The Flash: The Trial of The Flash
January 16, 2018 8:53 PM - Season 4, Episode 10 - Subscribe

 
This one was hard to watch. We know Barry is innocent, we [generally] like Barry, and yet we have to sit and watch him be railroaded for an hour. Also, The Trial Of The Flash - the big event that's been teased since Season One, is over in an in-universe day? Barry had no character witnesses to call on? The only way out was to admit he is The Flash? Although the prosecutor would probably find a way to turn that sour, too. If nothing else, Captain Singh should've learned that Barry is The Flash and then he would've been able to do something to help him.
posted by Servo5678 at 6:46 AM on January 17, 2018 [1 favorite]


I did appreciate Dibney’s monologue to Joe, glad they finally addressed that his planting evidence was a Bad Thing not a badge of martyrdom. Now maybe with Kreisberg gone they can retcon away the creep-factor stuff too. (Dibney seemed like such a blatant self-insert what with his ‘quirk’ of stating women’s measurements once it came out how Kreisberg made similar comments about women in the staff.)
posted by oh yeah! at 7:48 AM on January 17, 2018 [6 favorites]


I second the quickie railroading and no defense sucked.
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:00 AM on January 17, 2018 [2 favorites]


This was really frustratingly terrible. "Railroaded" feels insufficient - it's not that the trial was a railroading but that the entire plot is railroading at this point. Except for that one important Joe/Ralph moment, the entire thing could've been replaced with an intertitle that said "There was a trial, and Barry Allen was convicted and sent to jail!" and it would have been vastly better. In particular, "the only way to defend Barry is for him to tell everyone he's the Flash, and he doesn't want to do that, so let's not even try" is beyond stupid, and Cecile should be disbarred for it.

I mean, I suppose we can just imagine that, because DeVoe is so smart, the crime scene was staged perfectly, with blood spatter carefully painted on the walls and floor in just the right spots, and that DeVoe's body somehow showed no signs of having been moved, or of having been dead for some time before the police arrived to find Barry standing over the body. And I suppose DeVoe arranged there to be some totally plausible reason why the police arrived when they so conveniently did, or how exactly the struggle between Barry and a dude with cerebral palsy in a wheelchair played out such that it left the guy lying on the floor behind a table nowhere near his wheelchair. And that somehow there's no way to trace the fact that it was DeVoe who bought that wedding present and sent it to Barry (how did the prosecution even know it was a wedding present?) Basically, they could've addressed all the shit that anybody who's watched even one episode of Law & Order or CSI (a demographic which includes, I imagine, 99.9% of their audience and apparently none of their writers) would wonder about, and by showing how incredibly sophisticated DeVoe's staging of the crime scene was, they could've actually made him seem as smart and formidable as he's supposed to be!

But instead the writers just dialed up to 11 the ongoing problem of the season: the only way they know to make DeVoe seem super-smart is to make everyone else, especially Barry, act incredibly dumb. I never thought I'd say this, but if this is how it's gonna be, they should've stuck to speedsters for villains.
posted by mstokes650 at 9:08 AM on January 17, 2018 [10 favorites]


I mean, I suppose we can just imagine that, because DeVoe is so smart, the crime scene was staged perfectly, with blood spatter carefully painted on the walls and floor in just the right spots, and that DeVoe's body somehow showed no signs of having been moved, or of having been dead for some time before the police arrived to find Barry standing over the body. And I suppose DeVoe arranged there to be some totally plausible reason why the police arrived when they so conveniently did, or how exactly the struggle between Barry and a dude with cerebral palsy in a wheelchair played out such that it left the guy lying on the floor behind a table nowhere near his wheelchair. And that somehow there's no way to trace the fact that it was DeVoe who bought that wedding present

When you adapt old comic books to modern TV, they really need to be completely reimagined.
posted by amtho at 8:33 PM on January 17, 2018


uuuuuugh. this was so duuuuumb.

like, everything mstokes650 said. and then the judge was like "i have never seen such inhumanity", i was like "BECAUSE THE DEFENSE SUCKS and also WTF BARRY CAN YOU LOOK MORE DISINTERESTED IN YOUR OWN FUCKING TRIAL?"

i was expecting sooooo many character witnesses. like there's dozens of people that Barry worked with, they should have paraded every single character, from both sides of his life, out in front of the jury to say "this dude? murderin'? you're kidding right?" i was even looking forward THE FLASH pulling a speed remnant to have a sad Barry (or just use Cisco's lifelike projector and record Barry) sitting there while THE FLASH going "that dude got framed because he was investigating DeVoe on my behalf". COME ON, SHOW.
posted by numaner at 9:07 PM on January 17, 2018 [3 favorites]


but ok that Joe/Dibny speech is goddamn righteous.

also, putting him in the same cell his dad was in was all kinds of drama 401 brilliant. I didn't expect that. but possibly because i was so focused on how dumb that trial was.
posted by numaner at 9:09 PM on January 17, 2018 [1 favorite]


That AV Club review points out one thing that always bugs me about these shows: whyyyy don't you ever think to record your villains when they're being all expositiony?? and Iris used to be a damn reporter!
posted by numaner at 9:13 PM on January 17, 2018 [2 favorites]


Yeah, this was a major 'wtf even is this?' episode for me, apart from Dibny's sudden turn toward basic human decency.
posted by mordax at 9:14 PM on January 17, 2018


All this stupid is compounded by the fact that Savitar told Barry exactly how to defeat DeVoe, the Cerebral inhibitor (which might not work because of the nonsense rules of time travel, but they should still be working on one non-stop!)
posted by FallowKing at 3:14 AM on January 18, 2018 [2 favorites]


The trial was stupid beyond belief for all the reasons stated above, but it did what it needed to do, get Barry in prison by the end of the episode, so in that narrow sense it was a success!
posted by plastic_animals at 9:41 AM on January 18, 2018 [1 favorite]


something something means to an end grumble grumble
posted by numaner at 12:36 PM on January 18, 2018 [1 favorite]


But instead the writers just dialed up to 11 the ongoing problem of the season: the only way they know to make DeVoe seem super-smart is to make everyone else, especially Barry, act incredibly dumb.

So, basically par for the course for The Flash then? I mean, have they ever had a major villain that didn't seem super-smart by way of everybody else being incredibly dumb?
posted by happyroach at 10:20 PM on January 18, 2018


I mean, I suppose we can just imagine that, because DeVoe is so smart, the crime scene was staged perfectly

Which brings up the point that even when Barry decided to not run, he could have used his crime scene investigator knowledge to super-speed clean up the crime scene so everything was not so perfect. Knife - cleaned and put away! Fingernails - cleaned! Other things a genius CSI person would know to do - done!

I also thought Iris would have been recording her confrontation.

Although implausible the trial would happen so quickly and be over in one day, at least it wasn't dumb and dragged out over two episodes. Fine! You got him into jail! Let's get on with it.
posted by mikepop at 9:03 AM on January 19, 2018 [3 favorites]


Other things a genius CSI person would know to do - done!

Right? Gah.

Fine! You got him into jail! Let's get on with it.

At this point, I'm rooting for 'Barry spends the rest of CWverse continuity in jail, while Killer Frost, Vibe and Wally defeat Devoe and move on with their lives.'
posted by mordax at 10:55 AM on January 19, 2018 [2 favorites]


Other things a genius CSI person would know to do - done!

Just who are you talking about here? Surely not Barry "Stupidest Man Alive" Allen. On a good day he can manage to tie his shoes without accidentally erasing a friend from the time stream.
posted by happyroach at 2:05 PM on January 19, 2018 [2 favorites]


« Older Black Lightning: The Resurrect...   |  Movie: Phantom Thread... Newer »

You are not logged in, either login or create an account to post comments

poster