An Open Letter to the Flash

Hey, The Flash!

Can we talk? I know it’s been a couple of weeks since we’ve seen each other and maybe I missed a recap, which is deeply sad because my favorite character dropped by, and it was kind of wonderful. I’m sorry about that, by the way. When you’re busy writing a superhero book and marketing it, sometimes things fall through the cracks.

We’re getting to that point in our relationship where we’re past the thrill of the first date and the second date, and things are starting to shake out a bit. Some growing pains are happening. There are things about me you probably aren’t fond of, like the fact that I’ll always love my dog more than I’ll love you. And maybe my sense of snark gets to be a bit much. But hey, there are things about you that I find troubling, like the fact that it took you five episodes to pass the Bechdel Test, or how you didn’t call Felicity Smoak to let her know you were awake. She’s a great girl, Barry. You can’t just yank her around like that.

But something serious has come up and we need to talk about it.

Her name is Bette Sans Souci, she’s a veteran injured overseas, and you picked the worst possible day to turn her into a powerless victim and blow her up. I have a lot of problems with that. I have problems with the fact that she was the first non-murderous metahuman—something you yourself pointed out in the episode!—and she was barely given enough narrative to establish a story, let alone a character, before you shot her in the chest and turned her into an explosive footnote. I have problems that you let a character outright DROOL over her in a very inappropriate way without any reaction from her (though Caitlin was amazing). I have problems that you showed her to be such a mindless soldier that she could be manipulated with the flimsiest tactic I have ever seen. Way to stereotype soldiers as mindless drones, show. And speaking of which…

I especially have a lot of problems with the treatment of a veteran, the villain/victim of the week. The fact that this episode had the GALL to air on Veterans Day/Armistice Day? It just infuriates me. I cannot believe that this show went through several levels of people and nobody said, “Hey, guys, with the rampant problems veterans in today’s society face, maybe airing an episode that paints military recovery in a horrendous light and then kills off the veteran character without giving her a single chance to punch up for herself…maybe that’s a bad idea?” I’ll confess, I’m an Air Force brat. My father served for twenty-two years. My grandfather served. I have several cousins and friends in the military, so maybe I’m biased, but this episode left me with a sick feeling in my stomach.

Seriously, show, this is INCREDIBLY GROSS.

But hey, our main character can run on water, how cool is that???

Yes, it’s neat that Barry can run on water. His powers are cool! His powers let him do great things both in saving people(witnessed by Iris in person this episode, and trust me, we’re getting to that) and helping him out at his job, where he can paw through files at super-speed to find the missing one. He’s truly blessed.

Other meta-humans like Bette Sans Souci, the nicknamed Plastique? Not so blessed. And I was finally starting to get excited about your plotlines because what happens when you’re granted sucky powers? Finally, a great avenue to explore!

Except, yeah. Here’s the brief summary because I don’t have the energy to do a recap: Bette Sans Souci was injured in Afghanistan and thanks to the dark matter cloud, the ordnance in her body has now fused to her on a cellular level. Touching things randomly blows them up, so like my favorite X-men character Rogue, she’s resigned to a lifetime of wearing gloves. Wells doesn’t want her around because she presents a danger to the team (read: Barry) and after they do some testing (there’s a hilarious moment with a boomerang because boomerangs), manipulates her into going after the military General who’s been on the hunt for her from the beginning and is hoping to weaponize her. Barry shows up, but not in time to save Bette from getting shot and dying in his arms. She basically goes kerboom, so Barry has to sprint on water to get her far enough away from the city to not blow everything up. That’s her story. An afterthought to the plot, lots of potential wasted, and frankly, disingenuous and an unfair treatment of a veteran, yet another victim whose only purpose to the narrative was to put the emotional thumbscrews to Barry Allen.

This is, for the record, the third woman killed to further the pain of a man over the course of the show. At least this one got more than a couple of lines before her death?

We’re only five episodes in, The Flash. I’m starting to worry that you may have a woman problem.

This is the first scene in which you pass the Bechdel Test. JUST FYI.

Speaking of lady problems…let’s talk about your treatment of Iris West. In this episode, she seizes the opportunity and catches “the Streak” in action as he saves a window washer from falling to his death. Barry and Joe freak out that Iris’s pursuit of the Streak could put her in danger from Barry’s enemies, and instead of doing the sensible thing to give Iris the information she needs to protect herself and know what’s going on, they try every trick in the book to discourage her little blog hobby. It doesn’t work: Iris, it turns out, is doing this blog because she thinks Barry’s lost his way and now she’s determined not to quit until everybody believes in this Streak. Barry begs her to give it up. Iris begs him to tell the truth about what’s really bothering him (rather than the BS he tries to sell her about trying to move on from what happened to his family) and instead of just telling her the truth, Barry says maybe they need some time apart. He goes off to a bar and mopes about his ability not to get drunk.

Um, dude. Somebody got shot in the chest in front of you and EXPLODED, and also your best friend in the world asked for support from the guy she trusts most and he turned her down cold. Maybe there are worse problems in your life. For example, your best friend’s best friend? KIND OF A DOUCHEBAG AT THE MOMENT.

So we come to our moment, The Flash. I like you. I really want to love you. I think you’ve got the makings to be a wonderfully quick and funny show, but these problems? They’re edging toward being a dealbreaker. Don’t be like your big sibling Arrow? You remember Arrow, right, with its raging misogyny and absolute delight in killing the only bisexual lady superhero on TV and then showing us her death over and over again?

Don’t be like Arrow, The Flash. Treat your characters with respect, or this relationship is over.

Sincerely,
Lexie

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