TV Review: "A Girl Named Sue"

Well, Ralph didn't pop up in "Marathon," the first episode of The Flash to air post-Crisis on Infinite Earths. Would've been nice to see him with Cisco (Carlos Valdes) puzzling over the timeline and geography of the new Earth Prime. Nor did he pop up in "Love Is A Battlefield," although Frost (Danielle Panabaker) did name drop him and his efforts to help her become a better person.

So, that brings us to "A Girl Named Sue." Guess who we meet here? Luckily, the CW released a bumper crop of photos marking the debut of Natalie Dreyfuss as Sue Dearbon, and I'm trying to use them all.

Well, currently Iris (Candice Patton) has been trapped in a Mirror Dimension, witnessing a Mirror version of herself interacting with Barry (Grant Gustin). However, she meets Eva McCulloch (Efrat Dor), the wife of the head of McCulloch Industries who was sent into the mirror six years ago during the Particle Accelerator explosion that created the Flash. Remembering their run in with a different version of Mirror Master in Season 3, Iris tries to help Eva escape.

Ralph, meanwhile, finally finds Sue after searching for her for nine months, which about lines up with the date of the Season 5 finale to now. He finds her in an apartment and manages to be there when there's an explosion. She manages to jump away from the blast.

Questioning her, she reveals she's being targeted by her ex, John Loring, a rich man running a criminal empire in the area. She is trying to get him exposed and captured so she can finally go home to her family without worrying about him targeting them.

Meanwhile, the Mirror Iris is up to some strange plot to reveal McCulloch Industries, but also runs into Nash Wells (Tom Cavanagh), who's been holding down STAR Labs while Cisco's away, but is also seeing visions of Harry Wells, his counterpart from the former Earth-2. Barry is also working with Joe (Jesse L. Martin) on some leads from Iris, which reveals moles inside Central City's police department.

So, "A Girl Named Sue" delivers a very different Sue from the one we knew in the comics. No longer is she just the woman with a rich background who wants to sit out cases. She wants to be in the thick of it, and as she and Ralph discover, they have points that complement each other.

Natalie Dreyfuss is deliciously energetic and clicks with Hartley Sawyer right away, which works very well for the storytelling. I look forward to seeing more of them and their relationship develop!

Sue's plot looks as if it will tie into the big bad story arc this season, and I look forward to seeing her hopefully work more with Ralph and Team Flash.

Well, given how large Team Flash has become, the show is having to have some cast members not appear in each episode (Danielle Panabaker wasn't present in this episode as either Caitlin Snow or Frost, and Tom Cavanagh only appeared in one scene), I might have to retract my determination to do biweekly reviews and just blog when we have an episode that uses Ralph. I will hold off if an episode just has him there and doesn't notably use him.

Viewers in the US may view "A Girl Named Sue" at no charge during a limited availability window on the CW website and app. With the current licensing agreement, the entire sixth season of The Flash will be available on Netflix by June 2020. 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, 2020.

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