The Flash Season 4 Episode 4: Elongated Journey Into Night Review

If you would like to read Ariba’s review of the last episode, click here.

Synopsis: Cisco is shocked when Gypsy’s father, Breacher, shows up on Earth-1. Breacher takes an immediate disliking to Cisco and decides to hunt him. Meanwhile, Barry runs into his old nemesis, Ralph Dibny. (IMDB)

Writers: Sterling Gates and Thomas Pound

Director: Tom Cavanagh

Rating: TV-PG

Running Time: 43 minutes

This season has taken more of a silly, less serious approach so far this season with varying results. While it hasn’t really worked for the most part, it does have the occasional bright spot. This episode continued this trend but was just way too silly, bordering on plain old weird.

There were two main subplots in the episode. First, Gypsy’s father Breacher (Danny Trejo) happens to show up during a romantic moment between Gypsy and Cisco. Being an overprotective father, he didn’t approve of Cisco.

Second, The mayor of Central City, Anthony Bellows (Vito D’Ambrosio), was running for reelection. He would have a more prominent role in the episode later on. Barry was working on the metahuman bus. Everyone on the bus was accounted for except for the bus driver who drowned in his bathtub. He believed that everything was connected and for everything to happen at the same time, had to be planned by someone very smart. A running gag in the episode started where Barry noticed that Joe was glowing which he of course denied.

Once Barry and Joe arrived at Star Labs, then run into Breacher. In an attempt to impress him, Cisco tells him that Barry is his assistant. He recognized Harry who looked like someone he sent Gypsy to kill (HR) but Harry gets that a lot. There were a lot of attempts at humor in the episode with Breacher but Trejo’s mostly deadpan delivery was not overly funny. Another miss was Harry’s relationship advice which just seemed odd coming from him.

When looking into the dead bus driver, they found a card for a private investigator for whom Barry and Joe had past history at the CCPD named Ralph Dibny (Hartley Sawyer). Dibny was a sleazebag PI who had let himself go a little since he was on the force. He wasn’t fond of Barry and Joe 5 years later. He wouldn’t confirm whether or not he was on the bus but we quickly got an answer once he was held off a rooftop by some thugs and his legs stretched until he could touch the ground.

Back at Star Labs, the team frantically tried to fix Dibny who was stretching even more, his stretched face made Joe puke. Meanwhile, Cisco took Gypsy and Breacher for coffee which failed once Breacher shared his intention to hunt Cisco for 24 hours to see if he was worthy of her. The only thing was that he couldn’t use his powers.

The team wanted to help Dibny but Barry was convinced that Dibny was a villain and that he couldn’t change. While Barry and Iris investigated Dibny’s office to find some of his DNA to cure him, Barry shared a story of their past where Dibny planted evidence to solve a case. They also found a bomb in his desk. After looking into his phone records, it became clear that whoever wanted to kill him may be Mayor Bellows.

Caitlin created a potion that made Dibny go back to normal. When speaking to Bellows, he shared that Dibny was blackmailing him with pictures of him cheating on his wife. Then Bellows told the same two earlier thugs to kill Dibny and whoever was in their way. Dibny needed the money since he had lost everything after what happened. A conversation with Joe led Barry to wonder if he made a mistake with Dibny and if he’s changed.

When Cisco thought he had finally taken care of Breacher with a forcefield that held the Reverse Flash, Breacher still found a way to get out. Once free, he saw Dibny on a monitor and confused him with a race of alien that destroyed his planet.

Dibny later met Bellows to receive his money in exchange for the pictures he had of him. He changed his mind about wanting the money, believing that he wasn’t dirty, but still blackmailed him about going to the cops about the bomb in his office. Breacher of course showed up to try and kill Dibny. Cisco showed up to protect Dibny and Breacher stood down. While this was happening, Bellows took Joe into his helicopter. Since it was too high, only Dibny could reach it. Barry convinced him, by showing him that he was The Flash, and he ran up his arm to get inside the helicopter and stop Bellows.

Then there was a very weird celebration with cigars before Cisco said goodbye to Gypsy and Breacher. He had asked Gypsy what her real name was which she didn’t answer but Breacher let out that her name was Cynthia and also that his name was Josh.

The episode ended with Caitlin getting a message on her door about someone missing her and wanting her to come back soon. Also Barry recruited Dibny to join his team.

Overall, this episode did have its moments, mostly with a new character in Dibny but the rest of it was bad with a terrible script, dialog, and mediocre direction. Now if only they can reign in some of that silliness and tell more compelling stories, then this season could recover.

Score: 6/10

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Keith Noakes

The EIC of the coincidentally-named keithlovesmovies.com. A Canadian who prefers to get out of the cold and into the warmth of a movie theatre.