The Flash 4.05: Girls Night Out
Lauren Certo and Kristen Kim
Laura Belsey
The structure of this episode of The Flash is rather unprecedented in the
show's history. Not only is it the first episode to not use any of the Flash's
speed powers, but it's the first completely female-centric episode. The women
of The Flash take center stage, both
behind and in front of the cameras. The episode is directed by a woman, and the
credited writers are women. The main villain, Amunet (guest star Katee Sackhoff
from Battlestar Galactica!), is a
woman and has been mentioned in passing at the beginning of the season when we
were checking in on what Caitlin was up to away from Team Flash. The men are
relegated to the B-plot while the women of Team Flash fight the villain.
It amounts literally to a night off for the
Flash, as his bachelor party is first spent at home, viewing old home movies
before heading out to a nice and quiet steak dinner. That is, until new addition
Ralph Dibny gets involved, and judging by his rather crude lifestyle in
"Elongated Journey into Night," means that all the guys head off to a
strip club like many a bachelor before him. The Golden Booty (a simultaneously
funny and revolting name for a strip club) is a place that surprisingly offers
a more low-key approach to the usual storylines intended for Barry and company.
Strippers are present, but they aren't the focus, apart from the surprise
appearance of Joanie, Joe's step-daughter, working as one of the strippers.
This is awkward all around for Joe, though it's easily explained away by the
fact that Joanie is writing some book about "all aspects of the female
condition."
The real treat of the subplot is to finally get
to see Barry drunk. His enhanced metabolism doesn't allow normal alcohol to
make him drunk so Costco has to create his own concoction to make Barry that
way. It was supposed to make him buzzed, but Cisco miscalculated the formula,
and made Barry drunk instead. Drunk Flash is actually quite a hoot, as he
openly declares that he's the Flash to everyone in the joint, and he cries over
the remarkable (and cheap) chicken wings. At least, this is one time where
Barry is tolerable instead of being a stick in the mud to the rest of the team.
The women of Team Flash have their own issues
to deal with. A man with snake eyes comes up to all of them, and while Felicity
mistakes him for a male stripper, tells Caitlin that she has to do one final
task for Amunet. Caitlin naturally refuses, intent on skipping town because she
feels that she can no longer control the Killer Frost side of her personality.
Like the two months where she was absent from Team Flash, or the fact that the
"cure" from last season didn't entirely take with Killer Frost, all
of this information is hidden from her friends, people who could have helped her
weather the storm as it were.
The show feels awkward, even hesitant, to push
Killer Frost forward as the hero of the story (at least for this episode),
partly because it seems uncommitted to having Caitlin embrace either one of her
personas. Caitlin is the boring supporting character who doesn't have much of
an impact on storylines. Killer Frost is the more interesting and lively
personality, but is either evil or an anti-hero depending on the storyline of
that week. Here, the Killer Frost persona takes charge, and she needs to do so
in order to defeat Amunet, whose weapon of choice is a metal "glove"
of sorts made out of metal shards. The episode at least perks up whenever the
two evil personas clash, but it doesn't have nearly enough of that to sustain
the storyline.
Amunet is great to watch onscreen (the series
has been on point with its villains so far this season), but Sackhoff's
absolutely terrible attempt at affecting a British accent is wholly distracting
for me. I don't know if that's a choice on the part of the actress, or the
character was written that way, but it was bad all around nonetheless. Plus,
Killer Frost isn't as much of a factor in Amunet's downfall, as she's defeated
by a giant industrial magnet, so that compunds my disappointment a bit. But
Iris does take more of a leadership role in the episode, which continues the
slow rehabilitation and change of her character in this fun season so far. The
women of Team Flash proved that, for once, they didn't really need the Flash to
come to their aid. They can handle things on their own, and the world will
continue to spin.
- It’s great to get an episode that focuses on the female characters of Team Flash for once
- Katee Sackhoff’s performance as Amunet is oddly off the mark for her