'The Flash' Season 6 Episode 12 Review: Part queer and part awesome, presenting the curious case of Sue Dearbon
Spoiler alert for 'The Flash' Season 6 Episode 12 'A Girl Named Sue'
This was an entirely new version of Sue Dearbon and we should have seen this coming. Ralph Dibny/The Elongated Man (Hartley Sawyer) makes an appearance for the first time post 'Crisis'.
'A Girl Named Sue' was meant to be the moment where he would meet the woman he loves and the duo would go on to become a super couple just like they did in the comics. Except, it was a damp squib encounter for Dibny.
The episode revolves around two plotlines and one of them introduces Erfat Dor's Eva McCulloch who's been trapped in a mirror dimension of Central City during the Particle Accelerator explosion. Unfortunately, their efforts to break out, that would be the 1323rd time for Eva, are futile.
Natalie Dreyfuss as Sue Dearbon oozes charm, confidence, sexy and she can definitely whoop a**. She firmly cements the fact that she's no damsel in distress.
Danielle Nicolet's Cecile Horton hits the nail on the head when she tells Dibny that she and the PI are on the same wavelength, except, while there are sparks flying, it's pretty short-lived. Or at least that's what it looks like by the end of the episode when she disappears again.
'A Girl Named Sue' makes sure that the character introduction isn't a hurried affair. The transaction from Sue leads Dibny to deduce she's back in Central City.
He tracks her down to a seedy apartment that blows up and is rescued by her. Sue reveals it was her ex — Jon Loring (A gender swap of Jean Loring from the comics) — who was behind the explosion and reluctantly agrees to get some assistance from Dibny to take down John.
Sue is portrayed as a thief at one stage in the episode when she steals a diamond from John's safety deposit, the key which she and Dibny find in John's apartment. But it is later revealed that she's got some connection with Black Hole. This just goes on to prove the Arrowverse is not done with Sue Dearbon yet.
In another storyline that connects Black Hole and Barry, Joe West (Jesse L Martin) requests Barry to help investigate if a death case was real or an accident. Barry figures that the death was caused by Doctor Light's technology and Joe suggests that it's the latest in a string of deaths tied to Joseph Carver.
While the much-awaited Sue introduction did happen, the storylines were left unresolved and for good reason. The tone and the setting of 'The Flash' after 'Crisis on Infinite Earths' have been part mysterious, part queer and that works well in the show's favor.
This is, in part, considering they're living in a reborn Earth and just about everything is as weird as it can get. There's a lot of emphasis on the supporting characters and while its obvious Barry will take the spotlight eventually, these storylines bring the much-needed screen space for Team Flash.
For now, it's a lot for Team Flash and Barry to deal with as they're still reeling from the aftermath of the multiverse-shattering battle. 'A Girl Named Sue' comes in with a twist and deepens the mystery surrounding the new evil that lurks in Central City.
'The Flash' airs on Tuesdays at 8 pm on The CW.