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The Flash 4.10 Review – ‘The Trial of the Flash’
Image Credit: The CW
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After taking a little break, The Flash’s fourth season races back to the airwaves. The previous episode left a pretty intriguing cliffhanger. Clifford DeVoe, aka the Thinker, successfully transferred himself into the body of Dominic Lanse. Meanwhile, DeVoe’s original body was left in Barry’s apartment with a stab wound, dead. This effectively set up Barry as the murderer. Instead of Barry vibrating out of the apartment or getting rid of the body, he decided not to run. He decided to be taken into custody and do things by the book. It was an interesting call, and we see the ramifications in today’s episode, The Trial of the Flash. What we have is a strong episode with superb acting from just about everybody. The only detractor is that the side story serves more as a distraction than an organic part of the main story.
The majority of the episode takes place in the courtroom. Court dramas make for fantastic entertainment (that’s why there are so many court shows), and this episode is no different. There’s a great amount of tension in the air, especially from Iris and Joe as the evidence against Barry continually proves to be convicting. Cecille serving as Barry’s attorney was a lot of fun to watch. She knows the evidence is great, but she does her best to paint a positive picture of Barry. Later, she lets Barry know that this is an impossible case. The only course of action is for Barry to reveal himself as the Flash. The dialogue between the two characters is fascinating. Barry says if he takes the stand, he’ll have to lie and he won’t do that. He’s stubborn about not wanting to reveal his identity. He tells Iris later that the main reason for him not wanting to do that is that it will affect his loved ones. It’s an interesting debate for viewers to think about: should Barry have revealed his identity in the courtroom?
Back to the courtroom, Marlize, DeVoe’s wife, testifies. She “breaks down” in the court, recollecting the events. Her crying is incredibly realistic; Kim Engelbrecht does a fantastic job. Soon, Iris confronts Marlize about the latter’s reasons for doing all this. Early on in the season, Marlize did come off as just an “evil secretary” to the villain. But as the episodes went on and we got backstory, Marlize fleshed out as a character; she’s easily one of the most interesting and developed characters in the entire show. Ignoring evil schemes and putting an innocent man behind bars, her dedication to her husband is quite engaging. Another interesting scene with her was early on. The viewer can see her apprehension of her husband’s new body. It’s still him, but it’s also not. Kim Engelbrecht is one of the best actors to appear in the Arrowverse.
Once again going back to the courtroom, Captain David Singh is interviewed by Cecille. Throughout the show, Captain Singh has left little impression. Here we see just how much he has appreciated Barry. During the interview, he calls Barry “one of the good ones.” When pressured by the prosecutor to tell what he saw, (which was Barry standing over the original body of DeVoe) the viewer can see that the captain does not want to incriminate Barry. But, he’s given no choice, and has to tell the jury exactly what he saw. I never thought much of Singh, but after this episode, he’s left a big impression.
A fun buddy cop duo was Joe and Ralph. Yes, Ralph is actually a decent character. (That’s when you know the episode is strong.) First, he and Joe capture pictures of Marlize kissing Dominic. They give the pictures to Cecille to present to the judge. (This led to an interesting scene with Marlize having to adapt to the situation.) Back to the buddy cop, Joe and Ralph pay another visit to Marlize’s house. Joe says he wants to plant false evidence that would put Marlize at the scene of the crime. Joe claims “it’s the right thing.” That’s interesting, huh? Joe and Ralph know that Marlize is guilty. They know Barry is innocent. But does that justify planting false evidence? Does that break a moral code? Does the ends justify the means? Ralph gives Joe an interesting speech on this, saying that one day Joe would regret doing this. (This was Ralph’s best scene of the show.) So, Joe ends up not planting the false evidence. This was definitely a very interesting scene to watch.
Now, earlier I said that there is a side story going on in-between all this. Another “meta-human of the week” shows up. Cisco dubs him Fallout, because the meta has radioactivity inside of him, and it’s eventually going to blow up. The interesting thing is that Fallout doesn’t realize he has this happening until near the end. (Though how did he not hear the people falling to the floor in the early bank scene?) Fallout doesn’t want to hurt anyone, but it keeps happening out of his control. This might sound engaging, and it isn’t bad – but it comes off as little more than a distraction from the engaging courtroom drama. For the most part, it’s filler. It only interacts later on because Barry leaves the courtroom to deal with Fallout. Killer Frost is called in to help, because her cooling ability is hypothesized to neutralize Fallout. Great, but Killer Frost is quickly knocked out, thus contributing nothing. Also…where is Wally? He came back to Central City a few episodes ago. Why wasn’t he dealing with Fallout so Barry didn’t have to leave the courtroom?
In the end, Barry is proclaimed guilty and sent to Iron Heights. This should make for an interesting status quo change going forward. Iris’ character has been easy to mock in previous seasons, but in this season she has become a much better character. This is evidenced in this episode as she tries to be strong for her newlywed husband. One of the most interesting scenes was Iris about to tell the judge that Barry was the Flash before Barry ran in and stopped her. As for Barry himself, the viewer may be wondering what exactly his plan is. At the moment, it doesn’t look like there is a plan, he’s just doing things by the book. We’ll see where this goes in the coming episodes.
Overall, The Trial of the Flash is a superb return to the season. There is a lot of tension in the courtroom scenes. There’s fantastic acting from just about everyone. Even Ralph is engaging. The subplot with Fallout comes off as filler, though the ending does lead to a powerful scene: the Flash is being honored at the police station as Barry is being sentenced for life. There’s a great level of irony in that. (Another ironic moment is that Barry’s cell is the one his father served in.) I am very interested in seeing where this season goes from here.
