Television

FLASH SPOILER Review: Episode 7×12- “Good-Bye Vibrations”

The Flash (7×12)- “Good-Bye Vibrations”

Written by:         Kelly Wheeler & Jeff Hersh

Directed by:       Philip Chipera

Time for Season part two, let’s see how they do.

Episode opens with Cisco and Kamilla gathering the team up to tell them they’re leaving…

As in the next day. Not going to lie, this is kind of a dick move, Cisco. Just remember this is how he told them as the episode plays out.   

Anyway, Kamilla going to show her pictures in San Francisco and Cisco’s taking over as director of science and technology at ARGUS so they’re moving to Star City.  Barry, Iris and Caitlin do an admirable job of being happy for them all things considered before Cisco leaves to show Chester his new responsibilities as STAR Labs master of gadgets. AKA the props department. Our dumpster diving inventor is understandably excited. But he’s still sad to see Cisco go and tells him as much.

Cisco heads back to his office and sees that Barry has done him a huge favor by packing up his stuff before Caitlin comes down to give him a going away message from Frost and get his ID badge and access codes and the guy that dropped a bombshell on his friends twenty-four hours out suddenly gets indignant that his friends are having trouble processing.

Meanwhile across town, some girl dressed up like Rainbow Brite puts a whammy on a banker then gets him to give her a (very likely impossible to cash considering the amount) cashier’s check for ten million dollars. Caitlin and Barry discuss her robbery and it seems her power is to basically pump your brain full of happy hormones. Cisco sees them discussing things and offer his help for old time’s sake.

Over at the bank, team Investigative Journalism is also working on the new Rainbow Raider’s robbery to see what they can dig up and get a few leads before Allegra heads off to question a police officer he knows while Kamilla stays behind to apologize to her boss for quitting on no notice (like a normal person would, Cisco) and offering to help Iris replace her.

Back at STAR Labs Cisco breaks out his book of villain trading cards (that they never really did enough with to be honest) to talk about our new Rainbow Raider’s powers and his feelings that her powers are similar to Roy G Bivolo’s powers so he thinks they can maybe use the same flashing light sequences to cancel out her powers.  He then tries to have a nostalgic moment with Barry and Caitlin but Caitlin and then Rainbow Raider herself put a stop to that.  She’s robbing a jeweler now. 

Barry and Cisco catch her coming out of the jeweler with a suitcase full of goodies but she’s not robbing anyone. She’s got a good excuse, she’s totally out to make people feel better. You know who else has a perfectly “good reason” for stealing from people, lady?

Everyone who steals from other people.

Anyway, Rainbow Raider puts the whammy on some valet and he starts to steal a sports car. I assume to recreate this scene from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off…

So Barry has to stop him and rush him off to the hospital. Leaving Cisco behind to use his light board to cancel out Rainbow Raider’s powers. His attempt is unsuccessful and when Barry returns he finds Cisco has been whammied.

Back at STAR Labs, Cisco is drunk on happy while Caitlin explains how her powers work to Barry and how they differ to the previous Rainbow Raider’s powers aside from affect.  Barry decides he’ll monitor the satellites for her next attack but first they call in Chester to babysit drunk Cisco.

Up in the Control Room, Caitlin has tracked Raider out to a Ferris Air Strip and found a possible name for our thief, Carrie Bates.  Unfortunately, before Barry can get to her drunk Cisco arrives and hacks Barry’s head-up display with a legally distinct Nyancat…

See the source image

That slows him down so Raider gets the jump on him and applies, you guessed it, the whammy.  This is going so well that Caitlin’s probably wondering if she can get a new job herself.  Good thing Chester arrives with a new version of Cisco’s light board to undo (some of) the damage.  With a clear mind, Cisco figures out that Raider is going after a stealth blimp…

You read that right. A Stealth. Blimp.

Here’s hoping it will be just the weapon needed to defeat the Kaiser and bring our boys back from World War One. Diana needs all the help she can get.

When Barry asks if maybe Cisco could talk to ARGUS to get some help defeating Rainbow Raider and her L.E.D. Zeppelin Cisco turns indignant again and runs off in a snit. He comes back later to read Caitlin and Barry the riot act (because it’s apparently them that have been unreasonable) for how they’ve treated him. Caitlin and Barry apologize for how unreasonable they’ve been. (I’ll be back, Uncle Jason needs to take a cussing break) Caitlin then explains that they were trying to put on a brave face so Cisco wouldn’t feel bad for (what would look like to them) skipping out of town in the middle of the night.

Anyway, the power of hugs resolves their issues. Well if Hugs are good enough for Jack in Mass Effect 2 they can probably resolve this too.

Cisco explains the vision Psych gave him that started him wanting out of Central City and how he’s afraid everyone is learning a growing but him but Barry reassures him that he’s a born leader and he’ll do great at ARGUS. Cisco then quips that he’s a man on a mission and that gives Barry an idea of what Rainbow Raider intends to do with her Stealth Blimp. (Smirk)

She’s been fired from collection agencies for cancelling people’s debt which mean she’s totally altruistic. Now she plans to drop all the money and loot she’s stolen on downtown as people leave the football stadium. Cause that will help people, Carrie. Nothing helps people more than starting a riot.

Barry, Cisco and Allegra head downtown and use some leftover Nash gadgets to get them up on the blimp and make quick work of Raider’s powers using some meta-dampening cuffs but unfortunately not before her and Allegra’s powers combine to fry the computer controls. Strangely enough, Raider starts monologuing after she’s been defeated and Barry explains he’s not going to put her in jail but in city government… Great so six months from now she’ll be in jail, all Barry’s done is add extra steps.

Meanwhile, Cisco has to fix the blimps controls and he does so with enough time to stop the blimp from crashing into the football stadium and the day is saved from the most strangely constructed evil plan I’ve ever seen.

Later, Cisco arrives to debrief the gang but only Chester is there which give him and Cisco one last moment for Cisco to officially hand off the keys to the Team Flash Tech Guy Kingdom and take one last moment to look around STAR Labs. 

Over at the Citizen, Iris, Kamilla and Allegra are met but Cecile and that reminds me. Way back at the beginning of the episode Allegra saw in one of Kamilla’s pictures of the bank that Cecile was at the scene but when they ask her about it she acts a little squirrely.

At Barry and Iris’ place it’s Barry, Caitlin, Joe and Cisco. Joe gives Cisco a heartfelt Joe-goodbye-speech and Cisco gives the gang some of his hipster T-shirts before some Lady Gaga karaoke to call back to the pilot one more time before we say goodbye to this episode.

But before we can, Cecile has a very spooky run in with someone in a picture frame.

So that was… Something.

What an odd episode to send Carlos off with. I appreciated the sentiment and there were some good send-off moments but this story was weird.  Everything from Cisco getting mad that his friends couldn’t seem to process him leaving in a matter of hours, to Rainbow Raider’s “noble” motives. (All stealing ten million dollars from a bank is going to is put those regular people that are struggling in serious financial jeopardy as their bank’s reputation is shot. And what are people supposed to do with stolen jewelry?) Last there’s the stealth blimp…

See the source image

This episode’s story could have used a little more time to cook in the idea and script phase.

This just wasn’t good.

I hate being a downer, I try to be as positive as possible in these reviews but at this point I just don’t know what else I can say. This season has been pretty shaky, I haven’t been this baffled by the show since the Savitar arc started spinning its wheels. Things are just not clicking and I am starting to feel worried they’re aren’t going to get the show back into gear this season. I know Flash has been renewed for an eighth season and from what I’ve heard a lot of people expect it to be the last season well if things keep going as they are that will become a certainty.

Flash can be better.  I know this because it’s been pretty damned good, even great in the past as recently as the first episode of this season. It’s just a matter of getting there.

Things We Learned:

  1. Cisco has left Central City to head a department at ARGUS.
  2. The second Rainbow Raider has been given what amounts to community service for her crimes.
  3. Cecile is in the midst of some sort of psychic pursuit.
  4. Frost is still undergoing test with her and Caitlin’s mother.

Questions:

  1. Exactly what will Cisco be doing at ARGUS?
  2. What is the Cosmic Emergency Management Agency and what does it do?
  3. How is Kramer going to react to the DA’s creative sentencing?
  4. Whatever happened to Roy G Bivolo?

Just another guy on the internet.