“I’m going to hunt you,” says Gypsy’s father (Danny Trejo) to Cisco (Carlos Valdes) who hates – yes, hates – the fact Cisco is dating his daughter in season four episode four of The CW’s comic-book inspired series, The Flash.
As the episode begins, Cisco and Gypsy (Jessica Camacho) are getting pretty serious with their make-out session. Cisco tries to get her to reveal her real name and Gypsy tells him to forget about it and to lose his clothes as she goes to use the restroom. Unfortunately, this is when Gypsy’s dad breaches through and almost kills Cisco before Gypsy’s able to stop him.
Barry (Grant Gustin) meets up with Joe (Jesse L. Martin) at the end of the Mayor’s press conference and they begin to try to identify the other 10 people who were on the bus the day Barry was pulled out of the Speed Force. Barry tells Joe he thinks Harry (Tom Cavanaugh) is right and that it’s all connected. Both Joe and Barry don’t believe it’s just a coincidence that the bus driver who was driving that day is now dead.
Barry and Joe arrive at S.T.A.R. Labs where they find a menacing man in black. Surprise! It’s Gypsy’s dad who Cisco calls Breacher. Cisco explains he’s giving him a tour. Barry introduces himself and Gypsy’s dad says, “Oh, yes, Cisco’s assistant.” Cisco gives Barry a pleading look to play along and he does. Harry pulls Cisco aside and tells him to take Gypsy’s dad for coffee and reason with him. Cisco thinks it might work so he does.
Going through photos and paperwork, Barry discovers an IOU that was found on the body of the dead bus driver. The IOU is from an ex-CCPD Detective named Ralph Dibny (Hartley Sawyer). Believing Dibny might have been on the bus, Joe and Barry set out to have a chat with him.
Joe and Barry aren’t exactly welcomed by the down-on-his-luck private investigator when they visit his office. They ask him if he was on the bus but he doesn’t give them a straight answer and instead asks them why they want to know. Joe tells Dibny people on the bus were exposed to something dangerous, and Ralph lies and says he wasn’t on the bus just to get them to leave. Moments after West and Allen leave, two thugs show up and take Dibny up to the roof and hang him over the edge. Dibny’s legs stretch and he reaches the street. Joe and Barry spot him and do a double-take, with Joe declaring, “He was on the bus.”
Back at S.T.A.R. Labs, Caitlin (Danielle Panabaker) and Harry run some tests on a very freaked-out Dibny and discover the dark matter he came in contact with invaded his cells and made them elastic. He’s able to stretch incredibly long, but the problem is his limbs aren’t going back to normal. Dibny yells at Barry to make his friends fix him, and Barry gets uncharacteristically angry and screams back at him. Caitlin has to break it up.
Over at Jitters, the meeting is not going well between Cisco and Gypsy’s dad. It seems Breacher wants to hunt and destroy Cisco because he doesn’t believe Cisco’s good enough for Gypsy. As he counts down from 10, Breacher tells Cisco they won’t use their powers in this little game of cat and mouse. When Breacher skips six and goes right to five, Cisco makes a break for it.
Over at S.T.A.R. Labs, Caitlin is sure that if she can get her hands on some of Dibny’s DNA before he became a meta, she should be able to come up with a cure. Barry questions if they should help him and thinks it best to just put him in the pipeline. Caitlin points out he hasn’t done anything wrong yet. An annoyed Barry heads out with Iris (Candice Patton) to search Dibny’s office for some DNA.
When they arrive they find Dibny’s office has been trashed. As they look for something with his DNA, Iris asks Barry why he dislikes Dibny so much. Barry explains to Iris that when he was a rookie CSI he discovered Dibny had planted evidence and lied under oath to try to secure a conviction in a murder case. It was Barry’s testing of the evidence that exposed Dibny and got him kicked off the force.
Iris finds a hairbrush in one of the drawers and just as she goes to close it, she sees a bomb about to explode. She yells for Barry and he vibrates them both down through the floor and out of the building just in time.
Back at the lab, Iris gives Caitlin the hairbrush after telling her about their close call. Barry makes a snide remark about how Caitlin’s new best friend almost got them both killed and Caitlin responds coolly, “He’s not my friend, he’s my patient.” Barry continues to harp at Caitlin saying he doesn’t get why she wants to help the jerk so much. She firmly replies it’s because she knows what it’s like to wake up one day realizing you have powers, be scared, and know your life will never be the same again. She also reminds him that he also had that experience. She asks Barry to show Dibny just a little compassion. (It’s scenes like this that show how Caitlin IS the heart and soul of Team Flash.)
A little later Joe and Barry discover Dibny has called the mayor multiple times. They confront him with the information and he blows them off, not willing to give them a straight answer. Joe and Barry decide it’s time to pay a visit to the mayor.
Caitlin, being the brilliant scientist she is, comes up with a unique drink that will stabilize Dibny’s condition. He drinks it and, yes, it works. Caitlin tells Dibny he should be able to control his cells by thinking about how he wants them to work and look.
At the mayor’s office, Joe and Barry ask him how he knows Dibny. At first, he acts as though he doesn’t know Dibny. However, after Joe gives him a short “it’s just between us cops and former cops” speech the mayor admits he was unfaithful to his wife and Dibny has pictures and is blackmailing him. Disgusted and angry, Barry tells the mayor not to worry and assures him they’ll handle it. Right after Joe and Barry leave, the mayor tells the two thugs who held Dibny over the edge of the building to finish the job they already messed up once. He wants the thugs to go ahead and kill Joe and Barry too since they now know about his secret.
Barry and Joe confront Dibny back at the lab and Dibny tries to justify his actions by saying it’s all Barry’s fault that he’s not a cop anymore. Barry tells Dibny he did it to himself by lying and planting evidence, and Dinby shouts back, “Because I knew he did it and I didn’t want him to get away with murder.” Dibny starts to leave and Barry tries to stop him which leads to a physical altercation and to Barry punching Dibny in the nose. His face absorbs Barry’s fist.
Cisco, on the advice of Harry, has set a trap for Gypsy’s dad. When he enters the room, Cisco traps him in a force field similar to the one Team Flash used against The Reverse Flash in season one. It works for a few minutes until Breacher pulls out a special knife and cuts right through the force field which means Cisco’s back on the run.
Joe talks to Barry at his apartment and after having a few beers, Joe asks his surrogate son why it’s so important to him that Dibny be a bad guy. Barry now admits that when he first started at the CCPD, he was all about the rules and regulations. But after becoming The Flash, he sees how doing the right thing sometimes means bending or ignoring the rules in order to save lives. Barry wonders if he did destroy a good cop’s career.
Joe reminds him that Dibny did lie and he did blackmail the mayor. Joe also admits that he agrees with Caitlin that maybe Dibny does deserve a second chance. Just then the doorbell rings and Barry answers it to see two beat cops. The two corrupt cops tell Joe and Barry the Captain needs them back at CCPD. As Barry starts to turn to get his coat, he sees Joe reach for his gun and yell his name. One of the cops gets off a shot at Joe. Barry uses his incredible speed to re-position the two cops to knock themselves out and catches the bullet before it even gets close to Joe. “That never gets old,” says Joe. Barry and Joe realize the two cops were sent by the mayor and that Dibny is next.
At the lab, Breacher sees footage of Dibny in his elastic state and believes him to be like a being that almost destroyed his world. Determined to stop him, Breacher sets his sights on Dibny.
Dinby meets with the mayor who has agreed to pay the blackmail in an alley close to City Hall. Dibny changes his mind and tells him to keep it, explaining he’s not interested in his money. The mayor shoots Dibny but the bullet goes in his face and out his nose. The Flash shows up – he placed a tracking device on Dibny earlier – and tells the mayor it’s over. Unfortunately, it’s not because Breacher shows up and blasts both The Flash and Dibny.
The mayor tries to get away and somehow gets the upper hand on Joe, taking him hostage. Breacher blasts The Flash again, knocking the wind out of him. Breacher is about to deliver a fatal blast to Dibny while Dibny begs him not to do this when Vibe arrives to save the day. Vibe tells Breacher that Dibny is not a threat and that Team Flash created him. If he has a problem with that, then he’ll just have to fight him. Impressed, Breacher stands down.
The Flash tells Vibe he can’t run fast enough to jump from a building after those blasts and asks if he can breach him to the helicopter the mayor is escaping in with Joe. Vibe says he’s afraid his blast would destroy the chopper. The Flash tells Dibny he can help by stretching his arm and grabbing the helicopter. Dibny asks how he knows he can do it and Barry takes off his mask revealing himself as The Flash, just to show Dibny he trusts him. Dibny’s still hesitant but Barry suggests now is the time to show he’s still a good cop. Inspired, Dibny stretches and grabs the helicopter so The Flash can race up his arm into the chopper and disarm the mayor to save the day. “Cecile is pregnant,” says an incredulous and thankful Joe to Barry.
Back at S.T.A.R. Labs, Joe and Barry tell Iris and Caitlin the news about Joe becoming a father again and they all celebrate with cigars, some bad dancing, and hugs – lots of hugs – including a big group hug.
At the breacher room, Gypsy’s dad tells Cisco he still hates him but he respects him and he now knows that Cisco is a true warrior who will stand his ground and protect his friends and Gypsy…not that she needs it. As he gets ready to leave, he tells his daughter he senses a breach and says they need to go, calling her by her birth name, Cynthia. Cisco loves knowing her real name and she warns him not to call her that. The two smile at each other as she follows her father through the breach.
As Caitlin walks up to her apartment, she sees something on the floor. She finds a message carved into the door that reads: “We Miss You Come Back Soon.” Caitlin looks concerned.
The final scene is at Dibny’s office where Barry surprises him by showing he fixed it up for him. Barry continues to reach out a hand in friendship, admitting he can’t change what has happened between them in the past but he can help him now. Barry offers to have his team study him and help him test and learn to use his powers to be a hero. Barry will even train him himself. Dibny stretches his hand and shakes Barry’s hand, closing the deal.
On his way out, Barry asks why Dibny looked into the mayor and he reveals he did it originally for a client named Devo he never met and only talked to on the phone. Barry’s mind flashes on Savitar talking about how they came up with a gadget to defeat Devo.
The Flash Season 4 Episode 4 Review:
With incredible special visual effects and a fun, lighthearted subplot, episode four titled “Elongated Journey Into Night” shows just how cutting edge The Flash series can be in creating amazing special effects unlike anything seen on television. The scenes with Dibny at S.T.A.R. Labs with his legs and arms stretching ridiculously long, and part of his face stretching off after he sneezes, are visually groundbreaking and, to be honest, a little stomach-turning.
The series also raises the bar by continuing to bring on excellent guest stars in important roles. The highlight of this episode is Danny Trejo as Gypsy’s bounty-hunting dad. The scenes between Trejo and Carlos Valdes as Cisco are some of the best in the episode.
With Barry now realizing Devo is the mastermind they’re facing and Caitlin’s past catching up to her, the next episode titled “Girls Night Out” should be very interesting and exciting. It’s also sure to bring out Caitlin’s colder persona…Killer Frost.
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 3
– 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
This post was last modified on June 4, 2022 6:38 pm