So Ralph (Hartley Sawyer) gets his own episode and it’s, for some reason, a James Bond send-up. He and Grant Gustin are in tuxedos trying to stop Bond villain wannabe (literally, the guy wants to be a Bond villain, it’s part of the narrative) Carlo Rota from selling a doomsday laser to some one percenters. It’s really dumb, but slightly charming just because Sawyer’s charming. Gustin can be charming too but not here. He just wants to Flash-up and take out the villains but after six seasons of fighting superpowered adversaries, he can’t take on a bunch of Eurotrash. It’s kind of humiliating, actually.
Meanwhile, Tom Cavanagh has a subplot about convincing Kayla Compton to use her superpowers to prevent the upcoming Crisis and maybe give the regular cast time to film their Crisis crossover appearances. It’s a lousy subplot mostly because it meanders and seems pointless. No one was missing Compton since her last appearance and Cavanagh’s “Nash Wells” adventurer character somehow manages to be even slighter than his Quebecois trash Sherlock Holmes riff last season.
Then Danielle Nicolet gets a subplot with Brandon McKnight about him waking up from a black hole-induced coma and trying to ask out the barista he likes. It’s not well-written—nothing in the episode is well-written—but Nicolet’s good and McKnight’s fine. Nicolet’s psychic powers are off because she feels lost in her career or something—doesn’t matter—but it works out thanks to the actors.
In fact, the episode ends on solid enough ground if it weren’t for big bad and terrible actor Sendhil Ramamurthy showing up to set up the cliffhanger, it might even be a success. Or as close as season six “Flash” is going to get to a successful episode. It’s really too bad for Sawyer, who props up the show quite a bit these days. Maybe he’s a big James Bond fan?
McKnight’s a whole lot less annoying than regular cast member Carlos Valdes these days… maybe the show’s prepping for Valdes and Danielle Panabaker (who directed the episode and does a fine job) to depart.
Fingers crossed anyway.
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