The Flash - 'Dead or Alive'

"Look out, it's the fuzz! No offence, Dad."

The pressing arc plot requirement of the season comes out today, and guess what? Barry needs to run faster. Who saw that coming? Anyone?

The twist - because there is one - is that he can't. Julian uses an almost insultingly basic graph to show that Barry just isn't getting faster fast enough, based on their adorable scale model in LEGO. Can I just say that I don't want Julian to go evil again, because they lost something when HR stepped in for Harry, and Julian is bringing snarky back. Also in our setup phase, HR is writing his adventure stories, which make much more a feature of HR Wells and his vortex cannon than 'real life', and Iris wants to follow a story about a gun dealer, despite Barry wanting to focus on her not getting stabbed and Joe wanting her to stay away from the case.

And then an interdimensional bounty hunter with the racially inappropriate moniker Gypsy(1) turns up to arrest Wells for being an illegal dimensional traveler. She has the same powers as Cisco, but cranked up to 11 and in full control, and our boy Vibe falls for her in a big way, while yet and at the same time challenging her to trial by combat for custody of Wells. As well as shock blasts and breach-based teleporting, Gypsy also demonstrates the ability to fundamentally wreck a Speedster's shit (you may recall Reverb doing this on Earth-2,) which will become important later as nobody brings it up again. All of this makes Cisco's chances in a fight against her minimal, especially when it turns out the fight is to the death.

"But after you melt my internal organs; coffee?"

Barry tries to preempt the fight, which doesn't make Cisco happy, then gives Cisco a pep talk about heart and instinct, but it's Julian who comes through, interrupting the love in to show that Gypsy has a weakness in her signature move; Cisco just needs to exploit it. Honestly, she probably could have trashed him soundly still, but the impression - and I like that the show doesn't need to get all explicit about this - is that Gypsy really, really wants Cisco to give in, because she's not heartless and who would want to kill that little woobie face of his? I mean, Eobard Thawne is a complete douchecanoe and he felt bad about it. This gives Cisco time for her to try her 'breach and blast', and take her down in her moment of vulnerability (although of course he doesn't kill her. Duh.)

Elsewhere, Iris ropes Wally into helping with her story, but gets all 'come at me bro' with the gun dealer because she doesn't think she can die until Savitar stabs her. Joe is mad as hell that she messed with the police sting, and worried about this seeming death wish; as he should be.

Gypsy goes home, Barry realises that he doesn't have to be the lone hero and, having seen how effective a viber is against a Speedster, tells Wally - whose speed is increasnig much faster than his own - that he will be the one to save Iris, because seriously, Allen, it is right in front of you.

'Dead or Alive' is a solid Cisco episode with some irritating B-plot. Iris complains about feeling that if she dies in a few months time then she won't have contributed much(2), and she's right, because she has never been written as much more than an emotional prop for Barry. Every so often she remembers that she's a reporter, but the series insists on perpetuating the notion that a 'big story' has to be one related to the business of the genre, rather than covering civic or state political or corporate corruption, or groundbreaking developments in the field of science. It's a series about a crimefighting superhero, so big story = big crimes. Her sudden insane boldness in the face of her apparently fixed future death is not helping the character to seem more serious, and its a shame because after a weak start I can kind of get Barry/Iris, and Candice Patton isn't a bad actor; they just don't know what to do with her when Barry isn't suffering existential angst and she isn't in immediate peril.

(1) Fair shout, she could be Romani. It's never explored.
(2) Or maybe she's just mad because she can't do an expose on STAR Labs illegal and woefully understaffed detention facility.