The Flash 4.14 Review – “Subject 9”

The Flash’s fourth season has returned with its 14th episode. When we last saw Barry Allen, he was a man cleared of all charges. Thus ended his time in prison. The prison was an interesting status quo change, not something that would have worked long-term, but as an intriguing diversion. That’s why it’s going to sound contradictory when I say it’s bittersweet that it’s come to an end. I say this because there’s nothing particularly remarkable about today’s episode, “Subject 9.” It feels like any other episode on the show. It also has the problem of having some melodrama and silly dialogue. However, not being remarkable doesn’t equal being bad. Today’s installment is solid, just not super engaging.

It begins with Barry returning to the CCPD department. Everyone is giving him a lukewarm reception however. Barry talks with Captain Singh, and it turns out that the mayor of Central City has asked Singh to put Barry on an indefinite leave of absence. This is an interesting conversion, because Barry continually puts himself in an awkward position. He’s been cleared of all charges, but only because of Ralph masquerading as DeVoe. While it was an interesting plan to free Barry, the ending might not have been thought out because if the team doesn’t out DeVoe as being a criminal mastermind, Ralph would be stuck playing DeVoe. It should be interesting to see how everything gets resolved at the end of the season.

Speaking of DeVoe, let’s discuss the antagonist. So, DeVoe early in the season was portrayed as a wheelchair-bound old man. Then he possessed the body of the younger Dominic Lanse. Both these portrayals worked. His latest possessed body is Becky Sharp. His/Becky’s early scene with Marlize just did not work; it was hard to take Becky seriously in this role. The actress, Stephanie Lyn Beard, did not appear to be having a good time in this early scene. Becky was becoming a compelling character in the last episode before being possessed, so it’s a shame the writing went this route. To be fair, Becky is solid enough in the middle and latter parts of the episode, mainly because the actress is able to bring back the more quirky personality Becky had before being possessed.

The new character is Izzy Bowin. Like Becky, Izzy was on the bus that was hit with dark matter energy. Thus, Izzy is a target of DeVoe. Barry and Ralph head down to the country club to warn her. It’s a fun enough scene, aside from some in-your-face exposition from Izzy that her parents ran away. (That’s definitely an odd thing to blurt out to two strangers.) After failing to convince her, the heroes return later in costume for probably the best sequence of the episode. Becky/DeVoe arrives, but is blown away by Izzy’s meta-human ability, which is generating soudwaves, very similar to Black Canary’s power. Barry commenting that Izzy was able to hurt DeVoe, and Izzy’s reaction was priceless.

Izzy is brought back to S.T.A.R. Labs. In an unprecedented move, Barry reveals his secret identity. It’s a shocking moment, especially for someone whom was adamant about not revealing his identity in court. Yeah yeah, I know: revealing your identity in a public setting is far different than revealing it to an individual, even if that individual is pretty much a stranger. Still, it came off as sudden since it’s only been some episodes since Barry was dead set against revealing his identity. Izzy stays at S.T.A.R. Labs for the day, and trains so she can master her power. Izzy is a fun enough character, other than that forced exposition and cringe-worthy “don’t mess with a country girl” type of dialogue. Moving past that, Barry is being unreasonable when it comes training Izzy; he’s pushing too much on her for her first day and doesn’t even seem to be concerned when she gets injured. Iris notices this, and talks to Barry about it. Iris delivers strong dialogue on the matter. Ever since they got married, the Barry/Iris dynamic has been fantastic. It’s great the show has come to a place where there’s no back and fourth melodrama with the two.

There is a subplot, involving Cecile and Harry. Harry has returned from Earth-2, and Cecile runs into him at CC Jitters. At first, it’s an interesting dynamic because Cecile and Harry really haven’t spoken to another. They have been in the same room with the other characters, but never really talked with one another. The dialogue at CC Jitters at first is good, even genuinely funny: Harry’s smile and then saying “good talk” was one of the funniest moments of the entire show. But, the dialogue quickly goes into silly territory as Cecile opens up about her mind reading ability troubles. This doesn’t have to be goofy, but it is, and continues to be throughout the episode. It would be filler, but Harry’s device to help Cecile ends up being used to fight DeVoe. (It’s a nice tie-in to a scene with Savitar last season.) So, I suppose the Harry/Cecile stuff wasn’t filler. (Though, the device used on DeVoe ends up being useless.) The dialogue between Harry and Cecile could have been great if handled more seriously.

On some last notes, the last encounter with DeVoe/Becky was fun enough, though Barry looks extremely weak yet again. So, Izzy is captured, and DeVoe transfers his consciousness into her’s. Later, Barry finds Ralph being mopey in the P.I. office. The writing wants the viewer to feel for Ralph, but that just doesn’t happen for two reasons. One, how many times have we seen a down-in-the-dumps character in these CW shows? (Harry also has quite a feel “sorry for myself” moments in this episode as well.) The second thing is that Ralph acts like he lost his longtime girlfriend, not someone he just met the other day. The cliffhanger is Ralph giving Barry a P.I. badge. Barry’s reaction is genuinely funny. It then ends with Ralph saying that he’s going to take down DeVoe. A noble sentiment, but a little hard to take seriously from this character.

Overall, The Flash returns with a decent enough episode. There’s some fun dialogue (Cisco saying that the name “Soundwave” was taken by a Transformer was excellent ) and when the action is there, it’s good. The whole DeVoe conflict however appears to be being dragged out now. This episode is more run of the mill and feels like a very small step to achieving something in the plot. We’ll see if next week can throw a curveball and deliver something unexpected.

6.5

The final score: review Average

The 411

"Subject 9" is a decent enough episode with fun dialogue and good action scenes. There isn't anything really remarkable about it though, and ends up being more on the generic side.