Did he? I barely remember him being on the show. IMDB said he was just in episode 7 and 10.
I thought he was in three eps, not two, but either way, if you do a google search for “Greg Grunberg” and Flash, you’ll find a ton of articles talking about his “major recurring role”
I didn’t hear that he would have a “major” recurring role, just that we’d see him again. And we did, once. They haven’t really been spending much time at CCPD, so there hasn’t been much call for detective roles. It would have made for a great scene if he had been there to arrest Barry for Devoe’s murder, but that was too small a part.
Tonight’s *Trial of Flash *was for me the worse episode of the series. I feel like Barry has been carrying a medicine ball size ball of idiocy the last few episodes. He is a trained CSI and is making mistakes that no one but a strung out drug addict would make. They’ve already locked away dangerous criminal metas without due process, why not the same for Clifford DeVoe?
I hate when the writers get stupid. Can’t we have a little bit of happy Flash for a while soon? Does it have to be so much angst and so much poor writing. This show has been really good at times, last 2 episodes are killing it for me.
I’m kind of happy that they’ve decided that locking up metas without due process is a bad idea, but I agree that there’s still a lot of idiocy here. Barry’s lawyer established a plausible alternative suspect and motive for the murder, and the fact that the “widow” came up with a cover story doesn’t eliminate that - so the closing should have used that, instead of focusing on Barry’s good character, which had been devastated by testimony and Barry’s behavior during trial.
How long was Devoe Dead for - vs when Barry was with the friends at home before answering the call/alarm at his loft?
That alone would be evidence of being framed.
Formally putting the episode title in the header just for the record. Discussion was started by What Exit? a couple of posts up.
Ever since the series started, I’d been wishing they’d emphasize the CSI side of Barry’s life more. Now I’m glad they didn’t, because these writers have no idea how to write a procedural. So many plot holes, so much passing around of the idiot ball.
The meta-of the week was just a waste. If the they had to bring in a meta villain, have Team Flash defeat him without Barry. If the writers had any guts, they would have let the episode play out without Barry suiting up or even using any speed powers whatsoever. The whole point of the episode was to get Barry in prison. They’ve been planning this out for months. You’d think they’d take the time to write a stronger episode.
Mark Valley was woefully underutilized as the prosecutor. You know who else is a prosecutor? Cecille, district attorney for Central City. They should have cast Mark as Barry’s lawyer, with Cecille on the other side. This sets up the conflict that Cecille knows that Barry is the Flash, but can’t use that knowledge in her prosecution. (Of course, in the real world, Cecille would recuse herself for having personal ties to the case.)
I think the idea was to have a plausible excuse for the Flash not showing up when Barry’s in prison. People will think that he’s still recovering from his burns, or maybe even dead/dying. That actually makes sense to me.
Best moment: Barry doing a classic “Clark Kent loosens his tie” bit when he leaves the courtroom. Reminded me of George Reeves in The Adventures of Superman.
I wonder if Barry will meet someone else who’s innocent while he’s at Iron Heights and upon Barry’s inevitable release, he’ll get that person freed. You know, so his time locked up won’t be a total waste.
Won’t Barry be able to phase out and help out occasionally from Iron Heights? I know they’re going to play up the others covering for him but the writers have an easy way for him to help out in small moments.
I kept wondering just *why *Barry didn’t want to reveal himself as The Flash. I mean, everyone around him knows his identity, and work with both Barry and The Flash all the time. The public has had plenty of opportunity to see how involved his friends are with the Scarlet Speedster… so his friends are *already *in danger. Aside from Joe and Iris, he doesn’t have any family to worry about, either.
I am not a lawyer, nor have I ever been a criminal defendant, but wouldn’t a man being tried for first degree murder have to be present for the reading of the verdict, even if out on bail? He’s a convicted criminal at that point, not a suspect out on bail.
Just one of the many, many, many, many problems with this episode. Terminus Est is right, they can’t write a procedural. Vinny Gambini would have been a better lawyer. He showed more court knowledge in the pleading than “experienced” prosecutor Cecille Horton showed throughout the episode. Still, gotta love an Earth where one can go from suspect to convicted murderer in what couldn’t have been more than a few weeks, two months at the outside.
This is the same TV series that gave us “cold objects give off an ultraviolet cold signature,” after all.
The thing that struck me as the stupidest was that his lawyer didn’t use the CSI angle to make a case that he was obviously framed. You know, something like:
“You’re right, all the evidence DOES point to Barry Allen as the murderer. And yet my client Barry Allen is pleading not guilty. Doesn’t that seem a little odd to you? My client is a highly skilled crime scene investigator. He knows what kind of evidence they look for at a crime scene. Certainly, someone of his skill could have scrubbed the crime scene clean of all evidence linking him to the crime. Certainly, he could have easily removed all of his victim’s DNA from under his fingernails, cleaned or hidden the knife, and made sure he was nowhere near his house when the body was found. But whoever the murderer was didn’t do any of these things. It’s as though the murderer wanted Barry Allen to get caught. I submit to you that Barry Allen was framed for a murder he didn’t commit!”
I mean, if I were his lawyer, I’d at least try this angle.
“But what about the victim’s DNA under Barry’s fingernails!” I hear the prosecuting attorney cry.
“He found a man lying on the floor in his house with blood on the floor. He couldn’t be sure this man was dead yet. Perhaps my client tried to save him with CPR.”
The prosecuting attorney snorts. “And his fingerprints on the knife?”
“A crime scene investigator is used to coming to an established crime scene. You know, with the yellow caution tape and the other officers already at the scene. It may not have clicked in my client’s head immediately that he was looking at a crime scene. All he knew was that the knife he’d recently received as a wedding gift was on the floor and covered with something that might or might not have been blood.”
The prosecuting attorney growls. You win this round, mister bond, but the case isn’t over yet!
Or even more simply:
“Of course his fingerprints were on the knife. It was a wedding gift. He probably handled it several times before the day of the murder. Were any of my client’s fingerprints, which were found on the knife, definitively from after the blood was on it?”
Don’t forget the timing window - the cops show up right after barry does - both responding to the alarm? Why would barry set off an alarm if he needed to cover up a murder? Wasn’t he present accross town when the alarm/call went in to the cops? how long had Devoe been dead at that point?
If Barry had indeed stabbed Devoe - why wasn’t there any blood spatter on Barry’s hands/clothing?
All good points his attorney should have brought up. (Although the lack of blood splatter on Barry’s clothing could easily be explained away by claiming he changed clothes after the murder.)
Also, if Devoe’s transfer of his mind into the other guy’s head killed Devoe, wouldn’t that show up in the autopsy? I mean, a knife wound looks different if it’s made on a live victim vs. a corpse, doesn’t it? (Maybe Devoe didn’t DIE when he transferred his mind, it didn’t kill him, it just turned him into a vegetable, and Devoe-in-the-other-guy’s-body dragged vegetable-Devoe into Barry’s house and stabbed him there.)
One more point - Devoe transferred his consciousness to the other guy, outside on a public street. I guess Devoe knows there are no cameras around there, and no witnesses (it was night time), but still, did no camera or person see a flying chair with Devoe in it before the transfer? That would blow a hole in the Devoe-as-harmless-wheelchair-bound-guy theory.
Missed the edit window -
The really annoying thing is that there could be an interesting episode in which Team Flash tries all these approaches to clear Barry without revealing that he is the Flash, only to find that Devoe had anticipated them at every turn - resulting in the same forgone conclusion without painting everyone on Team Flash as an idiot.
That would require a writing staff more savvy than the one that works on this show.