I, alongside many others online who are diehard Arrowverse fans, have been very hard on this season of The Flash for various reasons. Inconsistencies, dumb plotlines that should’ve been left in Season 1, and more. So imagine my surprise when for the first 30 minutes of “The Man In The Yellow Tie”, I was happy! This was Grade-A quality Flash! And…right after that 30-minute mark…everything collapsed.
I’ll start with one of the very obvious flaws. Cecil. All of a sudden, her powers are more offensive (in the combat-sense), and she can overwhelm people with emotion. Why? I don’t know, he’s on third. And then at the end, all of a sudden she’s out being a vigilante…because…? Seriously, they’ve been all over the place with Cecil this season and it’s really annoying.
Ok, so, terrible part #2: Diggle. Diggle being in this episode was a surprise, and a welcome one. Him going to Thawne in desperation to try and open “the box” was a nice twist, as Thawne likely knew all about the Green Lantern Corps being from the 23rd Century. Sure enough, he did, and he helped Diggle open the box…and it was cool! Hearing various references from the cosmic side of the DC Comics universe was great! …until…DIGGLE REJECTED THE BOX!!!!!
Yes, this tease that started at the end of Arrow Season 8, this plotline that has carried through all the past Arrowverse shows (minus Black Lightning and Legends) that fans have been BEGGING FOR…FOR YEARS…ended with Diggle rejecting to be a member of the Corps…all because…he loves his family. It took him two years (in-canon) to figure that out? That’s just wrong, and dumb. they could’ve left the tease at the end of Arrow or just said that he “rejected it” and moved on. But instead, they gave him the “mental problems” (which isn’t canon at all) and then at the end he just denies it because he’d rather be with his family. There is so much wrong with this that it hurts. And I’ve already seen fan reactions to this (including from a dear friend of mine) and they agree: it sucks.
Finally, there is the Eobard Thawne storyline. We got a “new Thawne” to go with the old one (the Wells one), and for the first 30 minutes, it was cool. Because you didn’t quite know what was going on. Who was telling the truth, and what twists might happen. Turns out, the Thawne we met…was actually a good guy, and possibly the one from LOT that we met in Season 7, who was sent back in time to…find love?
Yeah, this is where things derail. Because the mystery literally unraveled in the worst way when we find out that Thawne fell in love with Mina (FastTrack) and that it was through the “power of love” that he was able to save her from the Negative Speed Force. It was so dang cliche. We already have this “lightning rod” stuff with Iris (who was only lightly mentioned because…reasons…) and now we have to deal with it here? And the explanation of the “Time Wraiths” saving Thawne to dump him at this specific point in time was…just plain odd.
The twist with Wells-Thawn and Dion could yield fruit…but we still don’t know why Dion is evil and the preview for next episode teases another painful plot twist. Same with the return of Mark (which I called last week in my review).
In the end, “The Man With The Yellow Tie” had a beautiful start, and a painful ending. One has to wonder if the show will end well this season, or just continue to run in place.
3/5
Todd Black
Todd Black is reader of comics, a watch of TV (a LOT of TV), and a writer of many different mediums. He's written teleplays, fan-fictions, and currently writes a comic book called Guardians (guardians-comic.com). He dreams of working at Nintendo, writing a SHAZAM! TV series, and working on Guardians for a very long time!
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