THE FLASH "THE ELONGATED KNIGHT RISES" REVIEW

Season 4 Episode 11:

Hey everyone, we are back with a new review on the latest episode of the Flash which focuses on Ralph Dibny becoming a hero, almost his coming of age story. In the episode, we see the return of the Trickster, some references to the 90's flash show, some Superman references and an awesome ending which marks the first appearance of a character on the Flash show, however not in the Arrowverse. So spoilers ahead from the episode, let's recap.

The episode opens in Iron Heights prison where a riot is going on. Barry is not participating in the riot but instead uses his powers to put all the inmates in their cells. In Central City, Ralph Dibny stops a hostage situation and gathers press around his act of heroism. Back at the prison, Barry meets Axel Walker, the Trickster, son of the original Trickster. In the courtyard, Barry accidentally messes with one of the inmates. Barry is called by the guards and is taken to the Inmate meeting room where he has a conversation with Iris. Later that night at the prison, Axel is taken to the medical lab, where the nurse reveals herself to be Axel's mother, Zoey, who breaks Axel out of prison.

The next day, Joe goes to the prison to investigate the breakout and have a talk with Barry. Back at STAR Labs, Joe tells the team that Axel's mother was the Prank, who worked with the original Trickster back in the day. Meanwhile, Axel and Zoey hide out in an abandon toy store. Axel watches the tv and sees the Elongated Man. Axel tells his mother to get the attention of his father he will take down the Elongated Man and reign terror on Central City.

Back at Iron Heights, Barry is about to get beat up by some inmates in the gym, however, another inmate steps in and take down the prison bullies, protecting Barry. Meanwhile, STAR Labs gets a video from Axel who lures Ralph to fight him. Ralph gets breached to the street where Axel uses a water gun to spray some acid on Ralph, injuring him. Back at STAR labs, Ralph is getting healed up, however, is worried that he is not invincible. The team gets another message from Axel and his mother, Prank, who have some hostages they threaten to kill with acid if Ralph does not come to fight them. Ralph says that he is not going to fight Trickster and Prank as he could get killed.

At Iron Heights, Ralph sneaks into Barry's cell where he tells him that he needs to sneak out and be the Flash. Barry says "no" but instead gives Ralph a pep talk that the biggest injury would be not saving the innocent. At STAR Labs, Cisco and Killer Frost suit up to save the hostages while Harry creates a substance to neutralize the acid. Cisco and Killer Frost start to free the hooded hostages, however, it is revealed that Axel and Zoey were the hostages, and then the two tie up Killer Frost and Cisco. Back at Iron Heights, Barry uses his superspeed to save the man who saved him before, from the same thugs. Barry learns the victum's name is "Dave" and Henry Allen saved his life as a surgeon in Iron Heights.

Meanwhile, Ralph shows up to STAR Labs where Iris gives him his new suit. At the toy store, Ralph shows up for action. He takes down Axel and then the acid starts to come down from the tube over his team mates. Without fear, Ralph stretches over Killer Frost and Cisco and the acid hits Ralph, however, he is not disintegrated as Harry neutralized the acid. While Axel and Zoey are being taken away by Joe, Ralph answers questions from the press and they officially label him "Elongated Man".

Back at Iron Heights, Barry has another chat with Iris, and when the camera is not looking, Barry phases his hand through the glass to hold hand with Iris. The episode ends in Jitter where Cisco and Ralph don't have money for their coffee. The waitress from Barry and Iris' wedding come forward and pays for the coffee. We then see the girl write in a book the same language Barry was writing when he came straight from the speed force.

Overall, this episode of the Flash was an interesting one. For one I loved the stories of the episode, however, they were quite diverse in the tones. We had the light-hearted campy Elongated Story and then we had the darker more depressing story about Barry in prison. However, the pep talk Barry gave Ralph, really tied the stories of the episode together and worked well into having these drastically different in tone stories a reason to be together in the same episode. The episode, however, dod have some weird music cues, especially when the Trickster was on screen. And in the episode, there were some odd choices of camera shots, but they were outweighed by some of the awesome camera shots used in the episode. However, a thing that was not too great in the episode was the CG, not so much on Ralph, but on the acid going through the tube, it looked pretty bad. But at least we now have an awesome comic book suit for Elongated Man, even though the suit looks more Plastic Man.

In the episode, there were lots of references. We, of course, have the title of the episode being a reference to the Dark Knight, Batman himself. Ralph opening up his shirt to reveal his suit was a reference to the classic Clark Kent to Superman transformation, and there was also a "kryptonite" shoutout, which is a reference to Ralph being one of the only members to not meet Supergirl. The Beebo animatronic toy that was in the episode was a toy that appeared in Legends of Tomorrow 309. In the episode when the team was looking through old Trickster reports, the images used were from the 90's tv show where Corinne Bohrer played the sidekick to Mark Hamill's Trickster.

The ending of the episode was insane. So we saw the same woman before in Supergirl 308, where she was a waitress at Barry and Iris' wedding. In that scene, she told Barry to definitely say "I do". From that scene, everyone has speculated that this mystery female is Dawn Allen, the daughter of Barry and Iris, and it was revealed that the actress who plays her, Jessica Parker Kenedy, would be coming back to the Flash. In the episode, she helped Ralph and Cisco pay for their coffee. It seems like she did the act from knowing how they were friends of her father and how they were also heroes. She also tried to play it off like a coincidence that she meets Ralph and Cisco. The language she was writing is the same as to what Barry was writing when he was in the speed force. We have speculated that the symbols are related to the Thinker, so it is possible that Dawn is trying to crack the code to stop the Thinker, or another theory is that Reverse Flash style, Dawn is stuck in 2018 and that the mystery code is her key to getting home.

The cast in the episode was great as always, we had Hartley Sawyer in the lead as the Elongated Man, I liked the performance he gave as we saw how he truly becomes a hero. The rest of the cast was great as usual, we had Grant Gustin (Barry Allen/ the Flash), Candice Patton (Iris West-Allen), Jesse L. Martin (Joe West), Carlos Valdes (Cisco/ Vibe), Danielle Panabaker (Caitlin/ Killer Frost), Tom Cavanagh (Harry Wells), Bill Goldberg (Dave), Ricard Brooks (Warden Gregory Wolfe), Devon Graye (Axel/ Trickster), Corinne Bohrer (Zoey/ Prank), Jessica Parker Kenedy as "Mysterious woman", who am I kidding, she's Dawn Allen.


In conclusion, this episode of the Flash was looking to be a little clumsy in terms of the handling of the tones in the plot, however, it all came together with some great dialogue in the Ralph and Barry pep talk scene, and it showed how the two drastically different tones could fit into one episode. This episode also offered a great ending, setting off so much speculation. I will give this episode of the Flash an 8.5 out of 10. I would like to hear your thoughts on the episode down in the comments and what are your theories on the Jessica Parker Kenedy character, comment below. You can click on the left to learn about Kid Flash going to Legends of Tomorrow, and you can click on the right for the latest Supergirl review. As always thanks for reading, take care.
                 

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