“Could we just have a do-over, please?”

There’s been a noticeable absence of the Flash in recent episodes of The Flash, but “Goldfaced” takes that to a whole new level. Barry doesn’t make an appearance in costume until the last minute of the episode, and for most of the hour he doesn’t have his powers at all. That goes for Ralph as well, and the other meta-…

“Memorabilia” is a relatively successful attempt at marrying convoluted comic-book physics with emotionally resonant storytelling. The workings of Sherloque’s Memory Machine may not be quite as sophisticated as those in Inception, but it’s still the sort of thing that the show wouldn’t have been able to pull of early…

After a break dating back to before the “Elseworlds” crossover, Cicada is back at the center of the action this week. He remains a weak link, with a simplistic motivation and an even sketchier plan (basically just...kill all the metahumans, right?), but despite that, “Seeing Red” is a solid hour of The Flash. It’s got…

The Flash returns from its winter hiatus with a rather subdued episode that at times plays more like a presentation on the topic of superhero ethics than a fully-realized hour of the show. One reason it feels a little off is that it’s strangely underpopulated; we know Joe is out of the picture because Jesse L. Martin…

The annual crossover event is fun for what it is and also for what it isn’t—namely another chapter in the overlong arc of the season. Aside from a brief mention of Cicada, we get a respite from the ongoing storyline in favor of an enjoyable brand of comic-book gimmickry that can only be sustained for a brief burst of…

The clip show is something of a lost art, although calling it an art is giving it way too much credit. Really it was a money-saving device through which TV producers squeezed out an extra episode by having the cast of a show accidentally lock themselves in the basement and kill time reminiscing about past exploits,…

After last week’s episode devoted to Caitlin’s father issues, The Flash returns with an episode devoted to...everyone else’s father issues. Okay, so that’s an exaggeration, but dads who disappoint their daughters are all over this very special Thanksgiving episode. (Tangent: Something is wonky with the show’s…

The disappearance of Killer Frost has been one of the less compelling running storylines this season, so it stands to reason that an episode focused on that plot strand would end up being a lethargic lull. It’s not that I don’t enjoy Danielle Panabaker’s work as Caitlin Snow’s alter ego; Killer Frost usually provides…

Now that we’re well into the fifth season of The Flash, it’s getting much harder for the creative team to keep the one-off meta-of-the-week stories fresh. The Flash has always had one of the deeper benches in superhero comics as far as colorful villains are concerned, but we’re down to the C-listers now, and most of…

Even by House Of Cards standards, this final season has been a weird one. Given the circumstances under which it was made, that was probably inevitable; either there would be no sixth season at all or it would be truncated and assembled in haste. The result is compromised, consisting of too much plot and not enough…

“Chapter 72" opens with a time jump, one long enough for Doug Stamper to grow a bushy Beard of Sadness and for the world’s longest pregnancy to finally begin to show as Claire now boasts a noticeable baby bump. Stamper has taken a turn for the Shakespearean, muttering monologues as he digs up a grave in the desert.…

Claire’s choice of movie viewing a few episodes ago and the Gothic horror overtones to the soundtrack music of late have prepared for this moment: the spawn of Satan—or of Frank and Claire Underwood, close enough—is being loosed upon this world to bring about the end times. Contrary to my prediction in the previous…

Does Claire’s long con hold up to any scrutiny? Granted, this is House Of Cards, so plausibility is measured on a sliding scale, but it’s hard not to spot the flaws in Claire’s scheme even as it’s quite a bit of fun to watch it play out. (This show in a nutshell, really.) At the very least, it gives Robin Wright some…

Well played, House Of Cards. You got me.

Every once in a while, House Of Cards stumbles into a timely real-world parallel that may momentarily cause you to forget all the absurdities and pulpy twists and turns that have brought us to this point. For me, it was this episode’s subplot about Claire’s Supreme Court choice pick that got under my skin a bit, for…

Maybe Raymond Tusk had the best take on Claire Underwood. As Bill Shepherd tells her after a tense exchange of threats, Tusk always wondered whether Claire was a real person or just playing the part of one. That could read as a meta comment on Robin Wright’s performance as well. There’s an unknowable essence to…

Francis Underwood looms large over the sixth (and final) season premiere of House Of Cards, but he’s nowhere to be seen. You may have heard something about this. Production on this season was abruptly halted a year ago in the wake of sexual assault allegations against star Kevin Spacey, and not long afterward the…