As Sue Dearbon (Natalie Dreyfuss) was introduced and had a storyline in Season 6's second half, she reappeared in the "faux-nale." The question for Elongated Man fans was, would Ralph? We'd heard they'd have another actor play him to write the character off. Was this going to be in this episode or later? Turns out, it was this episode.
The episode saw the culmination of Eva's (Efrat Dor) plans to take over the world with her "mirror minions," as well as the return of the original Harrison Wells (Tom Cavanagh) who'd been killed by the Reverse Flash back in Season 1, years before Barry Allen (Grant Gustin) became the Flash. After the death of the other incarnations of himself from the multiverse in creating the Artificial Speed Force (just don't ask if you're not watching the show), he was resurrected as a "balancing act" of the universe, and returns to help Team Flash revive the actual Speed Force, with a little help from Iris West-Allen (Candice Patton), who was finally extracted from the "Mirrorverse" last episode. Team Flash's combined efforts see Eva defeated and the restoration of everyone who was pulled into the Mirroverse.
Sue arrived fairly early into the episode, revealing to Joe West (Jesse L. Martin) that her parents had been replaced with Eva's minions, and mentions that Ralph is "tracking a lead." (In the first Season 6 episode, it was said Ralph and Sue were staying off the grid.) Later in the episode, Sue arrives with a severely disfigured Ralph, who managed to extract evidence proving Sue's innocence as she'd been framed with killing Carver, Eva's now late husband. He was caught in an explosion, and apparently the CW's Elongated Man can contain a bomb going off in himself, but can't stand over 500 degree heat. Cisco (Carlos Valdes) sees Ralph to a chamber to help him recover.
In the final moments of the episode, Ralph reappeared, now wearing a mask that also distorts his voice (pictured above) as his face still hadn't fully healed. Sue rejects an offer to join Team Flash and says she and Ralph intend to go take down more organizations like Black Hole. Ralph promises he'll be back "when you least expect," and Barry offers to help him and Sue whenever need be.
This is almost where I wanted to see the show leave Ralph and Sue: they're on the road together, working as a team, but seeing Ralph depicted without even a face or an actual voice felt disappointing.
Frankly, I feel this would've been a lot better that if instead of firing Hartley Sawyer, they had demoted him back to guest star and wrote his character off with this episode. The show, even in this episode, often had plots about second chances and forgiveness.
I agree with the cast and crew of The Flash that Hartley Sawyer's old tweets were unacceptable. However, they were in his past. He hadn't physically hurt anyone, and his owning up to what he'd done and acknowledging the need to be held accountable speaks that he'd grown as a person. While it seems his firing greatly crippled his career (he's completely shut down his social media since his tweets were dug up, deleting Twitter and locking his Instagram account, and there has been absolutely no news about him since his firing), in the end, not allowing him to play Ralph one last time hurts the fans more than anything.
I intend to continue watching The Flash as I watch all the other CW shows based on DC Comics, but I do not expect to be writing about the show here unless Ralph comes back.
You probably know the drill about how to get this episode: it'll be on the CW website and app for US viewers for a limited time, or you can buy the digital copy, or wait for Netflix or home video releases.
