This week’s episode of ‘The Flash’ features the return of guest stars Wentworth Miller and Katie Cassidy, both playing alternate-Earth versions of their original characters from this franchise. Sadly, it also suffers the return of Sad Barry. Haven’t we gotten enough of him yet?

The episode title ‘Fury Rogue’ suggests something much more playful than we actually get. Instead, it’s a whole lot of crying and angst.

After his attempt to inject his Thinking Cap with Dark Matter failed, Harry discovers that he’s now losing his intelligence. He effectively has a form of dementia, and it’s only a matter of time before there’s little of his mind left. Naturally, this is an especially big problem for the guy whose job is to be the brains on the team. He feels guilty and useless, but he’s afraid to tell anyone at first. When Cisco approaches him about building a second Thinking Cap, Harry plays along for a while but sabotages the cap. Eventually, he confesses to Cisco about what he’s done and what happened to him. However, he begs Cisco not to tell anyone else yet.

Iris drags Barry back to couple’s therapy. He tells their therapist that he’s experienced so much death and loss in his life that he’s not fazed by Ralph’s death. Neither Iris nor the therapist believe him.

In the pocket dimension, Marlize is happy for her husband’s victory and wants to take a moment to celebrate with him, but DeVoe is even more cruel and dismissive to her than usual. He repeatedly berates her for her inferior intelligence, and orders her to, “Leave the thinking to me.” Ouch.

When they detect pocket dimensions opening near Tracy Brand’s lab, the team determines that DeVoe must be trying to get Neil Borman (a.k.a. Fallout, the meta who almost had a nuclear meltdown) next. Without Killer Frost to cool him down in case of another emergency, Barry and Cisco travel to Earth-X to ask Leo Snart to help, allegedly because they need his cold gun. However, later we’ll learn that Cisco has a backup cold gun at S.T.A.R. Labs, so the whole excuse for Leo’s visit seems like BS. As they jump through Cisco’s breach to Earth-1, Siren X – the evil Nazi version of Laurel Lance – follows them through.

In the lab, Leo learns about Ralph’s death and lectures Barry about the importance of grieving. Barry doesn’t want to listen.

Caitlin builds Fallout a nuclear containment suit, which looks like a simple off-the-shelf Hazmat suit from the show’s wardrobe department. Barry and Cisco concoct a plan to transport Fallout to a secure A.R.G.U.S. facility, but it never occurs to them to use either Barry’s speed or Cisco’s portal power to move him instantly. For some reason, they think it’s a better idea to put him in a truck and drive there slowly.

DeVoe monitors all this with some frustration. It was his plan all along to trick Team Flash into moving Borman, but not to A.R.G.U.S. He attacks the truck, using his various powers to lift it off the ground and smash it back down again. He taunts Barry, who tries to use the Sonic Scepter on him, only to discover that Ralph’s elastic cells allow DeVoe to resist the sonic blast without harm. He seems to be undefeatable now.

Suddenly, Siren X enters the scene and attacks the whole lot of them using her own sonic power (which looks really goofy every time she opens her mouth to scream). DeVoe is knocked back and immediately retreats to his pocket dimension. Siren X confiscates the truck with Borman, Joe, and Caitlin inside, as well as Snart’s cold gun.

DeVoe is furious. Although he anticipated Siren X’s attack, Barry was supposed to defeat her. What he didn’t predict was that Barry would be so distracted by his grief over Ralph that he can’t put up much of a fight anymore. Marlize chides her husband that, for all his intelligence, he doesn’t understand normal human feelings.

With a cockamamie plan that amounts to a suicide mission, Siren X drags Borman, Joe and Caitlin to CCPD headquarters and makes Borman take off the helmet to his containment suit. She then blasts him with her sonic waves in order to trigger a meltdown. Barry races to the scene, but Siren X knocks him down and Barry freezes in despair. Fortunately, he eventually comes around and hits Siren X with a speed-punch. Caitlin grabs the cold gun that Siren X had stolen, and Leo arrives with the backup gun. The two of them blast Borman until he cools down and they can get him back into the containment suit.

The crisis averted, Barry finally has a good cry and admits that he feels responsible for Ralph’s death. Leo has to head back home to Earth-X because he’s getting married to his boyfriend, Ray. As a wedding gift, Cisco gives him a special breach brooch that will allow him to visit anytime he wants.

Realizing that she misses Killer Frost, Caitlin runs some tests and determines that she has no Dark Matter in her system but Killer Frost is still in her DNA. She just has to figure out a way to bring her out again.

Harry announces that he’s leaving for Earth-2 to visit his daughter while he still remembers and can recognize her. Cisco tells him that he wants to help jump-start his brain, but only if he tells the team what’s going on.

Barry goes back to therapy and cries some more.

Borman is transported to a secret lab where he’s plugged into a VR simulation of a tropical beach. It seems to be run by A.R.G.U.S. , but I guess this is not the same A.R.G.U.S. facility the team was originally going to transport him to, because DeVoe now seems pleased that his plan worked out after all. He declares that emotions are useless and he hates them. Marlize turns and cries.

Episode Verdict

This episode’s pretty much a dud. The important life lessons that Barry learns about grief are redundant to things we’ve already been through plenty of times in the past. The entire plot could have been avoided if either Barry or Cisco had simply used their powers to transport Borman rather than put him in an easily-highjackable truck. A fan could easily skip this episode and not miss much of importance.