Flash Review: “Untouchable”

Death stalks Joe and Iris.

Next stop: Gorilla City.

Title: “Untouchable”

Director: Rob Hardy
Writers: Brooke Roberts, Judalina Neira, Geoff Johns

Grant Gustin as Barry Allen / The Flash
Keiynan Lonsdale as Wally West / Kid Flash
Danielle Panabaker as Caitlin Snow
Carlos Valdes as Cisco Ramon / Vibe
Candice Patton as Iris West
Tom Cavanagh as HR Wells
Jesse L. Martin as Joe West
Tom Felton as Julian Albert
Matt Anderson as Clive Yorkin
Danielle Nicolet as DA Cecile Horton
Riley Jane as Joanie Horton
Caitlin Stryker as Laura Stone
Violett Beane as Jesse Wells/ Jesse Quick

Premise

As Kid Flash steps up his game, the team faces a metahuman who can cause decay and old age with the merest touch.

High Point

This week’s episode features a villain decidedly different from past threats, and actually dangerous to speedsters (among others). In the end he was dispatched, but he managed to be a credible threat along the way, and he wasn’t another speedster.

The episode ends with one of the best teasers possible.

See, here’s the thing. The CD-DC shows cannot compete in quality with Marvel Netflix. They lack the budget and weight The Expanse and the intelligence of Orphan Black. What they can do is deliver comic-book fun, attached to characters credible enough that we can care. For me, Arrow is too CW-emotey and Legends too silly, and usually unable to plausibly use its most powerful characters. But Supergirl and The Flash, when they work, do so because they find a sweet spot, and they’re allowed to be fun in a way that more serious genre television cannot.

Low Point

The threat ended a little too easily, especially given the potential of this villain. Even in a show where people can vibrate through solid matter (which doesn’t really make sense but, yeah, Supergirl can fly and Barry can vibrate through the empty space between atoms and Aquaman somehow communicates with a vast range of creatures, but only if they live in the sea), this show tossed about the comic-book science a little too liberally.

The Scores:

Originality: 3/6 Clive Yorkin’s power set (like Yorkin himself) has been seen in comics before, but he represents an original threat for this universe.

Effects: 5/6 Good, with some obvious CGI.

Acting: 5/6 The actors generally do well. I could do without dialogue quite so explicit as Wally saying he’s going “out of the way where I can’t screw up again,” and I suspect the actors could as well.

Story: 4/6 The story had suspense. York sometimes acts as foolishly with his powers as DC-CW’s heroes, taking complicated paths to accomplish things he could do easily.

Emotional Response: 4/6

Production: 5/6

Overall: 4/6

In total, “Untouchable” receives 30/42