The Flash season 7, episode 12 review: Good-bye Vibrations

“What we wanted to say is…we’re leaving Central City.” Spoilers for The Flash season 7, episode 12 follow.

Team Flash must say goodbye to one of its most important members, despite the hurt that it will bring, in The Flash season 7.

However, while doing so though, a new Rainbow Raider has shown up in Central City.

Goodbye, Cisco

After six-and-a-half seasons, one of the trinity of The Flash, Barry, Cisco, and Caitlin, is finally saying goodbye to the show. This week’s episode is Cisco’s final episode as a regular on the show and really, it’s something that has felt like it was a long time coming. After seemingly trying to write him out of the show at least two times before, this is definitely the time where it feels like his exit will stick. Regardless, even if Cisco isn’t the complete wise-cracking, pop culture enthusiast, resident genius that he was in the early seasons of the show, it’s still sad to see him go.

Early on the episode though, the show goes out of its way to manufacture conflict regarding Cisco’s exit in an annoying way. This is all due to he and Kamilla telling the rest of Team Flash that they’re leaving a day before they actually leave Central City. It’s kind of absurd and makes two characters that are supposed to be pretty intelligent seem incredibly dumb. This is topped off by Cisco getting annoyed that Barry and Caitlin aren’t immediately crying that he’s leaving – which really does feel out-of-character for them as they usually show their emotions. Basically, everything surrounding Cisco’s departure makes everyone behave out-of-character which is incredibly annoying and creates forced conflict that just isn’t believable.

When they all actually begin to act in character and ignore the manufactured conflict, there comes a great scene where Barry and Caitlin reckon with the fact that Cisco is moving on and remind him what he means to the team. It’s a great scene that really should been the focus of the most of the episode.

Rainbow Raider 2.0 in The Flash season 7

In what is yet another new incarnation of a villain that previously appeared in the early seasons of the show, we get Rainbow Raider 2.0. Honestly, Rainbow Raider was such a forgettable villain that this writer genuinely forgot that a version already appeared on the show.

This version of the character, however, does something different from almost any character that can control people’s emotions. Instead of controlling and amplifying their negative emotions, she does so with positive emotions.

It’s interesting and fun, in theory. In practice though, it just results in some really annoying plot developments. The breakdancing/S.T.A.R. Labs party scene done by Barry really highlights how something so good in theory can be executed so poorly.

All-in-all though, this Rainbow Raider just ends up being another villain of the week. They try to make her into a Robin Hood type figure, but because we don’t actually see her beyond maybe 5-6 minutes of the episode, her motivations really don’t feel believable and the resolution feels rushed.

Job interviews

Then we have the B-plot in which Iris and Kamilla clash a little while interviewing new photographer candidates. It’s something that is first acknowledged at about the 15-20 minute mark of the episode and isn’t even brought up again until the last 5 minutes of it. Everything about it feels like an afterthought (even though Iris’ reaction is understandable for someone who just got the news that their employee is leaving a day before it happens).

There’s just a ton of little details that make it seem contrived as well, with the main one being that Iris already had a bunch interviews lined up…despite just learning that she needed to find a new photographer that morning. It’s just things like that which make it seem like this B-plot was a last-minute addition to fill out a couple minutes of runtime and have Iris do something.

In what’s a mostly disappointing episode, The Flash says goodbye to one member of its trinity.

What did you think of The Flash season 7, episode 12? Let us know in the comments below!