‘The Flash’ Episode 1.12 “Crazy for You” (8 out of 10) Starring Grant Gustin, Candice Patton, Rick Cosnett, Danielle Panabaker, Carlos Valdes, Tom Kavanaugh, and Jesse L. Martin. Guest starring Andrew Mientus, Britne Oldford. Written by Aaron and Todd Helbing. First broadcast February 3, 2015.
Last week’s episode of “The Flash” introduced us to a villain who I had disdained for years, the Pied Piper. As they’ve done with many characters, the showrunners have taken a rather silly character and turned them into a compellingly watchable one. So even though there is a new villain this week, my favorite scenes were with Piper/Hartley Rathaway. Even then, there wasn’t so much happening with the villains as there were with the core Flash Family — Barry Allen, Caitlin Snow, and Cisco Ramon.
Barry’s been nursing his wounds ever since Iris moved on to Eddie. And that happened in the first episode, so…for the entire run of the series so far. I think we’ve all been wanting him to move on. Caitlin has been mourning the loss of her fiance Ronnie for the entire run of the series. Which in my opinion is more legitimate than mooning over a childhood crush, and she does it better than Barry does. In any case, you have these two wounded attractive twentysomethings, who go out drinking together at a karaoke bar, and end up…not together. Turns out there’s a whole hashtag for their shippers, #Snowbarry. Like the #Olicity hashtag for “Arrow” fans, I guess there are people that want Barry and Caitlin together. I did not know this.
Their karaoke moment was cute, kind of meta, knowing that Grant Gustin came from “Glee,” and he kind of kicked her ass. Vocally. His skillz attracted the attention of Linda Park, a sports reporter in Central City who in the comic books ends up coupled with “Kid Flash” Wally West. So another DC Comics character portrayed in live action! Score! Linda and Barry flirt some, go on a date, and that’s about it.
The new villain in town is “Peek a Boo,” a teleporting villain introduced in the comics in 2002. She works well on TV, and my sons liked the idea that she can teleport Nightcrawler-style, but only where she can see. She carries a telescope to give her greater reach, and can also use it as a nightstick to beat the crap out of good guys. I kinda like her. More than I think I should. In any case, she busts her boyfriend out of prison, the same prison where Barry’s dad is getting beaten up for trying to help the cops get some inside info.
This is normally the kind of episode I hate, where a lot of small things are happening, but there’s not a strong central story to hang the smaller things on. Here, the small things are significant enough that it comes together. Cisco frees Pied Piper from the S.T.A.R. Labs prison to get more information on Firestorm, in the interest of helping Caitlin. We also get to see Cisco using some “Vibe” technology for the first time, and even though it ends up backfiring, we’re seeing him progress towards his own heroic mantle. We do get more about Firestorm, and it looks like next week’s episode “The Nuclear Man” will give us everything else.
There’s a great moment in prison between Barry and his dad in the infirmary, where dad basically says “look, I know you’re the Flash, I know you’re doing great things, I’m proud of you, go tear it up,” without actually saying that he knows Barry is the Flash. But he so does. It may just be my dad-ness talking, but that was a strong moment for both characters.
Even though the biggest things that happen in this episode are still quite small — the almost-date between Barry and Caitlin, the moment between Barry and his dad, Cisco’s tentative steps towards superherodom — it’s all still entertaining, it’s fun, and it has more heart in it than you’d expect, somehow without it turning into a soap opera. Still loving this show.
The “stinger” for this episode — the last 90-second scene at the end of each episode, the one my DVR cuts off and is usually Dr. Wells doing something suspicious — is one I’ve been waiting for all my life. Or…since the pilot episode of “The Flash.” We proceed through dark sewers with municipal employees, rounding corners, then we see GRODD grodd GRODD GRODD grodd scrawled on walls, scratched into the surfaces…and come around a final corner to see an enormous gorilla, who savagely attacks the poor guys who are just doing their jobs.
Gorilla. Freaking. Grodd.
I can’t believe they’re really using Grodd. I don’t know to what extent, or when, or if he’ll be talking, or mind controlling, or what. But dammit, they’ve got a big ol’ ape, and it’s Grodd, and I love it.