THE FLASH “Girls Night Out” Review

The Flash — “Girls Night Out” Pictured (L-R): Danielle Nicolet as Cecile Horton and Emily Bett Rickards as Felicity Smoak — Photo: Jeff Weddell/The CW

THE FLASH “GIRLS NIGHT OUT” REVIEW

BY JUSTIN CARTER

Episodes about bachelor and bachelorette parties can be kind of a mixed bag. Obviously, for most people, their instant frame of reference for “pre-wedding parties gone wrong” will be The Hangover (or Rough Night from earlier this year, if anyone even bothered to see it). While The Flash doesn’t go the route that comedy trilogy did, “Girls Night Out” has no shortage of disasters for Team Flash, particularly for the women of the group.

Having invited Felicity over for the festivities, her, Iris, Cecille, and a reluctant Caitlin decide to have a fancy dinner. Everything’s going relatively swell until the one-eyed thug Killer Frost beat up at the end of the premiere — here turned out to be named Norvock — barges in, demanding Caitlin meet with Amunet, a metahuman black market smuggler. That’s when Killer Frost emerges, complicating things for the ladies a lot further. Turns out that Caitlin spent her months working for Amunet as hired muscle in exchange for tech that would keep her Killer Frost persona at bay. No one died during Frost’s takeovers, but she and Caitlin are both at war for her body and have been for half a year. Were it not for the bachelorette party, Caitlin would’ve skipped out on town that night to avoid her former boss’ wrath.

Unfortunately, Amunet is someone who doesn’t take too kindly to being ignored, and with Frost on the warpath to kill her, that naturally creates a complicated situation for the ladies of Team Flash-Arrow. Played by Katee Sackhoff with a fancy British accent, our villain has control over metal shards, and a drug plan involving a metahuman whose tears can become an opioid, and is delightfully campy to boot. If not for Danielle Panabaker walking around in a white wig and bright blue jacket for most of the episode, she’d be the most ridiculous looking character on screen this week. But there’s something delightfully goofy about Amunet’s whole ordeal that makes it hard to dislike, so much so that I’m actually able to forgive that she gets away despite having no real reason to be able to get away.

Every Killer Frost storyline eventually loops back around to whether or not Caitlin will give in to her more violent tendencies, much like the Hulk. (Felicity even name drops the green giant, and the timing of this after Thor: Ragnarok makes it funnier.) By episode’s end, Caitlin and Frost have learned to just accept one another and give Cait control when violence isn’t needed. It’s very welcome, in part because it also gives time to spotlight the relationship between Iris and Caitlin and how the two aren’t really friends so much as work friends. Since the show has taken time to address long-standing criticisms, here’s hoping that the two actually do spend more time outside of work, especially since Caitlin’s now Iris’ best man.

Meanwhile, the guys have their own share of bad luck, though not quite on the same level as the ladies. It’s amazing what a guest spot can do for a show like The Flash. In an episode with three major guest stars, each of whom have their own respective amount of star power, the best of the three guests ends up being Hartley Sawyer’s Ralph Dibny, playing the role that only he could in an episode about Barry and Iris’ respective parties with their friends before the big wedding in two weeks. That’s right, he has to play the insufferable douchebag who gets everyone else into trouble, while Barry plays the reluctant groom-to-be and Cisco the exasperated, sensible one. (Joe and Harry are also here, but the former is dealing with being a father of advanced age, and the latter is just there to have a good time.)

With Team Barry’s current bachelor party being to just watch childhood videos of the Scarlet Speedster, Dibny slides into the house in his fancy suit demanding a change of venue, which of course means that they go to a strip club. In all honesty, these parts of the episode are worth it all on their own, thanks to an incredibly drunk Barry loudly calling himself the Flash and crying about chicken wings and an easy fix to the end of Titanic. Combined with Dibny just being an idiot, all of this makes for a very fun and funny episode of The Flash. I’m feeling so much more optimistic about the remainder of the season than I would’ve thought, especially with Barry and Iris’ wedding not far off on the horizon.

Additional Notes

• Thinker actually leaves his lair for once at the end of the episode to capture The Weeper, Amunet’s prisoner. For a guy who just cries drugs, he’s actually vital to whatever our villain of the year is planning.
• Cecille’s daughter Joanie works at the strip club the guys go to, leading to a conversation about feminism and a book about the female form she’s writing. None of that is in my wheelhouse to really get into, but it must be said that Cisco shooting down Dibney’s idea of feminism was hilarious.
• Confirmed by Felicity, STAR Labs’ security is still incredibly terrible. Never change, guys.
• Ads for the upcoming crossover, Crisis on Earth-X, are hitting the various Arrowverse shows. This time, our assorted heroes will face off against Nazis from another universe, because Nazis are so in right now.