The Flash season 7, episode 13 review: Masquerade

“Your mind belongs to me now, so just. Let. Go.” Spoilers for The Flash season 7, episode 13 follow.

When Barry goes to help Cecile on a case in this week’s episode of The Flash season 7, he suddenly falls into a coma. Now, Team Flash must find out how to break him out of the coma before he’s stuck forever.

Unbeknownst to the team though, Cecile isn’t who they think she is.

In your head

Throughout its seven seasons so far, the best episodes of The Flash have consistently been its most experimental ones. The ones that play within the fantastical realm of the show, often while exploring various mindscapes, have always stuck out from the back in the best ways possible. And early on in this episode, that stays the same here. The start white cell that Barry and Cecile are stuck in, seemingly based on Arkham Asylum (even though it’s not according to the episode), is something that is oddly haunting which creates such an uneasy feeling while watching.

Thanks to this mindscape setting, we get some of the best character work yet in this season, which is hyper-focused on Cecile. There are several great scenes between Barry and Cecile within the mindscape, including one that stands out from the rest. Cecile has a phenomenal monologue dealing with her struggles and her pain, which allows Barry to channel his inner-Joe West, which is so great to see after seven seasons.

On the outside though, seeing whoever is controlling Psycho Pirate’s mask, who in turn is controlling Cecile’s body, is incredibly fun to experience. Danielle Nicolet chews the scenery incredibly well while portraying the body-snatched Cecile in the “real world” while also convincingly playing a distraught Cecile in the mindscape. Cecile is often a character that is forgotten about, but she is also often the strongest part of the episodes she’s featured in, thanks to Nicolet, and that’s very much the case with this episode. It’s also interesting how the Psycho Pirate mask here is basically used like a magical artifact similar to Nabu’s helm. It’s an interesting change that works quite well for its purposes here.

A thief returns in The Flash season 7

After seemingly being gone forever (it’s only been about 10 episodes), Sue Dearbon is back with Team Flash! She has absolutely been a highlight of the show whenever she’s appeared over the past two seasons, so to see her back here is wonderful. Is will undoubtedly be disappointing for some to see her return without Ralph (who they can’t bring back because of Hartley Sawyer’s firing last season) but it’s just nice to have her back.

What’s disappointing about her appearance in this episode, though, is that she doesn’t do all that much. She helps Team Flash and the body-snatched Cecile break in and steal Psycho Pirate’s mask, followed by yelling at Chester because he didn’t listen to her. But that’s about it. It’s nice to see her back, but it’s disappointing that she didn’t have so much more to do.

The replacement

As for Chester, this episode is also focused heavily on him. Because of that, once again, the series is seemingly attempting to build him up as Cisco 2.0. Instead of giving him a different personality, it just feels like the writers are trying to take the magic that made Cisco so beloved in the early seasons and slap it onto Chester – and that just doesn’t work.

This is disappointing as Chester has a lot of potential as the new tech guy for Team Flash, but right now he just feels like a lesser version of Cisco. That was partially the point of his arc here, as he learned that Cisco wasn’t perfect, but he still has really yet to feel like his own character.

This week’s episode of The Flash is an enjoyable watch thanks to a great performance by Danielle Nicolet which bolsters an otherwise lackluster episode.

What did you think of The Flash season 7, episode 13? Let us know in the comments below!