Even superheroes and their support staff get lonely. Barry Allen AKA The Flash and Kaitlin Snow, both recently not doing well when it comes to their love lives, go for a night on the town to forget their problems. Unfortunately things don’t go as well as they could or should. The problems are just starting, with the debuts of Peek-a-boo and Linda Park, the continuing threat of the Pied Piper, the mystery of Firestorm, a surprise first look at one of the Flash’s most dangerous enemies, and more. Meet me after the super speed jump, for my thoughts on “Crazy for You.”
Peek-a-boo
In the comics, writer Geoff Johns revitalized the Flash in the 21st century. He rebuilt the infamous Rogues Gallery, and even added to its classic Silver Age membership. Among the newer members of this league of evil were Girder, who we previously saw in the episodes “The Flash Is Born” and “Power Outage,” and Peek-a-boo, who is introduced in this episode. Peek-a-boo is a teleporter, a villain with the power of instant movement that is more than a match for the Flash’s super speed.
Lashawn Baez is a med student whose metagene is activated when she tries to donate a kidney to her dying father. Her teleportation kicks in whenever someone tries to touch her. Though altruistic in her intentions to save her father afterwards with her powers to find new donors, she comes into conflict with the Flash. When her father dies she reveals her original intention to become a hero like the Flash, who she had idolized, but now hates him for keeping her from saving her father.
The Power of Love
Lashawn, or Shawna (played by Toronto born Britne Oldford) as they’ve named her for television, operates to the tune of Lykke Li so she’s okay in my book. Nice rock video sequence as she breaks her boyfriend Clay Parker out of Iron Heights. Now that he’s free, she wants to just run off together, but he sees profit in her new powers, obviously gained from the particle accelerator explosion. Yeah, we know where this is going.
Clay’s boss, Marcus Stockheimer, also sees the value in Peek-a-boo’s powers and things could have gone very wrong had the police not shown up. I wonder if this Stockheimer guy will show up again. Much like Clay Parker, he has no comics counterpart but seems like a crime boss with connections. He manages to have Barry’s dad roughed up for poking his nose where it doesn’t belong in prison. This worried me, the fact that Henry Allen is not safe in prison, and that he now knows the Flash’s identity makes me wonder if he has long to live. Still, always good to see John Wesley Shipp.
Playing and Getting Played
The Pied Piper is still taunting Cisco and saying he knows what happened to Ronnie Raymond. While Caitlin is trying to forget and move on, all Cisco wants is to solve the mystery. Piper promises to show him not just what happened to Ronnie but also to Professor Martin Stein, all he has to do is let him out. Curiosity is a cruel mistress, and so is guilt, the guilt that Cisco believes he may have been responsible for what happened to Ronnie.
Keeping the villain on a short leash with a sonic device, Piper shows a radioactive ash shadow of Stein, and Cisco video of Stein and Raymond being merged into one being – yep, the secret origin of Firestorm. I hope it stays as simple as put here, because it’s been waaay convoluted thus far. Sadly however in the end, Piper gets the upper hand and escapes. Not good, not good for anyone. Hmmm… that means there are currently four Rogues on the loose now, five if you count the Reverse-Flash.
Karaoke Night
Under the guise of looking for Shawna and Clay, Barry and Caitlin hit a bar and drown their sorrows. Once sufficiently brave, Caitlin drags Barry on stage to sing karaoke, the most dreaded drunken duet there is in any karaoke catalog this side of Meatloaf’s “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” – yeah, “Summer Nights” from Grease. It is just as one might have expected.
It was nice to see Grant Gustin using the mad skills he had on “Glee.” As for Caitlin, well, Danielle Panabaker was never on “Glee.” I do however wonder how long before we get a musical episode with so many singers in the cast. Not just Grant Gustin, but the actors who play Joe (Jesse L. Martin), Piper (Andy Mientus), even Martin Stein (Victor Garber) all have musical theater backgrounds. With the Pied Piper’s mind control powers from the comics, he could realistically make people dance… and sing. It could happen.
Love and War
The other lady in the picture in this episode has been shown and heard from once or twice in the series before, but only in the background. That’s Linda Park, a very important woman in the Flash’s life in the comics. Comics fans know that Barry Allen eventually marries Iris West and that it’s a love that transcends time, space, life, and death. Barry’s successor, the former Kid Flash, and Iris’ nephew, has a similar lady in his life, and that’s newscaster Linda Park. While tragedy sometimes intervenes, Flash marriages are usually destined and speed force strong. Now here on TV, it’s weird for the comics fanboy in me to see Linda interact with Linda, but it’s all good. The TV universe is a new thing, an open continuity, a blank slate… so I am willing to see where they go with this.
And then there’s the 600-pound gorilla in the middle of the room, ahem, sewers. We have all been waiting for this since that one shot of a broken cage in the series pilot, and the reference in “Plastique.” Finally we see Grodd! The super intelligent evil gorilla, who was obviously affected by the particle accelerator explosion, has been hiding in the sewers. We see graffiti and then finally the super gorilla himself. I can’t wait!
Speed Bumps
At first this seemed like a fill-in episode, but “Crazy for You” had a lot happening in it. There were wonderful hero moments like the Flash’s opening rescue and what he did to the guy who assaulted his father. We got more on Firestorm, or F.I.R.E.S.T.O.R.M. (like I don’t have enough acronyms to type on “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.“), with promise of more next episode. There was evil at work as well, with the final count of Flash villains currently loose on the street at six – the Pied Piper, Captain Cold, Heat Wave, the Golden Glider, the Reverse-Flash, and Super Gorilla Grodd. Speaking of bad guys, am I the only one wondering how they feed and care for the prisoners in the Pipeline?
Next: “The Nuclear Man!”
No, I’ve been wondering about the bathroom situation in those cells too. I figure it’s just the least glamorous part of Cisco’s job and that he’s also the dunnykin for the prison.
I did wonder about food, but never thought of the bathroom situation! Yeech…