THE FLASH "LOSE YOURSELF" REVIEW

Season 4 Episode 18:

Hey everyone, we are back with a new episode of the Flash directed by Hanelle M. Culpepper. In this episode we see a whole lot of events go down which will result in a major shift in the season going forward, in terms of team Flash, and DeVoe’s plan, all of which I will discuss. Spoilers ahead for this episode of the Flash, let’s recap.

With one bus meta-human left, Barry and Ralph go searching for Edwin Gauss, who Ralph remembers from the bus. Meanwhile, Harry shows the team his new tuning fork, a device to stop DeVoe. When a dimension portal opens, team Flash is prepared to fight DeVoe, however outcomes Edwin. Seeing that Edwin has powers, the team attempts to track him down. Barry, Caitlin, and Ralph go to a hipster community in the wilderness where they find Edwin. DeVoe’s Samuroid shows up and attacks Caitlin. Back at STAR Labs, Caitlin is fine, while Ralph talks to Edwin and he finds out that he can teleport to DeVoe’s lair.

With the tuning fork, Ralph wants Edwin to take him to DeVoe, to kill him. Barry confronts Ralph and knocks him out. In the med bay, Ralph tells Barry, that he wants to take down DeVoe, because he will come after team Flash, and they are the only family he has. Barry, Cisco, and Killer Frost decide to use Edwin to get to DeVoe’s lair, to take him down. In the lair, Barry uses the tuning fork, however, it doesn’t work, as they are confronted by a hologram. The real DeVoe and Marlize teleport to STAR Labs where they take over. Harry juices up his thinking cap, and is knocked down, meanwhile, Joe fights the Samuroid, Iris fights Marlize, while Ralph is chased by a toy dinosaur. Ralph goes to confront DeVoe who took the powers of Melting Point, Null, and Edwin (who he transported into), still having the real tuning fork, Ralph starts to win against DeVoe. Using the DeVoe chair, injured Iris gets Barry, Frost, and Cisco back. The Barry goes down to see Ralph who apprehended DeVoe, not killing him.

DeVoe breaks out, and knocks down Barry, and Ralph, transporting his consciousness into Ralph. Turning the screens on, the team witnesses Ralph being taken over by DeVoe. Cisco and Frost go down to confront DeVoe. Cisco is knocked out, while Frost is turned back into Caitlin. Barry tries to fight DeVoe, however, fails, as he teleports away. With the team failed, Barry goes to pack up Ralph’s PI office. Cisco and Harry test Caitlin where they find that there is no dark matter in her; Killer Frost is gone. The episode ends in the DeVoe lair where DeVoe uses Ralph’s powers to go back to his original form. He hands a tube of dark matter from Harry’s experiments to Marlize, as he looks at the blueprints for his final plan.

First of all, this was a brilliant episode in terms of the story is told, and the visual techniques used to illustrate the story. With the episode we took a deeper look into the character of Ralph, and for good reason. There were amazing character scenes in the episode from the flashback where we saw Ralph as an asshole, to the present, where we reflect on the evolution of Ralph Dibny over the past season and how he has evolved to be an awesome addition to team Flash. I did enjoy the med bay scene with Ralph and Barry. It illustrated perfectly how Ralph wants to take down, kill DeVoe because he knows that everyone else could die, and he would be contempt knowing that everyone else is safe and that he ended his belief that he could be a hero. In that, the ultimate sacrifice would be letting himself go to be a killer all the while he saved the day. The fight between Ralph and Barry in the hallway was great, the CG used looked great. The fight with the dinosaur was a great takedown for Ralph. My only complaint with that was that the pipeline background looked a little fake, it did not look authentic which was a shame. The death of Ralph Dibny was heartbreaking in the episode and made for the best scene in the episode. We saw this sense of satisfaction on the character’s face, knowing he did the right thing, only to see it backfire on himself. The way that the scene played was perfect, especially in having the rest of the team witness the death of Ralph. It was a great way to show the impact the death of the character would have on the team.

Rest In Peace Ralph Dibny, Central City’s Elongated Man. I was sad by the death of the character in the episode. I enjoyed the character of Ralph from his introduction, as he made a neat addition to the team, and we saw the evolution of the character. That end scene where Barry is cleaning out Ralph’s office was heartbreaking. I do wish that in that scene Barry said something to Iris like “What do I tell his mother?” I just wanted a small line of dialogue like that to emphasize the impact of Ralph’s death. It will be interesting to see how much of an impact this has on team Flash.

On the bus Meta-Human board at the end, it had the heading “Victims”, showing that ten of the twelve are dead. People are still wondering about the bus driver. I potentially could have powers. There was no confirmation, but we did see the driver in the flashback of the episode. It is possible that there are 14 bus Meta’s. The 12 that we have seen, the driver, and then Barry Allen himself. Barry being the last bus Meta would be an epic twist, with DeVoe potentially taking over the body of the Flash. The fastest mind needs the fastest body. I suppose we will have to see that play out in the season, but we still have the coffee shop girl who seems like a wild card, which the Thinker would not think of. So she could be part of the solution to taking down DeVoe.

The other ‘death’ of the episode was Killer Frost. DeVoe used the powers of Melting Point (R.I.P) to get rid of Caitlin’s alter ego. I do like the way that the relationship between the two was set up in the episode, with the two leaving notes, and Caitlin figuring out the science behind Killer Frost. I hope that by the end of the season, Caitlin will get her powers back. I am not too sure how that will happen, it could work with Melting Point’s powers and another version of Killer Frost, but we will have to wait to see.

Hartley Sawyer was brilliant in the episode as Ralph Dibny. Best performance in the episode. In having scenes which illustrated the character’s emotional side, we got a sense of sympathy for the character, creating a heavier emotional impact when he died in the episode. I saw Ralph being taken over by DeVoe a while ago, as it would be a solution to bring Neil Sandilands back, but with the performance from Sawyer, this was a heavy episode in killing off Ralph. The rest of the cast of the episode was great. Starring in the episode we had Grant Gustin (Barry Allen/ The Flash), Candice Patton (Iris West-Allen), Danielle Panabaker (Caitlin/ Killer Frost), Carlos Valdes (Cisco/ Vibe), Jesse L. Martin (Joe West), Tom Cavanagh (Harry Wells), Arturo del Puerto (Edwin Gauss), Mirinda MacDougall (Clifford DeVoe/ Izzy), Kim Engelbrecht (Marlize DeVoe/ the Mechanic), and Neil Sandilands (Clifford DeVoe).

In conclusion, this episode of the Flash was one exciting and devastating episode, with the death of the Elongated Man, and also Killer Frost. With great visual techniques and great acting, the episode made a great progression in the season, preparing for the final five episodes of the season. I will give this episode an 8.5 out of 10. What did you think of the episode? Let me know your favorite scenes and characters by dropping a comment down below. You can click on the left for more DCTV, and click on the right for Infinity War. Pour one out for Ralph; as always thanks for reading, take care.