What I’m Watching: The Flash

The Flash: Season 5, Episode 13 “Goldfaced” (B)

It was hard to take this episode seriously because I just watched “Threat Level Midnight,” the episode of “The Office” where, in Michael’s movie, Agent Michael Scarn faces off against Jim’s villain Goldenface. Therefore, the idea of a bad guy called Goldface who, unsurprisingly, turned out to be a meta who could turn into solid gold, wasn’t all that impressive, nor was the scenario in which Ralph had to act bad and Barry got to pretend to be a supervillain named The Chemist to impress the criminals whose operation they were trying to infiltrate. As if setting the printable guns meant to kill police officers to stun wasn’t enough of a signal of making the best of bad situations, Barry and Ralph having to take down a powered meta without the use of their powers was an affirming reminder that it’s their brainpower and teamwork that’s most useful, not just their speed and elasticity, respectively. Iris was the one who got the most accomplished in this hour, talking to Sicada before he realized that she was there for illicit purposes. Keeping him still for a minute so that his powers can be removed won’t be easy, and I can’t imagine it will work the first time. As Nora tried to get Sherloque off her scent, her staged setup with the woman of his dreams went extremely smoothly until he creeped her out by telling her way too many things about herself. I was sure it was Erica Durance from “Smallville” playing Renée, but it turns out it was Kimberly Williams-Paisley, who appeared in five different forms as the face of seven of Sherloque’s ex-wives. Determining that she’s a meta will likely have consequences, but it seems the most it’s done now is to get Sherloque back to work on defeating Sicada so that she won’t become his next victim.