Delivering its third episode this season, The Flash highlights its promised lighter tone with “Luck Be A Lady” which also features a major return and a major goodbye.
The episode starts differently as we begin things off with the J.J. Abrams’s Lens Flares™ inspired evil layer of the Thinker and his henchwoman, The Mechanic, as he tells us the story of one Rebecca Sharpe, a woman who has been kicked to curb multiple times by life itself: getting diarrhea from a cup of coffee without soy milk, catching her man cheating on her, being fired from her job as a croupier after a client sexually harasses her, and so on. Additionally, she *still* has a MySpace page in which she writes she is jinxed. But things may be looking up for our dear Ms. Sharpe as three weeks prior she boarded a bus ride that will change her life.
Currently, Team Flash is getting destroyed by some kids on laser tag (I know, right, what a cliché? How I Met Your Mother already did it and it was just as bad). Cecille starts complaining about the squeaky pipes from the West house which doesn’t seem like a big deal for Joe. Iris is able to secure the West-Allen’s preferred venue for their wedding after a cancellation and then they are alerted to a breach opening at STAR Labs.
Thankfully, the breach is just Harry as Tom Cavanagh makes his triumphant return to The Flash which was poised to happen as he is one of the show’s regular, so no surprises here. Nonetheless, Harry is there to give Wally an original Earth-2 Break-Up Cube, which is supposed to show him a message from Jesse breaking up with him, leaving Kid Flash really bummed out.
Somewhere else, Rebecca is having the best day: without moving a finger, she simply enters a bank and a series of unfortunate/no good/very bad events start happening with everyone else around her. Therefore, she is able to walk all mighty and rob the place while the employees suffer from a strike of concentrated bad luck. The Flash even manages to get there in time to see Rebecca exit, but he ends up slipping up on an entire barrel load of marbles that were dropped on the street.
After hearing about her story, basically the entire team believes in the power of luck, while Harry tries to argue it scientifically. Having discussed her meta status, the team is once again puzzled by how can someone who has only been in Central City for three years be a metahuman given she wasn’t affected by the particle accelerator. The scan of Barry’s suit conveniently showed trace amounts of dark matter around Becky, so now they have to discover how she got in touch with the substance and they plan on doing that with yet another Harry Wells Science Machine ™.
At the Wests, Cecille called the plumber whose professional opinion involves a 15k repair for the pipe situation, but Cecille suggests maybe it’s time to use the opportunity to find a newer property. Barry walks in on Iris trying on her wedding dress by accident — more bad luck — with sad news: not only their first venue burned out, but their plan B is booked for their wedding date (which is in six weeks, so plan ahead for the two-day crossover event!).
We are treated to another scene between the Thinker and the Mechanic as they watch Becky use her powers to get really hot soup burn her ex-boyfriend. The Mechanic argues that they should get Becky already, but the Thinker believes they need to watch her punish people out of jealousy a bit further — maybe he’s entertained by it? Hard to say. The Thinker is not a very emotional human being. Everything he says is in the same deadpan voice.
Harry, Cisco, and Barry find the spot where there was dark matter in Central City and it happened three weeks prior, when Barry was rescued from the speedforce and the portal opened right in front of a bus with an unknown number of people within. The team is taking it hard enough as it is, but Harry starts pointing fingers at Cisco, so they take some time to argue with some really high screams. Incidentally, Bad luck does its thing again as the pipes at the Wests start leaking heavily, so Joe has to seriously consider selling it despite having to abandon his memories.
Barry finds Becky at Jitters with some scratchies. He breaks it down to her about his job as a CSI and how her being a metahuman is creating chaos, but after being thrown a life full of missed opportunities, Becky feels entitled to good things. She ends up leaving the place without Barry being able to do anything because he fears the damage Becky might create if he interferes.
Iris summons Barry to a church as she is not having the best of times with the recent bad luck and wants to get married right away. Unfortunately, things are not that easy as the priest gets an allergic reaction before being able to perform the ceremony.
Harry talks to Cisco about how he was voted out from Team Jesse & The Quicksters (gotta agree with Cisco, that is an awesome name for a team) because he was too up on Jesse’s businesses, not letting the team bond, or something like that. Thus, he is essentially homeless at Earth-2. Plus, as I mentioned, The Flash isn’t just letting go of one of his best actors, so much like with the A Song of Ice And Fire’s Starks in Winterfell, there must always be a Harrison Wells in Central City.
Meanwhile, things go south when Becky’s quantum bad luck field start spreading throughout the city, causing the West House to take severe damage and even a plane’s engine to explode. Turns out this is a direct response to Becky’s extreme level of good luck she is experiencing at the moment at the casino she used to work at as she keeps winning everything. To make matters worse, the particle accelerator has turned itself on and is threatening to explode!
The Flash arrives at the casino, but he ends up cuffing himself after slipping on some coins. Cisco and Harry try to deactivate the accelerator, but it is also not working. Eventually, as Becky is about to win big on the slots, Harry decides to let the accelerator explode which, fortunately, emits a quantum wave of its own, capable of neutralizing Becky’s. This is enough to get things back to normal, with the plane landing on water, and The Flash capturing the meta.
With the crisis solved, Harry decides to stay in the city, officially. The team is able to pull out a heat scan from the bus that was affected by dark matter and they count twelve metahumans — only ten to go! Wally tells everyone that he is taking some time off to travel which comes deservedly after the show being so adamant on putting him on the sidelines. They also conclude that someone may be pulling the strings on the events of the season and we even get the reveal that The Thinker’s Samuroid from “The Flash Reborn” is doubling as a spy camera inside the Flash’s headquarters. Oh, and capping everything is Cecille letting Joe know that she is pregnant!
Thoroughly, this was a really funny episode without the script needing to make pop culture references or dumb jokes: the dialogue was clever, witty without sounding too quippy, and it got enhanced by great comedic performances. I actually want to highlight what a great job Candice Patton has done this episode (and every other one because Patton is fucking legend!) and also Sugar Lyn Beard, who played Rebecca Sharpe/Hazard with a degree of vulnerability and charm that made the character unforgettable.
Now we only have to see how long it will be before Barry remembers that Savitar already told him about The Thinker last season so that some actual confrontation can ensue.
