one of the biggest threats early in Wally West's carrier as the Flash, taking out all his allies before taking the battle to Wally himself.
- The Weeper is the supervillain name of Mortimer Gloom, a Bulletman villain, which is one of those properties that are sort of independently published from the main DC continuity and/or purchased from another company. He certainly doesn't have drug tears, though.
- Norvok seems to take his name from Hank Norvock, a crime boss who ends up ruining a young Clifford DeVoe's life and ended up being killed by him in retaliation. The name usage, like the Weeper, seems to be in-name-only.
- Felicity references the last attempt at 'marrying' Oliver which did not end well. Cecile mentions her past kidnapping by Killer Frost (just how much of the Team Flash activities does Cecile actually know?), and Frost mentions her past working with a 'god', a reference to Savitar. Felicity and Iris borrow one of Captain Cold's cold guns in their little show-off against Blacksmith.
- Felicity mentions how the whole Caitlin/Frost thing is "totally like the Incredible Hulk!" before admonishing herself for being too excited to say that.
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