The Flash – Hear No Evil review S9 E2
After last week’s fun kickoff to the season, with the focus on Caitlin the season actually gets underway with the usual doom and gloom.
And if there was a clearer indicator that focusing on Caitlin led to long-term damage for the series this episode was it.
Hear No Evil was back to the same old sad sack stories that became the norm for the last two seasons. The Flash is best when it’s just fun and carefree with a hint of drama and tragedy. Caitlin/Frost tended to flip that ratio and the fun moments were just corny.
Team Flash gets introduced to Snow — a blank slate that Danielle Pannebaker tries to differentiate from Frost and Caitlin by…talking…very slowly.
Mark tells Team Flash that Caitlin’s dead. Problem is this series has killed and resurrected so many characters it seems even Team Flash can’t bring themselves to be too emotionally distraught.
Allegra is making the kiss with Chester awkward. it’s weird to have so many flashbacks from the first episode in season 2. At least Joe and Cecile are actually acting like Caitlin is dead.
Mark has a plan to bring Caitlin back. If only we could stop bringing these tired Caitlin/Frost storylines…Turns out it’s just a ruse to also resurrect Frost, but it doesn’t work since the enhanced device CRC can only bring back either Caitlin or Frost.
That means Team Flash gets to vote which one go resurrect, which seems silly. Maybe it’s me but the cast just doesn’t seem that enthused with this episode. They seem to just be going through the motions with what should be a pretty emotional discussion.
Barry extends the invite for Mark to join Team Flash since he can relate to doing dumb and crazy stuff in the name of love.
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That’d be more than enough for this dreary episode, but since we need an excuse to have Barry suit up as a new Fiddler (Magna Apanowicz) is in town.
Fiddler is goes after Hartley aka The Pied Piper, who now runs a nightclub and has a boyfriend for everyone curious. The Fiddler is a terrible character that just yells and shrieks in every scene.
After a brief showdown with Hartley, she teleports away just like Captain Boomerang and chats with Red Death, who it seemed like she called Barry. An evil Barry is something the show hasn’t done before…oh, wait.
Snow offers some half/baked pseudo deep advise on love to Hartley, who sets off after Fiddler on his own.
This is mainly so Barry can be The Flash while Snow gets to decide her fate. You can tell which is the more important storyline based on the time given to it.
With his souped up gauntlets, Hartley beats Fiddler. Good thing for her she’s not working alone. A distraction from Capt. Boomerang allows her to disorient Flash and Piper to steal his gauntlets.
Yeah, yeah, back to the “main” story. Team Flash decides to let Snow figure out her own fate so she decides not to go back into the CRC.
Mark isn’t happy and somehow this clumsily plays out like some woman empowerment moment where Snow talks about free will and making her own choices. And she’s got a name now — Khione.
This show has done a ton of eye rolling moments with Caitlin/Frost over the years but this ham-fisted segment might have been the absolute worst.
For some reason Hartley returns and destroyed the CRC, fully pissing Mark off. I’ve gotta agree with him here and 100% support him joining up with these new Rogues and wiping out some of Team Flash.
It all wraps with Team Flash dancing at Hartley’s club while Boomerang and Fiddler help Red Death stabilize himself so he can survey the city before his dramatic takeover.
The last thing Flash’s final season needed was yet another new character especially another iteration of Caitlin or Frost. Hopefully Khione wont be the dominating character this season like her predecessors or it could be a very long abbreviated season.
Rating: 5 out of 10
Photo Credit: The CW