In Review: The Flash “Dead Man Running”

The Story

The third episode of the CW’s sixth season of the Flash, entitled, “Dead Man Running” was rather slow even for the Flash. While it is obvious that Barry Allen’s (Grant Gustin) interactions with Ramsey (Sendhil Ramamuthy) are clearly leading up to some critical point, which may very well connect the coming Crisis on Infinite Earths to this dimension’s Earth, through Ramsey’s incessant lust for dark matter. But getting there sure took the long way around the writer’s table in this episode.

Seeing Ramsey discover his connection with the Dark Matter simply wasn’t that interesting, but I am sure served a greater story arc purpose, as did many undertones of this episode.

Barry dealt eloquently with his pending death in the coming Crisis by sharing the truth of his future fate if the Multiverse and everything Barry holds dear is to survive. Gustin’s stoic good nature in the face of death, was able to show his team that living in the moment and enjoying life right now, outweighs a person’s inescapable fate.

So while the party at Star Labs might have been a well needed respite for Barry and the team, this episode was a bit of a drag especially in relation to the action of the last episode.

The Acting

One of the gems of Dead Man Running was Ralph’s (Heartley Sawyer) tear jerking scene with his Mother, as they explore the real reason’s why neither of them could let themselves open up to anyone else’s love, even their own. Ralph’s forgiveness of his Mom’s past lies, along with the realization that we all deserve to be loved was superbly portrayed by Sawyer.

Overall

Even though every episode can’t be a winner, even this slow paced episode has important clues to the upcoming story arc of this season, so die hard fans might not have been so harsh on Dead Man Running.