'The Flash' Season 6 Episode 4 Review: Team Flash is safe in Cisco's more-than-capable hands should Barry die in the 'Crisis'
This article contains spoilers for 'The Flash' Season 6 Episode 5 'Kiss Kiss Breach Breach'
It is Cisco vs Cisco (We can call it Echo) in 'Kiss Kiss Breach Breach'. It is a murder mystery for Star city's resident genius that well and truly establishes that he is the man to take over Team Flash should Barry (Grant Gustin) die in the 'Crisis'.
The episode sees Carlos Valdes' Cisco thrust into driving the bus when Barry and Iris decide to take go off on a quick break. Apart from tracking whereabouts of the chilling Bloodwork, Cisco hopes the time would be a walk in the park, except it isn't.
The episode balances the tone between humor and a gritty theme. There are enough A-Team references that add to the comedy element but then don't stretch it. The grim news comes in the form of Cynthia aka Gypsy's (Jessica Camacho) death and a grief-stricken Cisco trying to come to terms with his ex's death.
The news comes in the form of Breacher (Danny Trejo) who is out for blood and investigations reveal it was Cisco's doppelganger, Echo (Carlos Valdes), who killed her.
Echo frames Cisco for the murder and the rest of the episode is about proving his innocence and apprehending the guilty party. Barring the ordinary storyline, it's saddening that a character like Gypsy was given such an ill-fitting send-off.
This seems to be an episode to solely prove Team Flash is safe in Cisco's more-than-capable hands. He isn't Vibe, but he doesn't have to be. Consider this episode to be a major character journey for Cisco.
There is just a minor subplot on the Bloodwork front when Ramsey Rosso (Sendhil Ramamurthy) offers Caitlin Snow (Danielle Panabaker) a chance to join him and the latter, who tries to appeal to his whatever-is-still-left humanity, rejects the offer.
The interesting plot, but was somehow half-done, was the way Team Flash integrated Harrison Nash Wells (Tom Cavanagh) into their fold. Joe West (Jesse L. Martin) has been shadowing the multiversal explorer and follows him into the sewers.
In an attempt to blow up the wall, they get trapped. The duo is eventually rescued by Ralph Dibny (Hartley Sawyer).
Up until that point, it is just another storyline and when Nash realizes the team has something about The Monitor, the plot becomes a lot more compelling pushing the episode one storyline closer to the 'Crisis' and the man confidently says he knows how to save Barry Allen.
Summing up, episodes like 'Kiss Kiss Breach Breach' and 'The Elongated Man' are probably added in with a greater purpose — to trace out a major character arc for the support team of 'The Flash'.
A major chunk of each episode has been about Barry and his death in the 'Crisis on Infinite Earths'. Barring that one flaw of giving a poor send-off to Gypsy, the episode works well and manages to divert our attention from the multiverse-shattering battle, even if it is for a brief bit.
This one gets our thumbs up. 'The Flash' Season 6 airs on Tuesdays at 8 pm on The CW.