The Flash: Elongated Journey Into Night
October 31, 2017 8:12 PM - Season 4, Episode 4 - Subscribe

Cisco is shocked when Gypsy's father, Breacher, shows up on Earth-1. Breacher takes an immediate disliking to Cisco and decides to hunt him. Meanwhile, Barry runs into his old nemesis Ralph Dibny.
posted by oh yeah! (12 comments total)
 
I think Trejo's scenes would have been better if the other actors had actually been physically present when they filmed. Acting alone his dialogue came across as choppy and unnatural and there's something unsettling about never seeing his face in the same shot as anyone else. At least they had the consideration to use a stunt double and green screen near the end to make it seem like they filmed on the same day.
posted by FallowKing at 9:34 PM on October 31, 2017


I liked this one too. I actually feel like The Flash is back on track this season.
posted by mordax at 12:52 AM on November 1, 2017


Ugh all the stuff with Dibny made me CRAZY, all the dithering about whether maybe he's a good guy blah blah blah oh well Boring Caitlin believes in him so there must be some good after all. NO! He framed someone! You shouldn't frame people even if you believe them to be guilty! If a fellow law enforcement professional does this, you need to tell people! This is not a grey area! He had a speech about how actually he was so good and just trying to help and it made me fucking nuts because they were clearly trying to set him up as a character who deserved a second chance but he was just an unrepentant misogynist douchebag who tried to frame someone and he did NOT deserve a second chance and Barry's about-face to "well I've always hated him but now we can be superhero friends" was so forced and stupid. Dibny doesn't seem sorry about anything except that he got fired. Everything about him and his relationship with Barry was terrible and I hated it.
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 6:03 AM on November 1, 2017 [3 favorites]


Yeah, this was such a fun episode otherwise, could they not have spent a few more minutes in the writer’ room to come up with a less repellent backstory for Dibney?
posted by oh yeah! at 7:25 AM on November 1, 2017 [2 favorites]


Like, why not make it that Dibney had been framed by Mayor Dirtbag for something the mayor did when he was still a cop, and Barry was too much of a rookie to know who the real scumbag was? Just anything else, ugh. I mean, I know the Arrowverse is shamelessly pro police/vigilante brutality and secret prisons, but, yuck.
posted by oh yeah! at 10:35 AM on November 1, 2017 [1 favorite]


I concur Dibney's kind of a douche/Poor Man's Jim Carrey, and yet, I enjoyed the heck out of this episode. This may be one of my favorites ever (last favorite was the musical). It was a hoot. Also amused that this was the episode that caused vomit.

I still don't care about Joe having a random baby though. This show needed an infant to deal with? Oh, more like pregnant woman in danger probably. Unless they magically age the kid into Wally II or whatever.
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:30 PM on November 1, 2017 [2 favorites]


Really annoyed about the baby storyline, although Joe displaying the various symptoms of pregnancy was mildly amusing.

Cigars? People really do that still? ugh...but that aside, she's a grown adult with a high-profile professional career as a DA. He has grown kids and this is just an "oops, yay!", not a conversation between adults and a planned for event.

I do like that this season is more fun than previous ones, but Barry is still an idiot. Is he meant to be an idiot?
posted by idb at 7:48 AM on November 2, 2017


Same with the cigars on Legends--who smokes cigars any more? Not a whole lot of young'uns.
posted by jenfullmoon at 1:47 PM on November 2, 2017 [1 favorite]


Also, it's not like they can actually show anyone smoking one.
posted by jenfullmoon at 1:48 PM on November 2, 2017


Becky's still locked up. JUSTICE FOR BECKY!!!
posted by Pendragon at 7:02 AM on November 3, 2017


The guy playing Dibny is the first time I looked at a Flash character and said "that is EXACTLY what that comic book character would look like in real life". And I'm glad they twitched his nose at the end.

I miiiiiight be getting tired of Barry being post-Speed Force weird. On the other hand, the casual way he dealt with the cops shooting at him and Joe was pretty perfect.
posted by hanov3r at 4:41 PM on November 3, 2017 [1 favorite]


This episode had so many pluses and so many minuses.

As hanov3r mentions, physically the guy cast as Ralph is perfect, and I don't usually say that about casting choices in the DCCWverse. But then he acts like cut-rate Jim Carey in that terrible Batman movie (dead on jenfullmoon), and that shouldn't be Ralph's style at all. He's not slick or slimy, he's more on the goofy side. To make matters worse, they turn Ralph into a a gropey, sexist ass. Why? And especially why now? Yes, I realize Flash writers can't predict news cycles, but come on, it's not like this stuff came out of the blue. We had Trump. We had Cosby. We had all the Fox news abuse. This stuff is in the air already. It didn't need to be dumped on Ralph.

And yeah, I'm with Mrs. Pterodactyl, in that I was hoping Barry had messed Ralph up and not that Ralph was dirty. That would have made a much, much stronger plotline. If we can see this, why can't the writers? Especially as Ralph has historically such a strong good guy and nice guy.

But the we had the cool comic book stuff this show should do more of: vibrating through buildings with Iris, pulling bullets from the air to save Joe, Ralph taking a bullet to the face, and finally Barry using Ralph as a ramp. I mean if you're going to do a sci-fi comic show, that's what it should be.
posted by sardonyx at 5:15 PM on November 4, 2017 [2 favorites]


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