“Guys, the particle accelerator turned back on. It’s going to explode!” yells Iris (Candice Patton) to Team Flash as they struggle to deal with multiple problems happening around Central City in season four episode three of The CW’s comic-book inspired series, The Flash.
As the episode begins, The Thinker (Neil Sandilands) is observing a young lady named Becky Sharpe (Sugar Lyn Beard) he calls Subject Two. She’s a blackjack dealer who he says has a defeatist attitude and has the worst luck imaginable. Over the last three weeks, poor Becky walked in on her boyfriend cheating on her, got fired from her job at the casino, and her car was impounded. Becky was forced to take the bus home after losing her car and as the bus pulled away, there was a flash of very bright light.
Jump to present day and Barry (Grant Gustin), Cisco (Carlos Valdes), and Caitlin (Danielle Panabaker) are playing laser tag and losing to a group of obnoxious kids. (Finally, an original Team Flash scene outside of S.T.A.R. Labs!) Afterward, Cisco, Barry, and Caitlin meet up in the park with Joe (Jesse L. Martin), Iris, and Cecile (Danielle Nicolet) for a fast food dinner and that’s when they get an alert that an unauthorized breacher is about to enter S.T.A.R. Labs.
At S.T.A.R. Labs, Wally (Keiynan Lonsdale) is anxiously waiting for Jesse (Violett Beane) so they can have their long-awaited date night when her dad, Harry (Tom Cavanagh), comes through instead. It seems Jesse has sent her dad with a break-up cube that contains a hologram message from Jesse. To make things more awkward, the device doesn’t work so Harry has to tell poor Wally that Jesse thinks he’s great but she needs to work on herself now. With the rest of Team Flash watching, Wally’s heart is broken. Caitlin shoots Harry dagger looks for how horribly he handles delivering the bad news just as a crime alert goes off.
Over at one of Central City’s banks, Becky walks in all smiles. As the song “Luck Be A Lady” plays, a series of bad events happen to those who work in the bank which gives Becky the chance to go into the bank’s vaults and steal some cash. As she leaves the bank, The Flash is racing to catch up to her when a large tub of marbles (what business needs a tub of marbles?!) accidentally spills onto the street and causes The Flash to stumble and fall as though he’s Wile E. Coyote in a Road Runner cartoon.
Team Flash put their heads together and realize Becky is a new meta-human. Her power seems to be a “Good Luck Field,” as Cisco calls it. As her luck improves and things go her way, negative energy – or bad luck – goes out to those close by. Joe asks again where these new metas are coming from because Becky only moved to Central City three years ago. She wasn’t in town when the particle accelerator exploded four years ago. Harry and Cisco realize that somewhere in town Becky had to be exposed to dark matter.
Cisco, Harry, and Barry head out to try to find the spot, using a new device that can detect residue of dark matter. It’s not too long before they do and Barry remembers it’s where he came out of the Speed Force. A bus with 12 passengers was exposed to the dark matter when Cisco and Caitlin pulled Barry out of the Speed Force.
Back at S.T.A.R. Labs, Harry blames Cisco specifically for the new metas, saying he should never have tried to get Barry out of the Speed Force without consulting him. It gets heated between the two and Joe breaks it up when he gets a phone call from Cecile. He tells Barry he needs The Flash to carry him home immediately. When they get to Joe’s home, both Barry and Joe see Cecile dealing with plumbing leaks all around the house. Cecile encourages Joe to sell the house so they can get a new, smaller place for just the two of them.
Barry gets a call from Cisco saying he and Harry tracked Becky and she’s at Jitters. Barry goes to talk to Becky hoping he can talk her down. (He told the team earlier that Becky isn’t the same kind of villain they usually deal with and he hopes to reason with her.) Alas, no such luck. It seems Becky is enjoying her new luck and believes the universe is finally sending her some long overdue payoffs. She also believes that if other people around her are hurt, that’s fine. They can feel what it’s been like for her her whole life. As she leaves, she warns Barry not to get in her way because bad things happen to people who do that.
Barry gets another call, this time from Iris who wants him to meet her at a church. He shows up with a nice new white shirt and tie as she instructed, asking why she wanted him to meet her at a funeral. Iris tells him she wants to get married now. It seems earlier they lost their wedding venue and Iris is afraid if they don’t get married soon, it will never happen. Barry tries to talk some sense into her, but Iris is in panic mode. In one of the funnier scenes in the episode, Iris turns the photo of the dearly departed, who has just been carried out in a coffin, around and asks the priest to marry her and Barry right now. Taken a bit aback, the priest does agree but must stop early on when he breaks out in hives from being exposed to the cinnamon incense the altar boy used. Wedding canceled.
Harry’s working on a way to help Team Flash stop Becky, who Cisco has nicknamed “Hazard,” when Cisco walks in to apologize for the fight they had earlier. Harry confesses to Cisco that Jesse kicked him off her crime-fighting team for being too controlling and strict. Cisco tells Harry he’s part of the Team Flash family and he should stay on their Earth to fight crime. Cisco assures Harry he’ll always have a place with them.
More alarms are set off at S.T.A.R. Labs and Iris yells to the team that Becky is back at her old job in the casino and is having such good luck that her negative energy field is expanding out over Central City. Barry races over to the casino to try to stop her but ends up slipping on some loose change and accidentally handcuffs himself with the power-reducing handcuffs. Over at Joe’s house, Cecile is dealing with one big leak after another, slipping and knocking herself out as Joe tries to get into the house.
Back at S.T.A.R. Labs, the particle accelerator turns back on and starts its countdown. Cisco and Harry work frantically to shut it down but the system is not cooperating. Fortunately, Harry has a mental breakthrough and tells Cisco they should let it explode. He thinks it will temporarily mute Becky’s powers. Boom! The particle accelerator does go off and the wave spreads out stopping Becky’s powers long enough for Barry to get the power-reducing cuffs off himself and on her.
A little later Harry tries to apologize to Cisco and they agree he’ll stay with them on Earth-1. Team Flash will help Harry make a new life for himself with them. As the Team congrats itself on stopping another meta-human, and for figuring out how many are out there, Wally reappears telling everyone that he was on Earth-2 talking to Jesse and he’s realized he needs to leave Central City and find out where he belongs. Barry tells him he understands and that every hero has to discover his own road. Caitlin and Cisco hug him goodbye and Joe tells Wally he just wants him to be happy but that he doesn’t want to lose him. Wally tells Joe he could never lose him and if he ever needs him, he’ll race over in a second since he’s a speedster.
Harry realizes whoever sent the Samuroid to demand the original Flash face him orchestrated it to force Cisco and Caitlin to rescue Barry from the Speed Force so innocent people would be exposed to the dark matter and new metas would be created. The next scene is in The Thinker’s lair where he’s spying on Team Flash from the Samuroid helmet they kept after they defeated it.
In the final scene, Joe goes home and tells Cecile he’s ready to give up his old house. However, Cecile has changed her mind saying when she heard Joe talking about raising Iris and Barry in the house, she couldn’t think about selling it. Besides, she has some news of her own. “Joe, I’m pregnant,” says Cecile to a shocked and speechless Joe.
The Flash Season 4 Episode 3 Review:
Funny, lighthearted, and a little silly, episode three titled “Luck Be a Lady” continues to bring the series back to the formula that made season one such a big hit: some fun humor, a few heartfelt scenes between members of the team, bonding moments, and some exciting heroics. The stand-out performance in this episode goes to the team of Carlos Valdes and Tom Cavanagh as Cisco and Harry. The wonderful chemistry between these two actors make their scenes crack with energy and humor. The way Cisco and Harry argue and call each other names and then apologize and confess what’s really hurting them is a perfect mix of laughs and pathos.
The big surprise in this episode is not The Thinker spying on Team Flash but the departure of Wally aka Kid Flash from the team. To be honest, with Barry back and Jesse off having fun with her superhero team on Earth-2, it’s a fair argument to make that there doesn’t seem to be a storyline for Wally so far this season. The real question is just how long will he be absent from the show. And, will he be missed?
With Team Flash now realizing there’s a mastermind behind the new meta-humans and The Thinker spying on our heroes, it should be interesting to see who makes the next move and just what is the end game for The Thinker.
GRADE: B
More on The Flash Season 4:
– Recap of The Flash Season 4 Episode 1
– Recap of The Flash Season 4 Episode 2
– Recap of The Flash Season 4 Episode 4
– Recap of The Flash Season 4 Episode 5
– Recap of The Flash Season 4 Episode 6
– The Flash Season 4 Episode 7 Recap
– The Flash Season 4 Episode 8 Recap
– The Flash Season 4 Episode 9 Recap
– The Flash Season 4 Episode 10 Recap
– The Flash Season 4 Episode 11 Recap
– The Flash Season 4 Episode 12 Recap
– The Flash Season 4 Episode 13 Recap
– The Flash Season 4 Episode 14 Recap
– The Flash Season 4 Episode 15 Recap
– The Flash Season 4 Episode 16 Recap
– The Flash Season 4 Episode 17 Recap
–The Flash Season 4 Episode 18 Recap
– The Flash Season 4 Episode 19 Recap
– The Flash Season 4 Episode 21 Recap
– The Flash Season 4 Episode 22 Recap
