The Flash Review: Honey, I Shrunk Team Flash (Season 4 Episode 12)

It seems worth saying: As long as Barry Allen remains in prison, any episode of The Flash will inevitably feel as though it’s largely spinning its wheels. However, when the show remembers to make us laugh, the wait for Season 4’s story to progress is much more bearable.

On The Flash Season 4 Episode 12, “Honey, I Shrunk Team Flash,” for the second week in a row, there’s minimal movement on any of Season 4’s larger storylines. Barry languishes in Iron Heights, playing cards and developing a bizarre obsession with prison pudding cups. For all that he’s wrongfully convicted, he seems to be dealing with the whole jail thing pretty well.

The rest of Team Flash and The Flash in general? Eh, it’s a little more touch and go.

As the team struggles to figure out how to free their friend, The Flash similarly struggles to figure out how to tell a story that not only isn’t really about Barry, but must keep their lead sidelined during most of it.

On the plus side, however, “Honey, I Shrunk Team Flash” is a generally much more enjoyable outing than last week’s The Flash Season 4 Episode 11 “The Elongated Knight Rises.”

Part of this is because the story is much better balanced. “Honey, I Shrunk Team Flash” centers on both a character whose journey we already care about (Harry) and one that we don’t mind getting to know a bit better (Cecile). The shrunken CGI antics of Ralph and Cisco in the LEGO set-up from Season 3 are entertaining, and everyone has a part to play in the episode’s ending.

Barry’s absence also allows The Flash to explore different group dynamics within the core team. Given that the show often isn’t the greatest at giving its secondary characters quality screen time, this is a welcome change.

Harry is the most obvious beneficiary this week, getting to play both the action hero and the brainiac at various points. At the same time, we get a rare look into the Earth-2 Wells’ personal feelings about battling an enemy he ultimately can’t outwit.

It also helps that most of the hour is genuinely funny, which helps cover up for many potential shortcomings elsewhere.

The story’s premise is pretty basic. A metahuman with the power to shrink anything starts stealing stuff all over town, just as Barry asks Team Flash to help prove his new prison BFF Big Sir is actually an innocent man.

Luckily for everyone involved, these two plots come together when the team realizes that meta Sylbert Rundine is probably the guy responsible for both these particular crimes. (The show writes off this preposterous coincidence as being somehow DeVoe-related; just go with it.)

Unfortunately, Rundine’s Cisco-approved villain name — “Dwarfstar” — turns out to be the most interesting thing about the character. In a weak effort even for a show that pays cursory attention (at best) to most of its villains-of-the-week, The Flash gives us almost no information about Dwarfstar’s background, motivations, or desires.

He just… likes to shrink and collect things. Okay. Sure.

Perhaps we’ll learn more about him when whatever DeVoe’s as-yet-undefined plan for the bus metas finally takes shape. But other than possessing shrink ray-like powers, the villain this week honestly could have been anybody.

In another surprising turn, the subplot in which Cecile’s pregnancy causes her to manifest metahuman telepathic abilities turns out to be rather sweet. At the end of the day, it’s not clear what this plot means in any larger sense, since Cecile’s powers come with an expiration date (i.e., the baby’s birth).

Sure, Danielle Nicolet gets to flex some serious comedic chops here — Cecile calling out various bystanders at a crime scene for affairs and stapler theft is hilarious — but what is the point of it, really? To remind us that she and Joe are nervous about a late-in-life child? Or is it just filling time?

Despite his absence from this episode, the specter of DeVoe hangs over much of “Honey, I Shrunk Team Flash.” Harry’s insistence that there are no coincidences when it comes to the evil mastermind’s plans seems likely to be true.

Yet, we know so little about what the DeVoes’ actual goals are that it’s hard not to collectively roll our eyes at another example of the Thinker and his wife being sixteen steps ahead of Barry and friends. What is the point of this?

So, it stands to reason that we have to assume the ultimate discovery of Barry’s secret identity by the Iron Heights warden is part of DeVoe’s plan too? Does he want the Flash in the hands of Amunet Black? Are they working together?

If so, why? And aren’t there approximately 30 easier ways to either kidnap Barry or sell the Flash on the meta black market than this one?

Fingers crossed for some answers next week. We really, really need them.

Stray Thoughts and Observations:

• I honestly laughed out loud when Iris sent Cecile and Joe to the same couples’ therapist she and Barry visited earlier this season.
• “Gorilla prison is worse. They throw their scat at you.” (More Harry in Season 4, please!)
• While Barry’s decision to free Big Sir and whisk him off to his own Hollywood-style ending is very sweet, it also doesn’t make a lot of sense. He literally dumps a man wearing sweatpants and a tank top alone in a country where he doesn’t speak the language and has no money. Oh, and he’s also a fugitive and can never go home to America. Other than admiring the view, what exactly is Big Sir supposed to do with the rest of his life?
• I still love that he broke Big Sir out of jail though, because that’s exactly what Barry Allen would do.
• I’m looking forward to seeing Amunet Black again.

What did you think of this episode of The Flash? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!

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The Flash airs Tuesdays at 8/7c on The CW.

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