Flash: The Elongated Knight Rises - Review and **SPOILERS**

Written By: Sterling Gagtes and Thomas Pound

Directed By: Alexandra La Roche

First Aired: January 23, 2018

Last week we finally got the CW version of the trial of the century in the incredibly dull and surprisingly stupid episode - The Trial of the Flash. 

Long story short, Barry decides its better to keep his secret identity hidden and serve life for a crime he didn’t commit and in doing so leaves his new wife and friends to pick up the pieces and Central City without its most experienced hero. I mean it’s not like another meta crisis won’t hit Central City and ruin hundreds, maybe thousands of people’s lives. And I’m sure Barry, always the quick study, will dabble in some timeline fixes to save the day, in the process fuck shit up for the rest of Earth. 

Remember last time when he caused Diggle’s son to become Diggle's daughter and when his timeline dabbling caused Cisco’s brother to die? Fucked up right?  And those are only the ones we know about. I’m sure some lonely janitor at CC High has a vague memory of a timeline where he was doing important work with Doctors Without Borders while his wife was negotiating DACA protections for nearly a million people.  Well that fucking timeline is gone thanks to that asshole Barry Allen’s meddling. 

I am 100% convinced that the current state of shittiness we find ourselves in is all due to Barry’s fucking around with the timeline.

Anyway. Barry was sentenced to life and is officially off the board for now, which leads me to have high hopes for tonight’s episode. Less Barry is always good.

You can read the full recap of last week’s episode here.


Caught up? Good let’s jump into this week’s episode.

Explain It:

This week we start things off at Iron Heights where a riot had broken out in Barry’s wing of the prison and instead of joining in the fun Barry is sulking around his cell rocking that Ethan-Hawke-I-might-be-on-heroin-because-I-can’t-grow-a-full-goatee look.  According to the hash marks Barry is cutting into the wall to count the days it appears that it has been a week since they locked Barry away. 

I wonder if Central City is in shambles.

We quickly find out that shit is about the same. Some dude who looks like the love child of Jim Norton and an Irish rapper from the southie section of Boston is holding up a bank and he has hostages folks. While Donnie Wahlberg here is making his demands we hear people sneaking out. It turns out that Ralph is there to save the day. Ralph frees the hostages and pretty much eats the bomb protecting everyone in the vicinity from the explosion.

Now, back at Star Labs, Ralph, who should be basking in the glory of his new found fame, finds himself in a state of the ennui because of his weak as fuck uniform and lack of alias. Iris and Caitlin try to cheer him up by giving him shit about being awesome. Cisco on the other hand is behaving like a moody prick because the writers are hell bent on ruining everything that was once good about this show.

Back at Iron Heights Barry is cosplaying EFIL4ZAGGIN era NWA. He is trying to mind his own business when some prick who seems like a low rent version of Moriarty from BBC’s Sherlock starts talking to him. Turns out he is The Trixter's son, a character who was apparently in a past episode, but not an interesting enough criminal of the week for me to commit to memory. 

Anyway, Trixter Jr wants to be buddies with Barry but Barry is all “I just want to keep my head down and do my time” like he was in Blood In, Blood Out or some shit. Unfortunately for Barry he accidentally get mud on the kicks of one of the cool kids and now has jail yard beef. Also WCW/WWE legend Goldberg is in Iron Heights and I bet Barry and Goldberg will become besties by episodes end.

Iris visits Barry in the clink in what has to be the shortest visiting hour ever. Old girl was around for like 45 seconds before the announced that visiting hours were over. Either Iris needs to plan better or Iron Heights has the world’s worst visiting policy. The whole conversation is Iris telling Barry that she misses him and Barry being like “It’s all good babe” and Iris looking at Barry like muthafucker my first fiancé was killed and you are doing life, I am starting to worry that I am to heroes as Eryrkah Badu is to rappers.

Trixter Jr is brought to the infirmary with gastrointestinal issues. Turns out some Nurse Jackie looking bitch poisoned his pudding as part of a plan to break him out of the joint. Of course Joe gets the case which leads to an awkward moment with Barry. Barry does his Barry thing of being like “let me fuck things up under the guise of helping” and Joe is all like “bruh why don’t you sit this one out”. I love Joe.

Back at Star Lab, Joe hips team Flash to Trixter Jr’s escape and it turns out that the faux Nurse Jackie is actually his mom. Back in the day she went by Prank, ran with Trixter for about 9 or so months then broke the fuck out. Do the math bruh. Trixter knocked her up and told her to beat it. So she dipped and raised her kid in the Midwest where he must have spent his days shopping at Hot Topic in the Mall of the Americas. Because that is the only thing that will explain his terrible fashion sense.

Anyway Joe rattles off a list of last known hide-outs, a list that included an abandoned toy factory called Clark’s Toys which happens to be where they are hanging out. Do you think Cisco or any of these other assholes checked it out? Of course fucking not. If they did we could have knocked this shit out in 22 minutes.

Back at the toy factory Trixter Jr. acting bratty because he misses his dad, who is famously played by Mark Hamill and wants to know when he is showing up. Meanwhile I am screaming at the TV that he died on ACTOO!!!! (spoiler alert Star Wars nerds). Mom/Prank who is apparently on her meds and thinking clearly, tries to explain that Trixter Sr. is a dead beat piece of shit but Trixter Jr. is all "FUCK YOU MOM! I'M GOING TO MY ROOM!", but before he storms off he sees footage of Ralph on TV and he realizes that he needs to cause a scene by taking Ralph down to win his father's love. This folks, is why you never go to get cigarettes and then decide to ditch your children.  They end up looking for love and approval anywhere they can get it.  It's like a fucking Faster Pussycat song bro. 

Barry is jazzercising in the prison gym when he runs into trouble, remember that cool kid who's shoes he muddied?  Well he came through with his crew and they are out for their pound of flesh (FlashFlesh). Just as Barry is about to get got Jim Ross screams WAIT IS THAT GOLDBERG!! as Goldberg wrecks the cool kids and clears the ring!  Turns out Goldberg helped Barry because Henry, Barry's dad, helped him back in the day by removing his appendix in an emergency prison surgery. Now as far as Goldberg is concerned, his debt is paid. 

Trixter Jr. manages to hack into the Central City airwaves and does his poor man's joker impression then starts throwing exploding handballs around as he calls out Ralph who is still flying high after taking down House of Pain back at the bank. Ralph calls Trixter Jr. Fall Out Boy and boy did I fall out!  

Ralph manages to take Trixter Jr's first few blows, but then Trixter Jr. blows a metaphorical load of goopy acid all over Ralph's leg and ralph is rightfully freaking the fuck out!!! IT BURNS!!  Cisco vibes a portal and comes in to save the day.  This sends Trixter Jr. spiraling out of control like the bitch that he is. Luckily, Mom decided not to take her meds for 15 minutes (literally) and she is suddenly back to being a 2nd rate Harley Quinn.  What the fuck is wrong with the pharmacists on these shows, do they not provide the proper doses?  I am assuming that she has been on her meds for years including a dose she took that morning, it just seems odd that by lunch time she would suddenly be a different person right?  Are they just giving her sugar pills?  I always assumed it was a slow process rather than a fucking light switch....I might be looking at this a little too hard. 

Meanwhile, team fucking stupid, I mean team Flash, is still trying to figure out where these raver kids are hanging out despite the fact that it was the very first of the last known hide-outs that Joe mention and STILL NOBODY FUCKING LOOKED THERE???  You guys are really fucking dicks, how you managed to get only a few hundred thousand people killed is beyond me.  Lucky for these dolts, Trixter Jr with his new sidekick "Youtube mom with too much energy" give up there locale with their fake ass Double Dare game show where instead of making families dig around in fake snot for flags, they are just going to melt some migrant workers with Trixter Jr's patented acid jizz, the perfect game show for Trump's America. 

Cisco and Caitlin are ready to rumble but Ralph is hanging back, Cisco even tries to entice him with a new suit, but Ralph is like "FUCK that noise, that acid shit hurts and I'm not about to get a facial of that shit." but more PG, I mean it is a kid's show after all.  Iris decides to lecture Ralph about how she knew Avatar was going to kill her last year and she walk right up to him like the brave girl she is.  She left out the part about spending an entire fucking season trying to avoid the grisly fate. Ralph is like Fuck that and breaks the fuck out to Iron Heights with hopes to spring Barry.  Barry being Barry gives a self righteous speech full of bullshit platitudes about bravery, which seems to work, probably because Ralph is a bit dim. 

This whole time Harry is working on some sort of neutralizing agent for the acid, which I am not sure how he is going to deliver from Star labs, because the acid vat is a stand alone item on the fucking roof of the factory, but I am sure he will use some sort of inter-dimensional magic, or we, the audience will just pretend that coming up with an idea is the same thing as implementing it. 

Back at the toy factory, Trixter Jr. and "Youtube Unboxing Video Mom" capture Caitlin and Cisco and of course they talk to long before killing them. And of course Ralph saves the day. And of course nothing happens to him because Harry somehow stopped the acid from working from all the way across town. And of course the gang foiled the Trixter Jr. once again. 

Ralph gets a second chance to meet with the press and this time he accidentally names himself the Elongated Man, which sounds like a shitty porn movie, so I'm all for it. 

Back at Iron Heights Barry and Goldberg have a moment, they are totes bonding bro, I think they might be in line for the WWE Tag Team title when they get out. Goldberg tells Barry that his father would be proud of him, which is a weird thing to say to a guy who is doing life for murdering a differently-abled fellow. Iris and Barry share one more moment. Barry uses his speed to get through the glass and hold hands with Iris. 

We end with Cisco and Ralph taking a trip to everyone's favorite coffee shop CC JITTERS!, neither of these assholes thought to bring their wallets so they are arguing over who should pay, when an nervous teenager offers to buy their coffee for them. She rambles on about some pay it forward shit and Cisco and Ralph bounce with gifted coffee. The teenager sits at her table with a knowing smirk and starts drawing some sort of cipher in her note book.  Looks like we were all wrong, Ted Cruz was NOT the Zodiac Killer, it was a sweet faced teenager!

Why Barry Allen Is An Asshole This Week:

So, Iris is a fucking mess, she misses Barry, she longs to spend a moment with him outside of Iron Heights. When she visited at the end, Barry was able to vibe his way through the prison glass and hold her hand, supposed to be a sweet moment right?  WRONG!!!  My question is this, last week he was able to bring Iris into the speed force with him for a good 5 minutes in front of everyone in the court and nobody was the fucking wiser because it seemed like a millisecond to them. Why not just do that shit now. I'll tell you why, because Barry Fucking Allen gets off on withholding.  You could spend hours together in the speed force, a fucking lifetime and nobody would ever know and get conjugal with it bruh?  

6.5/10