TV Review: "Gone Rogue," "The Girl With The Red Lightning" and "Legacy"

Here we go with the last three episodes of the fifth season of The Flash. I'm going to guess that perhaps the writers and producers heard some of the fan cry for Season 4 and decided to cut Ralph back to a more supporting character this season. As Ralph has evolved past his sleazy self, it seems many fans have found that Ralph in smaller doses has worked better for them. To yours truly, I know, showing Ralph using his powers means they have to spend money on visual effects. But we had several episodes at a time without him using them at all, so I'd expect several viewers might even forget that he's the Elongated Man.

To me, a far bigger slight to Ralph was the introduction of Sherloque Wells, a detective character. Ralph is a detective character, and a lot of the deductions Sherloque made could've been given to Ralph or other characters. I get that the show loves having Tom Cavanagh around, but in this case, they brought him back to create a new character to take a role in the plot that could've gone to Ralph. I don't know how else they could've utilized Tom, but there certainly could've been a way that didn't undercut another character's development.

In any case, looks like Ralph will still be around for Season 6 and possibly onward in the Arrowverse. Let's hope they do our boy better next season.

 In "Gone Rogue," a Negative Speed Force-influenced Nora (Jessica Parker Kennedy) having become a villain and teams up with Joss Jackam/Weather Witch (Reina Hardesty), Brie Larvan/Bug-Eyed Bandit (Emily Kinney) and Peter Merkel/Rag Doll (Troy James, voiced by Phil LaMarr) to steal a "mirror gun" from McCulloch Technologies. However, once Nora's powers get dampened, her new crew turns on her. It's up to Barry (Grant Gustin) and Iris (Candice Patton) to try to save her.

Meanwhile, Caitlin (Danielle Panabaker) and Ralph discover that the new Cicada has stolen prototypes of the metahuman cure. During their investigation, they have a conversation in which Ralph says he feels he's not destined to have a true romantic relationship of his own and he's all right with that. Caitlin then assures Ralph of his good qualities and that he's worthy of a relationship. (Ralph then comically tells Caitlin that he's not interested in her romantically, and she quickly rebuffs that idea.)

While this episode had some good moments, the overall Rogues team up—a concept many fans have wanted to see—was a bit underwhelming.

 Next in "The Girl With The Red Lightning," Nora uses the Negative Speed Force to tap into Cicada 2's (Sarah Carter) mind and try to find where she is as she prepares to unleash a device that'll kill every metahuman in the country. In addition, Cisco (Carlos Valdes) has found a way to use the mirror gun to destroy Cicada's dagger.

Joe (Jesse L. Martin) and Cecile (Daniele Nicolet) begin letting metahumans who want to take the cure come to Central City Police Department for it. Sherloque (Tom Cavanagh) tries to get his new girlfriend Renee Adler (Kimberly Williams-Paisley) to take the cure.

Ralph, meanwhile, does his own deductions of what they know about the future, Eobard Thawne, Cicada's plans and realizes that something doesn't add up.

This episode proved an exciting and surprisingly well-balanced way to begin to pull the season's plotlines together for the finale. And seeing Ralph's detective skills finally get used was great.

That brings us to "Legacy." With Ralph having revealed to Team Flash that Cicada and Eobard Thawne's plans are linked in a big way, the question is how to stop both Cicada and the Reverse Flash?

The finale brought twists and surprises as well as a number of fan theories panning out. The stage is set for an interesting Season 6, and also some teases for the next CW Arrowverse crossover, Crisis on Infinite Earths. Ralph got a few chances to shine. Some spoilers after the availability notes.

Viewers in the US may view "Gone Rogue," "The Girl With The Red Lightning," and "Legacy" at no charge during a limited availability window on the CW website and app. With the current licensing agreement, the entire fifth season of The Flash will be available on Netflix in June, 2019. Digital versions of the episodes may be purchased on iTunes, Amazon Instant Video, Vudu, Google Play and other retailers of digital video content. Blu-Ray and DVD copies of the season are expected to be available for sale in or by September, 2019.

Non-US viewers should check their local listings, the websites of the channels that air The Flash, and digital video retailers.

SPOILER TALK!

Sherloque hailed Ralph's detective skills and assured Team Flash that they have a great detective on their team. Hopefully we get to see even more of that next season. In addition, Team Flash has seemingly lost a member as Cisco revealed his superhero identity to his girlfriend and then opted to take the metahuman cure. While Cisco's brand of humor will be missed, this leaves a space for Ralph to have more time as a secondary character next season. Speaking of next season, we got a major tease for Ralph as he looks over a new file in his office, with the focus lingering on the name on the file...

We're getting Sue next season!

The Elongated Man's Change-of-Face!

July 1965's Detective Comics #341 brought us a new adventure for Ralph. And for the first time in awhile, you can get this issue on Comixology, and it is also available on DC Universe.

In the letters page, only one of the three letters presented comments on one of Ralph's stories at all. Dick Ruprecht of Pittsburgh writes that "Case of the 20-Grand Pay-Off!" was "even better" than the accompanying Batman story. He calls it the best written and illustrated EM story that he's read. (Despite how horrible I thought Ralph treated Sue in that story.) He says the title explained the story as well as the story itself did, and the story had three positive factors: "terrific artwork, baffling mystery, hilarious action."

Get used to Batman getting most of the glory.

"The Elongated Man's Change-of-Face!" features our familiar crew of Gardner Fox as writer, Carmine Infantino as artist, Sid Greene on inks and Julius Schwartz as editor.

The splash page teases the story with a panel suggesting that someone else might be posing as the Elongated Man. But do they actually have elastic powers?

The opening panel tells us that Ralph and Sue are still staying with Amos Hurd, the "Millionaire Cowboy" from the last story. Ralph decides to visit the nearby town of Powderkeg where he has mining interests. It's a little late in the day for that, so he decides to stroke his ego by going to the newspaper office to see how they've covered his exploits.

While there was a real Midwest City that could fit the bill of the setting of the last story, I can't seem to find a town called Powderkeg. But this is the DC Universe, so who knows how many different places there would be?

In the reading room, Ralph does discover the papers, but finds a strange twist: the papers credit the Elongated Man as being Abner Trotter, a man native to Powderkeg. As Ralph wonders, he overhears the editor of the paper, who is in fact Abner Trotter's father, being coerced into running an extra paper to tell everyone to be at the square at midnight to see them make an example of Abner, who they have captured.

After the kidnappers have left, Ralph confronts the editor who reveals that he knew Ralph had an interest in the nearby mine, so he'd be sure to visit, so he started misreporting Ralph's exploits to get his attention and to keep Ralph off the radar of the Mortons, criminal brothers who've planted bombs secretly across town that will explode unless they reset the timer every ten hours. Since they hold the town hostage, they can do whatever they want without fear of repercussion.

Ralph quickly devises a plan and using a makeup kit that he says Batman gave him, he makes himself up to look like Abner Trotter. He finds the real Abner tied up in the Morton's home and quickly changes places with him, giving him his plan.

When the Mortons arrive, Ralph feigns that he's had to wait for his powers to renew, and one of Infantino's visually appealing fight scenes begins.

Ralph uses his elongating powers to break out of his bonds, punch the Mortons, dive underneath them, then arch his back, knocking the men against the ceiling. Then he uses his legs to force two chairs to take the two others.

Infantino has a shorter and simpler action sequence to do this time, but he handles it with his usual aplomb. The way he draws Ralph's stretching keeps him with normal human proportions that are just long, but do allow him to move in ways normal people couldn't.

Ralph pretends to busy himself so one of the brothers slips away. He brings the other three out, which upsets the townsfolk, but Ralph assures them everything will be fine.

As Ralph suspected, the remaining Morton brother goes to their base with the control for the explosives. He plans to set the explosives off, but he's jumped by Abner, who quickly knocks him out and returning to town, assures them he deactivated the device and found a map where the other bombs are located so they can get rid of them.

The townsfolk notice that there are two Abners now, and when they ask, Abner's father assures them that they can read about it in the paper.

A few panels show Abner's father congratulating Ralph and Abner on working together to take out the Mortons' threat. The final panel shows Sue asking Ralph to tell her about the case, but he tells her to read about it in the paper.

Overall, this isn't a bad story. It's fairly solid, sets up the concept and executes it serviceably. It's just that there's not much else to it. No actual mystery, just Ralph going off of knowledge of behavior of people like the Mortons.

Next time should be more intriguing as Ralph Dibny meets Ralph Dibny, Ralph Dibny, Ralph Dibny, Ralph Dibny, Ralph Dibny, and Ralph Dibny. Also, Sue helps crack a case.