The Flash: Null and Annoyed
April 10, 2018 8:00 PM - Season 4, Episode 17 - Subscribe
Barry and Ralph take different approaches to finding the remaining bus metas before DeVoe gets to them. However, Ralph's cavalier attitude frustrates Barry and the two clash over what it means to be a hero. Meanwhile, Breacher returns to ask Cisco for a favor.
Misdirection is my guess. If Harry was actually Thawne then his mind meld with Jesse wouldn't have worked.
Why didn't Barry try talking to Null before trying to capture her? It's worth a shot if it gets her to join voluntarily. They can always capture her later if she doesn't join them.
I thought Ralph's joking and randomness would be revealed as his plan to defeat DeVoe. When your opponent is assuming you will act rationally the way to defeat them is by acting irrationally.
Whatever happened to Cecile? Is she still pregnant and psychic? Can she use her psychic powers to help defeat DeVoe? What happened to Amunet? Is she still coming after Caitlin? What about the mystery woman who keeps bumping into Team Flash? When will we learn more about her?
posted by plastic_animals at 4:44 PM on April 11, 2018 [2 favorites]
Why didn't Barry try talking to Null before trying to capture her? It's worth a shot if it gets her to join voluntarily. They can always capture her later if she doesn't join them.
I thought Ralph's joking and randomness would be revealed as his plan to defeat DeVoe. When your opponent is assuming you will act rationally the way to defeat them is by acting irrationally.
Whatever happened to Cecile? Is she still pregnant and psychic? Can she use her psychic powers to help defeat DeVoe? What happened to Amunet? Is she still coming after Caitlin? What about the mystery woman who keeps bumping into Team Flash? When will we learn more about her?
posted by plastic_animals at 4:44 PM on April 11, 2018 [2 favorites]
i thought the idea was that Harry is very frustrated and feeling limited in his intellect. And thus, he’s now going to do something dangerous without telling the rest of team about it. He’s going to use Thwane’s computer get extra help. Since DeVoe is a planner like Thawne, maybe thawne’s will help.
Overall this show has a hard time making people seem like they have super intellects. Cisco and Katelyn are given acceptable lines for the engineering work they do. But DeVoe and Harry don’t have lines that match their intellect.
posted by about_time at 6:25 PM on April 11, 2018 [1 favorite]
Overall this show has a hard time making people seem like they have super intellects. Cisco and Katelyn are given acceptable lines for the engineering work they do. But DeVoe and Harry don’t have lines that match their intellect.
posted by about_time at 6:25 PM on April 11, 2018 [1 favorite]
ok if I had Vibe's power i would be visiting other Earths all the time when I could and check out dragon farms and all kinds of awesome stuff.
this was an alright episode, but it felt out of sync with the season. like i think focusing on Ralph's style of approach to battles and this whole discussion with his past and how he use humor to hide his fear should have happened like 5 episodes ago, soon after he joined the team. doing that now felt like filler. but at least they got Null.
I think Wells is just using Gideon to boost the mind cap, but it'll lead to something dangerous the team will have to deal with.
What about the mystery woman who keeps bumping into Team Flash?
I think we discussed her back during the Crisis on Earth X crossover, where she first appeared. She's probably Barry and Iris' daughter, another speedster, who went back to the past to meet her parents?
posted by numaner at 1:57 PM on April 12, 2018
this was an alright episode, but it felt out of sync with the season. like i think focusing on Ralph's style of approach to battles and this whole discussion with his past and how he use humor to hide his fear should have happened like 5 episodes ago, soon after he joined the team. doing that now felt like filler. but at least they got Null.
I think Wells is just using Gideon to boost the mind cap, but it'll lead to something dangerous the team will have to deal with.
What about the mystery woman who keeps bumping into Team Flash?
I think we discussed her back during the Crisis on Earth X crossover, where she first appeared. She's probably Barry and Iris' daughter, another speedster, who went back to the past to meet her parents?
posted by numaner at 1:57 PM on April 12, 2018
The jewels in the crown null stole were red (I guess they're supposed to be rubies) weren't they. The ones in the fence's place were green emeralds.
I was expecting Harry to become addicted to the thinking cap, and have it start to alter his mind. I don't know if that's what's happening, if it is somehow channel Thawne or something else, but it won't be good.
I can't remember, did we ever resolve the difference (if there was one) between STAR Labs' Gideon and the Waverider's Gideon?
I was also expecting that if they had Breacher, bounty hunter extraordinaire around while there were looking for two missing bus metas, it might make sense to put him on their trails. But what was I thinking? That would be too smart for this team. It might have been a nice way to ease Breacher into retirement: look your powers don't work, so you can't go after the big bads, but you can use your experience and skills as a tracker and help the rest of your team/department. Seriously, he took his forced retirement way too well.
Speaking of Breacher, doesn't him encouraging Cisco to act as his professional successor break the breaching/parallel-earth jumping prohibitive that exists on Breacher's world?
posted by sardonyx at 4:06 PM on April 12, 2018
I was expecting Harry to become addicted to the thinking cap, and have it start to alter his mind. I don't know if that's what's happening, if it is somehow channel Thawne or something else, but it won't be good.
I can't remember, did we ever resolve the difference (if there was one) between STAR Labs' Gideon and the Waverider's Gideon?
I was also expecting that if they had Breacher, bounty hunter extraordinaire around while there were looking for two missing bus metas, it might make sense to put him on their trails. But what was I thinking? That would be too smart for this team. It might have been a nice way to ease Breacher into retirement: look your powers don't work, so you can't go after the big bads, but you can use your experience and skills as a tracker and help the rest of your team/department. Seriously, he took his forced retirement way too well.
Speaking of Breacher, doesn't him encouraging Cisco to act as his professional successor break the breaching/parallel-earth jumping prohibitive that exists on Breacher's world?
posted by sardonyx at 4:06 PM on April 12, 2018
The girl playing Null looks familiar but I can't place her.
There is nothing wrong with making jokes during a crisis and at some point in a fight, everyone's gotta improv.
Now I'm feeling sorry for the Mechanic getting all Tara'd every week.
I'm confused at how the vibe powers die off with age but Danny Trejo can still hop verses.
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:41 PM on April 12, 2018
There is nothing wrong with making jokes during a crisis and at some point in a fight, everyone's gotta improv.
Now I'm feeling sorry for the Mechanic getting all Tara'd every week.
I'm confused at how the vibe powers die off with age but Danny Trejo can still hop verses.
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:41 PM on April 12, 2018
Exactly that bit about him still being able to come and go from Earth-1 made absolutely no sense in light of what they said about him not being able to use his powers at all.
posted by sardonyx at 6:09 AM on April 13, 2018
posted by sardonyx at 6:09 AM on April 13, 2018
The increasing problem I have with this show is how powerful they make Flash, but then forget about these powers when it's convenient. If you have an entire episode where Flash can effectively stop time for several hours then you should see that power used all the time in limited amounts. Yes it took a lot of effort to do it that long, but there is no reason that once Ralph started annoying him that he couldn't enter freeze-time mode for a (relative) fifteen seconds, take the cuffs from Ralph and put them on Null. Relatedly, even without going to this extreme, he is fast enough to avoid a person walking up to him at normal speed and placing a hand on him, even if he catches it out of his peripheral vision at the last moment.
All that aside, it seemed to me that Null's powers worked inconsistently. When Flash gets touched the first time, even if we assume a breech-hop back to Star Labs a fair amount of time passes while they have a conversation and Harry explains that the dark matter Null got into Flash's system would wear off - i.e. she is nowhere nearby and does not need to sustain the effect. The second time, it appears her effect on Flash is broken the instant Ralph puts the cuffs on Null instead.
posted by mikepop at 11:28 AM on April 13, 2018 [2 favorites]
All that aside, it seemed to me that Null's powers worked inconsistently. When Flash gets touched the first time, even if we assume a breech-hop back to Star Labs a fair amount of time passes while they have a conversation and Harry explains that the dark matter Null got into Flash's system would wear off - i.e. she is nowhere nearby and does not need to sustain the effect. The second time, it appears her effect on Flash is broken the instant Ralph puts the cuffs on Null instead.
posted by mikepop at 11:28 AM on April 13, 2018 [2 favorites]
I'm confused at how the vibe powers die off with age but Danny Trejo can still hop verses.
He can hop and vibe, but he can't do the blasts anymore, which is the most offensive power that "vibers" have. This is one thing that actually makes sense in the show. They showed Cisco developing his powers in that order, vibing, universe hopping, and then energy blasts. So as he got stronger, he could do it all, and as Breacher gets older and weaker, you would expect that he would lose those powers in the reverse order.
The increasing problem I have with this show is how powerful they make Flash, but then forget about these powers when it's convenient.
preaching to the choir man, preaching to the choir.
They've shown him doing the air cyclones with his hands to stop falling before, I dunno why he couldn't do that to either soften his own fall, or upwards to decrease his floating rate.
posted by numaner at 12:36 PM on April 17, 2018
He can hop and vibe, but he can't do the blasts anymore, which is the most offensive power that "vibers" have. This is one thing that actually makes sense in the show. They showed Cisco developing his powers in that order, vibing, universe hopping, and then energy blasts. So as he got stronger, he could do it all, and as Breacher gets older and weaker, you would expect that he would lose those powers in the reverse order.
The increasing problem I have with this show is how powerful they make Flash, but then forget about these powers when it's convenient.
preaching to the choir man, preaching to the choir.
They've shown him doing the air cyclones with his hands to stop falling before, I dunno why he couldn't do that to either soften his own fall, or upwards to decrease his floating rate.
posted by numaner at 12:36 PM on April 17, 2018
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Oh, yeah, and I guess other stuff happened, floating Flash, haha very funny. Also always a treat to see Dr. Carson Beckett again.
But back to the important matter - Thawne: back or not?
posted by Servo5678 at 4:55 AM on April 11, 2018 [1 favorite]