Rating: 4.5/10
A woman is on the run from her criminal husband (played by a young Bryan Cranston) and runs into Barry. To protect her baby from her husband she puts the child in Barry’s care.
This episode was weird. I think it’s going off a genre of film and TV that has long since died, the “men don’t know how to take care of babies” style. In our day and age most men know at least some things about taking care of kids. Also this works best with the tough, I-don’t-need-anybody-else-type of male character and Barry is just too nice already. Maybe if this was more something to happen to the detective at the precinct and Barry just had to help out? I dunno, all I know is this type of storyline, especially when so much focus is centered on it throughout the episode and there’s not a lot of superhero action overall, just doesn’t work.
I did like seeing Bryan Cranston being evil almost 20 years before he broke bad. Also he was a villain who actually outsmarted the Flash, something only the Ghost and Trickster have done up to this point. Even though he wasn’t technically a supervillain, I wouldn’t mind seeing him come around again to get revenge on the Flash. Probably not gonna happen, so it’s too bad Cranston is in this otherwise subpar episode.
SCORING:
+4: I don’t mind them combining different styles with superheros but the “man with a baby” genre (if you can even call it that) really doesn’t work for this type of show
-1: Not enough superhero stuff on top of that, no one wants to see the Flash taking care of a baby…
+1.5: At least Bryan Cranston is pretty great, almost saves the episode, almost
