Plot
Joe West is on Black Hole's radar and they hired Ragdoll to kill him. As Chief Singh pressures Joe to go into Witness Protection, Ralph has another encounter with Sue Dibny and discovers her own connection to Joseph Carver's sinister schemes.
Influences
Mission Impossible (the mask Sue uses to become January Galore), The Flash comics of Joshua Williamson (concept of Black Hole) and the Secret Six comics of Gail Simone (character of Rag Doll).
Goofs
Ignoring how free Iris is with revealing her husband's secret identity to a relative stranger, why does she tell Eva that her husband is The Flash and expect her to know who that i? Eva has, as far as Iris knows, been trapped in another dimension for six years and just recently discovered she can refocus her mirror to watch other people?
As quickly as Joe recovers from being shot in the shoulder, you'd think he was the one with accelerated healing instead of Barry.
It's uncharacteristically stupid of Joe to go confronting a suspected crime boss without telling anyone he's doing so. It's even stupider that he tells said crime boss, who employs a small army of metahumans, that he just recorded him confessing to being a crime boss and expect to get out of the building alive and with the evidence intact. This also ignores all issues of whether a secret recording can be considered admissible evidence, particularly as its being recorded by a police officer harassing a citizen, even if Joe DID leave his badge at STAR Labs.
Why is only Joe put into Witness Protection? He knows Carver knows who he is and Carver has threatened his family, so why aren't Cecile and Jenna, at the very least, taken into custody with him?
Cecile's power levels are all over the place and vaguely defined enough that they can do whatever the writers need. Still, it's a bit perplexing that her empathy is so sensitive that she can be shut down from several rooms away sensing Ragdoll's physical pain yet she's unable to sense Eva McCullouch's emotions behind the Mirror World Iris and Kamila or that there's something odd about the two women, given that Wally West and Joe West noticed it without empathy powers.
The CGI for Rag Doll seems to suggest that he's a stretcher now rather than a contortionist.
Performances
Again, the chemistry between Hartley Sawyer and Natalie Dreyfuss is the best aspect of the episode and we're left wishing there was more about them and less about Joe and Barry this time around.
Artistry
The use of music in this episode is fantastic. Strangely enough, the title song isn't in the episode.
Flash Facts
The title of the episode is taken from a My Chemical Romance song.
At one point Ralph makes a reference to the musician Prince. Coincidentally, this episode was aired on the fourth anniversary of Prince's death.
Technobabble
Eva theorizes that a person with a destabilized molecular structure would be able to safely pass through her mirror into Mirror World. This means that Barry could, in theory, pass into the Mirror World and use his speed to take both Eva and Iris back into reality.
Barry determines that the only way someone could cut the brake-lines of a car and cause it to accelerate would be from inside the engine. This could be accomplished by someone capable of compacting their body into tight spaces (i.e. Rag Doll)
Carver has a device on his watch that generates a localized EMP pulse that can erase media in his immediate vicinity without frying the electronics. He uses this to erase the recording Joe made on his phone of Carver's confession to hiring Rag Doll to kill him.
The pressure bomb Rag Doll traps Cecile with is an M112 C4 Block Demolition Charge. Typically pulling the green wire will disarm it, but the version Rag Doll made has four wires and they are all green.
Dialogue Triumphs
Ralph: I need a hacker who can set up a net to help catch her. Somebody who can monitor the security feed. Somebody who speaks bandwidth and knows binary.
Cisco: Mmm - I'm not sure you know how hacking works.
Ralph: Please. I've seen "You've Got Mail" several times.
Ralph: Hello, Sue. Or is it January?
Sue: What can I say? (slipping into a flawless posh British accent) Collateralized loan obligations are deliciously robust. (grinning) Although... not half as delicious as you in a tux.
Ralph: (sighs) Still up to your old tricks, swiping diamonds and pearls?
Sue: Oh, you like Prince? Me too!
Cisco: Yes! Me three!
(Cisco laughs nervously as Ralph slowly turns his neck and gives him a death glare.)
Cisco: I'm Cisco, by the way. We met back when you were... (puts on a falsetto tone and a fake British accent) January Galore? (returns voice to normal) That was an excellent accent, by the way. Do you have any training?
Sue: Oh, thank you. I did my senior year abroad.
Cisco: London, no doubt.
Sue: Oh, Italy, actually.
Cisco: (To Ralph) Oh, she fancy. (To Sue) You fancy!
Sue: (pleased) Yeah, thank you.
Ralph (exasperated, having been doing a slow burn this whole time) Okay!
Carver: Whatever you think I've done, it's a million times worse.
Ralph: You weren't stealing anything in Paris, Shanghai or Central City. You were investigating Carver. And he must have found out their ugly little secret. (mockingly) What, do they lie on their tax returns? Bribe their way into that yacht club?
Sue: (angrily) Enough! Assume whatever you want about me, but don't do it about my parents. They're good people.
(There's a brief pause. Ralph clearly makes a decision.)
Ralph: Then let me help you.
Sue: I barely know you.
Ralph: You know everything that matters.
(Sue pauses as well, clearly coming to a decision of her own.)
Sue: For the record, I didn't enjoy tricking you.
(Ralph gives her a disbelieving look.)
Sue: Okay, I enjoyed it.
(Ralph nods as if to say "That's better." and Sue chuckles.)
Sue: But honestly, I felt pretty crappy afterwards. Why is that?
Ralph: Because you are a good person. Just like your parents. You just have some... issues.
Sue: (laughs) You're so decent, it's nauseating.
Ralph: Oh boy. You should have seen me two years ago. I was a ... I was a real crap bag. Actually, you probably would have liked that, though.
Sue: (thoughtful) I don't know. This whole "good guy" thing you've got going on? It's... tolerable.
Ralph: (mock-insulted) Tolerable.
Sue: Which is why I'm giving you this.
(Sue gives Ralph the diamond she stole when they met. He looks at her, honestly stunned.)Sue: Look into that. You might find something interesting. I did.
Dialogue Disasters
Cecile: What do you think? He's going to come after me too? (This line is said to Allegra after she asks why Cecile isn't taking precautions against Carver coming after her.)
Continuity
The events of this episode start one day after 615.
Ir is revealed that Joseph Carver is aware of the police investigation into him and that Joe West is the lead investigator.
So far, Sunshine has refused to talk about who she works for to the CCPD.
Carver has hired a specialist to deal with Joe West. This is later revealed to be Ragdoll, who was last seen in 520.
Chief Singh asks Joe to back off on the case and let someone else take lead on it. Joe refuses and leaves a family game night to question Sunshine personally.
Iris' body is starting to adapt to the Mirror World, as she can now read monitors and screens in the Mirror World with concentration. Before, it gave her headaches to even look at them.
Iris read Eva's notes and suggests that her husband might be able to phase into Mirror World if they can get a message to him.
Iris tells Eva that Barry is The Flash.
Eva tells the duplicate Iris to get Barry to lose the rest of his speed energy. She doesn't really care about The Flash but can't risk him being able to help Joe West in his investigation of Black Hole before she gets a chance to avenge herself upon her husband.
Since his last encounter with Sue Dibny in 612, Ralph has tracked her breaking into five banks in five locations, each time during a high-class event for wealthy patrons.
Ralph asks Cisco to help him with hacking the computers at First National Central City Bank so he can track Sue Dibny, having figured out that is her next likely target.
Cisco agrees to help Ralph, since he's busy running simulations to get an artificial Speed Force made, he doesn't need to be there while the computers run and he feels like he wasn't there for Ralph early on in the case.
Joe nearly dies in a car crash after his breaks suddenly fail. Barry later determines that his break-lines were cut while the car was in motion. For this to have happened, someone would
Cisco is interrupted in his hacking the server by January Galore - the British arms dealer who saw through Ralph and Barry's disguise in 606. However, she is later revealed to be Sue Dibny in disguise.
Sue escapes from the server room after successfully hacking the bank's computers and gaining access to all their financial records.
Ragdoll enters CCPD headquarters after tucking himself into a box labeled evidence and is left inside the room where Joe is interviewing Sunshine.
Before working for Black Hole, Sunshine was a First Lieutenant in the US Army. She once rescued 14 friendlies from an insurgent work camp and was awarded the Medal of Valor and Legion of Merit.
Ragdoll is able to shoot Joe in the shoulder before escaping, due to Barry not being fast enough to stop all the bullets he fires.
Barry asks Joe to consider going into Witness Protection again. Again, Joe refuses.
Barry asks Joe to at least stay in STAR Labs until he can catch Rag Doll. Joe agrees, but winds up going to confront Carver directly.
The fake Iris nags Barry about not using his powers to keep her father safe and trying to use everything in STAR Labs to find Rag Doll first before just running around the city looking for him.
Rag Doll apparently disappeared after The Young Rogues' attack on McCulloch Technologies. Apparently he's been working for Dr. Carver ever since.
Joe confronts Carver and tries to trick him into a confession. It works, but Carver has a device that erases the recording Joe made on his phone.
Barry reads Joe the riot act for going after Carver alone. He asks Joe to go into Witness Protection but he once again refuses.
Sue Dibny scouts out the Cleary Capital Investment bank under the assumed name Genoa.
Sue speaks Italian.
Ralph tells Sue that he figured out she hasn't been stealing anything from the banks she's been hacking - she's been investigating the man who owns the banks, who has been extorting money from her parents - Joseph Carver.
Sue gives Ralph the diamond she stole in 612 and tells him to look into it to find something interesting.
Cecile sends Jenna to stay with her older daughter, Joanie.
Both Allegra and Ralph offer to protect Cecile if Ragdoll comes after her.
Nash has tried reaching out to Allegra but she refuses to give him the time of day.
Nash saves Allegra from being jumped by Ragdoll.
Allegra tries to blind Rag Doll with a flash but can't quite escape from him.
Cecile becomes paralyzed when she imprints on Rag Doll's physical pain.
Rag Doll hooks Cecile up to a pressure-sensitive bomb.
Joe calls Nash for advice on diffusing the bomb.
Rag Doll reveals that he's not helping Carver for money - only because he's come to enjoy making people suffer and because killing Joe would also give him a way to kill himself in the bombing.
Joe takes Cecile's place on the pressure trigger and asks Barry to run her away from the blast radius.
Joe takes a leap of faith and disarms the bomb by picking a green wire at random.
Rag Doll is taken into custody.
Joe agrees to go into Witness Protection.
Chief Singh is revealed to he a Mirror Double, who has been trying to get Joe off the case and into Witness Protection so as to allow Eva McCulloch to get revenge on her husband on her terms.
Somehow, Eva arranges to have a full-length mirror sent to Carver's office. She talks to him through it. She offers him one more chance to apologize for corrupting her work.
Carver defends his actions, saying that he is protecting mankind, before breaking the mirror.
The Iris clone kicks Barry out of their apartment for not coming to get her so she could say goodbye to her dad before he left.
The Bottom Line
Insufferable on many levels, the best parts involve Ralph and Sue and Cisco. Unfortunately, their plotline is the smallest part of the episode and most of the time is devoted to Joe being much stupider than usual. The irony is that Iris' clone is meant to be horribly out of character, but Iris being unreasonable about Barry not dropping everything to make her happy does seem pretty true to form. Thankfully, the previews show that we'll be seeing this resolved next week.
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