The Flash Review: So Long and Goodnight (Season 6 Episode 16)

Sue Dearbon returns in The Flash Season 6 Episode 16, “So Long and Goodnight,” and she’s legitimately the best thing that’s happened to this show in a very long time.

Not only does Natalie Dreyfuss have fantastic chemistry with Hartley Sawyer, our fated-to-be-spouses Ralph and Sue are incredibly charming together.

Ralph, unfazed by the revelation that Sue is basically a cat burglar, has continued his search for her over the past few episodes. Complete with red string Homeland-style vision board. (You honestly love to see it!)

 This time, he drags Cisco along on an attempt to intercept Sue at an investor’s brunch he thinks’s she’s targeting, and the sequence is basically The Flash at its best.

There’s cute banter, Cisco is suitably impressed by literally everything about Sue, and Ralph’s future intended escapes from the scene with a Batman-worthy belt grappling hook.

In short: I love her. I love her so much.

Thankfully, Ralph also manages to suss out that Sue isn’t the baddie she pretends to be. (Like any of us believed that to start with.) She’s robbing from the rich in order to investigate the man who’s been extorting money from her parents: Joseph Carver.

Thankfully, this all officially ties Sue into the larger Season 7 Carver plot and guarantees that will be seeing a lot more of her in future. After all, she finds Ralph “tolerable” and they’re officially teaming up to bring him down. 

Sign me up. 

Given the problems of producing a 22-episode season in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, The Flash clearly has to make some difficult choices about what the show will look like going forward.

Season 6 will wrap up early, ending with the upcoming Episode 19 that will also somehow serve as the season finale. Now, given that it wasn’t originally filmed for that purpose one has to wonder how that will affect the larger story the show was telling.

It also begs the question — will Eva continue on as Season 7’s Big Bad?

It feels as though we don’t really have enough time to wrap up all the various threads of her story satisfactorily. She only just got around to threatening to rain destruction on her jerk husband. 

Plus, I mostly think Eva is one of the more interesting villains The Flash has conjured up over the years, and I’d love to see the show really take the time to explore her properly. Rather than merely tick off the boxes of her defeat. 

The rest of this episode can basically be summed up in one sentence: Protect Joe West at all costs!

Over in the mirror universe, Eva has decided that Joe needs to die because he’s a threat to her criminal husband, and she still cares about that — and him — for some reason, despite the fact that he’s left her to rot in a mirror for six years. (Even if you’re a supervillain now, you can do better, girl.) 

As much as we all love Joe and want him to be both healthy and happy, his behavior in this installment is beyond frustrating. 

His behavior and bullheaded obsession with Joseph Carver is…well, it certainly seems driven more plot necessity rather than character development, as it feels extremely unlikely that Joe would put everyone he cares about at such risk to nail one shady rich dude.

Instead, Joe repeatedly ignores Barry’s warnings, refuses to stay put at S.T.A.R. Labs, confronts Carver on his own, and gets shot for his trouble, all while insisting he doesn’t need to go into witness protection. Um… seriously, dude?

It feels like The Flash really needed to come up with a reason to give Jesse L. Martin some time off, and it subsequently bends itself entirely out of shape to do so. But it didn’t have to. Joe’s sudden stubbornness on this topic really feels as though it came out of left field and it feels like a relief to finally see him tell Cecile he’s heading out of town. 

(Why couldn’t the entire West 2.0 family go with Joe into Witness Protection? Isn’t that…kind of how it works? But, hey, at least we got a Jenna mention!)

Furthermore, villains go, Carver isn’t great. Eva, for her part, remains compelling and fun, even if we’ve probably all started to wonder when The Flash might let her out of the mirror to do some damage in the real world. 

But Carter himself? Well, he’s just your standard issue skeezy rich guy who blackmails well-meaning people like the Dearbons in order to get even richer. Yawn. If I need to see that, I can watch our real-world news.

Here’s hoping Eva officially steps out of the mirror and into the spotlight next week.

Stray Thoughts and Observations

• Ragdoll is maybe my least favorite Arrowverse villain just because watching him do literally anything makes me want to vomit in my own mouth.
• As much as I love the concept of The Flash having more women in its main cast, the show has no idea what to do with Allegra — this Nash mess is not a story — and it’s a problem. 
• So, if mirror version of Kamilla is running around Central City, where did Eva and/or Mirror Iris stash her real body? 
• I realize Danielle Panabaker was probably not in this episode due to her pregnancy, but Caitlin was very missed here — from the ongoing problem with Barry’s speed to the threat to Joe’s life, it just felt like her presence was needed.
• I feel like the revelation that Singh is also a mirror person might have landed better if we…knew Singh at all?? But maybe it’s a sign that things will finally move forward with this story?

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

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

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