The Flash 4.21

‘The Flash’ 4.21 Recap: “You Got Me a Council of Rejects”

Guest star Katee Sackhoff returns to ‘The Flash’ this week. So do Tom Cavanagh, Tom Cavanagh, and Tom Cavanagh.

Yes, the Council of Wells is back, now with even more exaggerated stereotypes. Unable to find a solution to his diminishing intellect, Harry attempts to consult the smartest people he knows – other Harrison Wellses from across the multiverse. He first reaches out to Herr Wells, the German “Dieter” wannabe, who refuses to help because the obnoxious twit has no interest in conversing with someone less intelligent than himself.

Cisco suggests convening a new, better council, which he dubs the Council of Harrisons. Returning from their prior interaction is the descriptively named H. Lothario Wells, who lounges about in a Hugh Hefner robe but talks like Matthew McConnaughey. Newly introduced are Sonny Wells (a Jersey Shore guido who fancies himself the new Andrew “Dice” Clay), and the effeminately French H.P. Wells. Although they’re willing to help, it turns out that they were all kicked out of the original Council of Wells for being unworthy. Indeed, they don’t contribute much beyond suggesting that Harry get in touch with his feelings.

That’s So Metal

Now that the team has figured out DeVoe’s plan to launch satellites into orbit that will turn the entire population of Earth stupid, Barry’s first idea is to simply shoot down the satellites as soon as they launch. The problem is that DeVoe’s hacking power acquired from Kilg%re will counter any weapon they attempt to launch if it has technology of any sort in it. Caitlin suggests recruiting flamboyant villainess Amunet (Sackhoff) to help. Her metal manipulation power is based entirely around magnetism, with no tech involved. The others are skeptical but don’t see a better option.

Caitlin actually has an ulterior motive for wanting to find Amunet. During a previous encounter, Amunet had a genetic splicer device that somehow suppressed Killer Frost from coming out. Caitlin believes she can modify the splicer to do the opposite and bring back Killer Frost.

Iris is obsessed with researching all she can about DeVoe, and wants to publish an article (in her blog, I guess?) informing the city about his evil plan so that the population can… do nothing, honestly. It’s not like there’s anywhere they can go or anything they can do to stop his worldwide desmartening. Nonetheless, she’s adamant about it even when Barry tries to pooh-pooh the idea. Barry prefers to keep the details of what they do secret so as not to cause panic. Frankly, he’s right about that.

Searching for Amunet, Barry and Caitlin first find her henchman Norvok, the guy who’s weird meta power is to make a snake poke out of his eye socket. He says that Amunet hasn’t been around for months. Digging further, they eventually locate her running an underground gambling ring. She’s resistant to helping them until Barry makes her realize that DeVoe’s plan will turn her stupid along with everyone else. Convinced, Amunet agrees to help, but says that her supply of the special metal she manipulates was recently stolen from a storage unit in a train car.

Caitlin pulls Amunet aside and asks for the genetic splicer. In exchange, she offers a free favor from Killer Frost as soon as she’s restored. At first, Amunet claims that the splicer was also taken with all the metal. Later, she confesses that the splicer was just a placebo that did nothing, and Caitlin herself had control over Killer Frost the whole time.

Barry uses his CSI skills to determine that the train car was broken into by Norvok, who has taken over Amunet’s old operation and plans to auction off her special metal. Barry and the team find him in an abandoned substation underground. When Barry tries to fight him, Norvok sprays him in the face with snake venom. He also has a fancy gun that sucks up any metal shards Amunet throws his way. Joe and Caitlin are distracted in a shootout with some mobster types who came to bid on the metal.

Barry is saved when Iris suggests that he phase the poison out of his body (or phase his body through the poison). Amunet manages to trap Norvok in a metal mask and cuts off his stupid eye-snake.

The battle seemingly won, Amunet tries to slip away. She’s not sticking around to help fight DeVoe after all. However, she leaves Caitlin with a ball of metal shards that are infused with her Dark Matter DNA. The ball contains barely enough shards to fire one shot at each of DeVoe’s satellites.

Trust Your Feelings

Heeding advice from the Council of Harrisons, Harry stops trying to figure out what DeVoe is thinking and instead attempts to understand his feelings. This allows him to deduce that the only reason DeVoe hasn’t already launched his satellites is that he’s sad about his wife Marlize turning against him. Perhaps this means that she can be an asset in helping to defeat him.

Caitlin now believes that the solution to restoring Killer Frost will not come from science, but is all mental.

Barry comes around on Iris’ article about DeVoe and tells her to go ahead and publish it. Apparently, the entire citizenry of Central City reads her blog, because it has an immediate reaction of people all over the city responding with stories about their DeVoe sightings. Barry believes this means DeVoe won’t be able to hide from Team Flash anymore.

Episode Verdict

The Council of Wells was a goofy concept when it was introduced, and Tom Cavanagh’s exaggerated hamming is especially annoying (if not possibly offensive) this time around. How are we supposed to believe that these comic relief doofuses are really the most brilliant minds from across the multiverse? Their appearance serves essentially no real purpose to the plot of this episode.

The Amunet stuff is better, and I’d even say that this episode is generally an improvement over the last couple. Unfortunately, that’s not saying much. It’s still kind of weak – especially the bit where Barry gets sprayed by venom. We’re four seasons into this show; how long is it going to take Barry to figure out that he can use his speed to avoid simple attacks like these? That the show is still treading water this close to the season finale is not a good sign.

2 comments

  1. Guy

    Was I misunderstanding things or did their plan to awry? I spent the whole episode thinking they wanted Amunet around to shoot down the satellites with her DeVoe-proof powers/metal shards acting like guided missiles. Barry runs her to one spot or Cisco breaches her, she downs a satellite, they get her to another, she takes it out, on and on. When we got to the end and all they got was a hunk of metal with no delivery system, I’m not sure exactly what they accomplished with her that they couldn’t have done on their own by getting some dense metal and having Barry speed throw some no tech projectiles.

    The Council of Wells is so idiotic compared to the Fantastic Four’s Council of Reeds that I’m assuming inspired it to some degree. To benefit the multiverse, the Reeds were think tanking together to cure diseases, growing entire planets worth of crops in pocket dimensions to solve famine and repairing suns that were causing problems. The gang of Wells are a local theatre comedy troupe that no one in town likes.

    • Josh Zyber
      Author

      Amunet said some gibberish about the shards being infused with her DNA… which I guess means that the others will be able to control them like she does?? Because pseudoscience.

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