The Flash: “Mixed Signals”

Hey, they promised a LIGHTER Flash this season!

Flash is solving the wrong problem. Well, it’s sovling the least important problem.


They promised “no speedsters” and “lighter tone”, and they’re certainly deliver on that. “Mixed Signals” is borderline wacky, and “no speedsters” apparently extends to Wally, who deoesn’t get to do shit.

But that still leaves us with two more significant problems. The problems which, had they been addressed sooner, would have mitgated a lot of the “no more speedsters” and “lighter tone” complaints. Sloppy, loose plotting and shitty relationship writing.

The Flash continues to be a loose mess in the plot department. Very little of what happens in “Mixed Signals” makes any damn sense, and only serves to tell us somoene (The Thinker) is making metahumans, and that same someone has a master plan that I’m sure won’t actually make sense at any point. It requires this week’s villain to end up in prison, so instead of having him, say, clumsily rob a bank and get caught and not let anyone know he has superpowers, he instead takes on Team Flash aftr murdering or trying to murder three people he has a grudge against for stealing his malware and selling it for billions. Yes, they said “malware”. Remember what I said about plotting?

While all this is going on, Iris and Barry are going through Wacky But Serious Couples Therapy, in which it’s revealed that the problem isn’t Barry being a constant dick who does things for Iris without asking first, a pattern three seasons old at this point, but rather that Iris is mad that Barry left her to save the world. Which is bullshit.

And while all THAT is going on, Gypsy is hanging around trying to date Cisco, who’s busy trying to save the city, and then there’s some ugly stereotyping meant to be funny and oh god all of this is awful stop it stop it.

So, yeah, hooray for the change in subject matter, and all the boos for that new subject matter being handled by people bad at making TV shows.