The Flash (TV Series) Dead or Alive (2017) User Reviews

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

[ThomasDrufke · 8/10 · 31 January 2017]

We've had episodes focused on Cisco, Caitlin, Iris, Wally, and even characters from other earths. It's about time we get an episode focused on H.R. Wells. Gypsy, an earth-19 "collector" came after H.R. for disobeying their earth's most sacred law.

Episodes 10-13 in both Flash and Arrow's many seasons have often felt filler and unnecessary to the plot in the long run. While 'Dead or Alive' didn't involve Savitar in any tangible way, there was enough here to zoom right by anything missing from the god speedster's presence.

So with the presence of a female antagonist, it was only a matter of time before Cisco started pining over her. It's rare that I buy into a romance on this show or any other CW show, but I dug the Cisco-Gypsy dynamic. Of course, in typical fashion, she leaves him wanting more at the end of the episode. But in retrospect, she served her purpose well in a sci-fi bounty hunter kind of a way. Cisco got a little love and H.R. was provided with an opportunity to expand on his history on that earth. Sadly for him, looks like he won't be making a trip back there anytime soon. Does this mean Tom Cavanagh will be playing H.R. for the rest of his time on The Flash? Or is there yet another version of Wells for him to play next year?

Iris had her own mission tonight in thinking that it could be her last few months on earth. I have to admit, I once again think Candice Patton did a nice job acting, but I felt her character's arc was something her that would have been done in the first two seasons. Foolishly putting herself in harms way and stealing useful evidence from the police department won't be in her greatest hits. I did, however, get a good chuckle out of her conversation with Joe involving "adding a new family member with Barry". It's just one episode, but I'd like to see her character make a more consistent impression, especially if she will be meeting her end in a few months.

Not a whole of progression in the overall arc of the season, but it was far from a filler episode, at least in my eyes. A solid sci-fi battle between two meta-humans in Cisco & Gypsy and some focus on H.R. helped make this another enjoyable entry into season 3 of The Flash. I'm really starting to like this approach of having this season focusing on a self-fulfilling prophecy.

+Gypsy

+Focus on H.R.

-Iris being clumsy

8.4/10

The Flash - S03E11 Dead or Alive

[j_forbesy · 9/10 · 1 February 2017]

Last week The Flash came back from it's mid season break really strong. It did a great job at starting to build off what the first half of the season had done so far. With that I was excited to jump back into the world of Flash and see where they took us.

I loved this episode. I'm not completely sure if most of that was because I was coming off such a poor episode from Supergirl, but this episode did what I needed to do. While I could see that it had a slight villain of the week aspect that I bagged out Supergirl for having, I felt this was different in many ways. Up until tonights episode, our expectations of what Cisco could do as Vibe had been limited from what we saw from Earth 2 Cisco. Tonight we saw someone be more powerful that we had before, and for Cisco and Team Flash to beat her, makes me excited to see where they are going to take Cisco as Vibe.

While sticking to the main storyline, I thought this was a fantastic episode for HR and Julian. This was Julian's first run around with Team Flash and I thought that he fit quite nicely into the team dynamic. As we saw this episode, what he can bring to the team looks like it will come in handy for the rest of the season and because of that it's going to be great to have more Julian around. On HR, this is probably the most we have learned about him since they first discovered his uselessness. I really liked the development we got with him and how he explains his need to get away from his Earth and start fresh. For someone I didn't really get onboard with when he was first introduced, I'm starting to like this dynamic of not having an intelligent Wells, with that role being split between the others including Julian.

I really enjoyed the B storyline with Iris and Wally this episode. First of all, I liked the little sibling team up we got because it was reflective of the team up we had during Flashpoint. Secondly, I really like how we are seeing Iris reacting to hearing her future. I always like stories where people are trying to make the most and do go in their limited amount of time and this is what we are getting with Iris. Whether she does end up dying in the end or not is still to be seen, but I'm liking the approach they are going with her and how she isn't fearing death.

Something I have to mention is how written this episode was. It was great to see especially coming off last night's Supergirl episode. I thought the humour was on point and the characters were written perfectly, something that was way off during Supergirl.

Overall, I thought this episode built upon last weeks return and in many ways upstaged it. With the hint at the end that Wally is going to be given a bigger role for the back half has me really excited because I am loving how they are handling Kid Flash. Another week of Flash done and another fantastic episode in my books.

9/10

Keep the moral limits clear

[akicork · 9/10 · 28 December 2022]

This is a very good episode, with an adequate selection of the necessary elements - suspense, humour, family, action - but the clear political message hammers home for me. A country can have its own laws, and enforce them within its borders, but these laws do not extend beyond the borders of that country. In some legal interpretations this is the "Monroe Doctrine", although that initially applied to the division of the Old and New Worlds. So we have the 19th century idea that one country cannot extend the effect of its laws into another country. Then we have the idea that came to fruition in the 20th century, (or maybe 2000 years earlier! It is one of the central tenets of the Christian religion! Maybe all the Abrahamic religions?) that each of us individually is responsible for the welfare of all: e.g. The United Nations Charter, the UK National Insurance Scheme and National Health Service. So, lads, no Country, Galaxy or Dimension can justify sending operatives into another in order to apply laws applicable only within itself. The situation on "this" Earth has become more complicated with the arrival of easy worldwide travel. Agencies outside national governments are able to operate autonomously (the attack on the World Trade Centre, the Pentagon, etc, and the Munich Olympic incident are examples). But we still have a global model of a "nation" as an authority within a particular area. It is difficult for any person or agency adhering to that model to allow random bounty hunters from whatever authority to operate within their sphere of influence. Extra-national agencies have no legitimate place in this scheme, other than supranational institutions such as Interpol and UN peace-keeping forces. We all need to keep to a rule of law.

an episode which tells about future episodes

[adithyakabbal · 10/10 · 3 February 2017]

To begin with, Very happy about having HR episode, man, he is an amazing actor but somehow feel script is not giving much of importance for this character and hate to see his talents not been used well or probably entire new version of HR is not great as last two seasons. Please give him more and stable role.

Coming back to the episode, awesome and new lady vibe gypsy hopefully may return in future episodes, she knows how to stop a speedster, means she can be a great help to stop savitar if team looks in that perspective.

Sweetheart Caitlyn, Awesome HR and stubborn Vibe are amazing and the major reasons for me to watch this show. Hope this show continues entertaining us. but sometimes feel this show failed majorly in basic logics and script.

Ranking/Reviewing every Flash episode: Dead or Alive

[lbramson · 7/10 · 11 June 2023]

A bounty hunter named Gypsy comes to kill HR and challenges Cisco to a death battle. This is a great episode for Cisco, giving him a new love interest and some of his best moments. He really has come a long way, being able to now use his powers to fight to the death! This causes a really fun little action sequence with enough quips to satisfy my quippy needs. His practice scenes are fun as well, seeing him try and fail to use his powers is gold! That makes it more satisfying when he correctly uses his powers by the end. This episode did a lot for Cisco, so obviously it's good! It's filler, but fun filler.

7.5/10-Good.

Enough of Iris already

[rg0501 · 1/10 · 26 June 2022]

Iris is soooooo irritating... why don't they just concentrate on the other characters and leave her in the background ?!! Except for the Invasion story... this season thus far has not been gripping... and there doesn't really seem much of a romantic chemistry between Iris and Barry... something seems missing.

Trial by Combat

[cobi-80620 · 1 February 2017]

This week's episode introduces a collector (Earth-19's version of bounty hunter) by the name of Gypsy. She has similar powers to Cisco and this I love, because it gives us the chance to see Cisco in Vibe-action!

Apparently it is illegal for citizens of Earth-19 to travel to other universes and the punishment for committing this crime is death. Therefore Gypsy has been assigned to bring HR to justice. The team does not want this so in an effort to keep HR on their Earth Cisco challenges Gypsy to a duel. This of course meant that Cisco had to fight and thus he wore his suit for the first time (if you don't count the vision of the future where Killer Frost and Vibe fighting each other) and it looks great. The fight between Gypsy and Vibe was short but good enough, we did get to see a few other Earths so there's that. Gypsy's theme music was fantastic. Hope she shows up later in the season.

I love that they set up LEGO pieces to illustrate the night of Iris's murder. However, isn't it a bit risky to have it out in the open in case Joe was to walk in? Anyway, as someone who played with LEGO a lot as a kid I found it pretty neat.

Iris is working on a news story about an arms dealer dealing out high-tech weaponry and gets Wally to help her with it. I really like that Iris gets more to do, she has been sidelined for most of the show. The use of the cast is a lot better this season than in the previous one.

The idea of Wally saving Iris isn't so bad, but I liked that it wasn't all about getting faster but now it seems that instead of Barry it will be Wally who needs to get faster. Not what I was hoping for, and also it's a bit annoying that Barry is the Flash and Wally just became Kid Flash and they're already hinting that Wally will become even faster than Barry. Then again Barry is faster than Jay so I guess it could all be about age or whatnot.

All in all it was a great episode, Vibe vs Gypsy was exciting, Gypsy's theme was fantastic and I hope Cisco wears the Vibe suit more often.

Lost the Magic

[guna-chittepu · 1/10 · 3 February 2017]

I have been a fan of this series for quite some time but I have lost my interest from the beginning of 3rd season. I think the writers have exhausted all of their ideas and now they are writing bs.I have been a fan of this series for quite some time but I have lost my interest from the beginning of 3rd season. I think the writers have exhausted all of their ideas and now they are writing bullshit.I have been a fan of this series for quite some time but I have lost my interest from the beginning of 3rd season. I think the writers have exhausted all of their ideas and now they are writing bullshit.I have been a fan of this series for quite some time but I have lost my interest from the beginning of 3rd season. I think the writers have exhausted all of their ideas and now they are writing bullshit.I have been a fan of this series for quite some time but I have lost my interest from the beginning of 3rd season. I think the writers have exhausted all of their ideas and now they are writing bs.