I think most audience members would pull a Flash and try and pick bullets out of the air to protect Martin if we needed to, and this episode is just further reinforcement of that. And that doesn’t even take into account Joe’s cool, calm, and collected waltz into Carver’s home, or the look on his face after he saves first Cecile and then himself from that bomb. Grant Gustin brought it in that scene as well, and it’s great watching Barry and Joe argue, knowing that ultimately both of them are right (“You know I’m not proud like that.”). We had two spectacular, intimate, heart-wrenching moments with Joe and Barry earlier in the season, and this time we get to see them go at it. Martin has delivered several of his best performances as Joe this season, and this might be the highlight. “What? No snarky comeback? Ohhhh because I’m right.”īut that aside, we all know the truth: this is a Joe West episode. I could watch Ralph and Cisco or Ralph and Sue all day, and while I’m not TOTALLY sure that a Moonlighting-esque “Dibnys” show is the strongest pitch on the pile, I’d certainly give it a shot if it came to that. It’s exactly the kind of palate cleanser that’s necessary after some of the other heavier goings-on of the episode. But really, while the Ralph/Sue stuff should feel like a diversion, it somehow doesn’t. Let me be perfectly clear, when I say “finding time for its entire cast” in this case I specifically mean Ralph and Sue.
But with “So Long and Goodnight” it has some pop in it, and for the first time in months it’s like all of the elements of the series that work so well are working together again. While Supergirl found a renewed sense of purpose and Legends of Tomorrow is quite simply the absolute best, The Flash has felt like it’s cutting corners at times, a real shame after how strongly it started. Of all the Arrowverse shows, this show has seemed to be the one hardest hit by the Crisis. So what did this episode do right? Well…by finding time for its entire cast for starters AND by remembering to put Barry in costume. But “So Long and Goodnight” is the kind of episode that proves me wrong. I was starting to worry (especially after the meandering, unfocused hour that was “The Exorcism of Nash Wells”) that without the inherent ticking clock of that Crisis-teasing newspaper headline that The Flash was going to run out of gas. More importantly, it returns with a strong episode, and in fact its weightiest one since the conclusion of Crisis on Infinite Earths.
The Flash Season 6 Episode 16Īnnnnnd….we’re back! After The Flash had to go on a production hiatus because of this little pandemic you may have heard of that affects everyone from regular folks to CW TV superhero stars, which (among other things) caused this episode to get pulled from the schedule for a month, the series has returned.