Recap: THE FLASH S6E12 – “A Girl Named Sue”

Previously on The Flash, Iris West-Allen (Candace Patton) was trapped in a mirror while investigating the rising threat of Black Hole, and replaced with a mirror duplicate! Her husband, Barry Allen (Grant Gustin), aka The Flash, was unaware that his wife had been replaced! Meanwhile, the rest of Team Flash continued to adjust to life post-Crisis, with Ralph Dibny (Hartley Sawyer) set to continue his months-long search for missing person Sue Dearbon! In The Flash S6E12, “A Girl Named Sue,” Ralph finally finds his woman, who ends up being more than he bargained for, while Iris finds she’s not the only one trapped on the other side of the mirror.

Folsom Prison Blues

The episode opens with a trapped Iris watching Barry and her mirror duplicate from inside the mirror. Her prison appears to be the office at McCulloch Technologies where she was sucked into the mirror to begin with, and she’s shocked when another person appears in the room with her. Eva McCulloch (Efrat Dor), co-founder of McCulloch Tech and wife of Joseph Carver (Eric Nenninger), aka Black Hole, hugs Iris. She describes the Mirrorverse as the “other side” of reality, and says she’s been trapped there alone for six years, since the night of the particle accelerator explosion. Iris says she has to get home, but Eva seems resigned to being trapped there.

At Ralph’s office, he reviews his files in the Sue Dearbon case. He says he’s been searching for her for 274 days, and his files reveal that, along with being a socialite, Sue is also a Fulbright scholar. Following he and Barry’s adventure in Midway City, Ralph says he has no new leads on Sue. Cecile Horton (Danielle Nicolet) enters and offers to help Ralph with his case, but Ralph says he doesn’t need it. Just then an alert pops up on his computer, and Ralph finds that Sue has just made a deposit in her name on an apartment in Central City.

Elsewhere, at Barry and Iris’s apartment, Barry tells Iris (actually the Mirror-Iris) he’s sore from their encounter with Amunet Black and Goldface. Mirror-Iris appears to be working on the Black Hole investigation, and tells Barry she’s trying to connect the mirror gun created by McCulloch Tech to Black Hole. She asks if he will bring her the mirror gun from S.T.A.R. Labs, and Barry suggests that’s not a good idea in case the gun falls into the wrong hands. She insists, and Barry assures her he trusts her, but that he doesn’t trust Carver. Finally Mirror-Iris relents, and Barry exits.

At a rundown apartment building downtown, Ralph walks down the hall looking for a specific apartment. He finds the door and opens it, but is immediately knocked down by a woman as a bomb explodes inside the apartment. She gets to her feet, and Ralph recognizes her as Sue Dearbon (Natalie Dreyfuss).

Back at Ralph’s office, Ralph asks Sue where she’s been and who’s trying to kill her. She tells him her ex, John Loring, is after her because she stumbled upon proof that he’s a murderer and a criminal. Ralph says they should go to the police, but Sue says there’s no one she can trust, and Ralph realizes she’s hunting Loring herself to get evidence on him. He says he’ll get Sue what she needs so that she can return to her parents, and Sue insists on going with him.

Back in the Mirrorverse, Eva tells Iris she’s tried to escape 1,322 times. She’s clearly starting to lose her mind, and she flips out at Iris for suggesting there’s any hope of escape. Iris remembers how Team Flash freed Barry from Sam Scudder’s mirror by bringing the mirror’s temperatore down to absolute zero, and thinks they could do the same to free themselves. Eva says she has liquid nitrogen in another room in the office, and the two agree that they have a chance.

At the Central City Police Department, Captain Joe West (Jesse L. Martin) asks Barry to look into a crime scene file for him. Barry points out that the case has already been closed, but Joe asks him to do it anyway. He won’t tell Barry why, but he does ask Barry to bring whatever he finds directly to Joe.

Guess Things Happen That Way

Later that day, Ralph and Sue are in Ralph’s car outside of a warehouse where Sue says Loring has his operation based. Ralph insists Sue stay in the car, saying Loring will know she’s coming but might not recognize him. Ralph gets out and sneaks toward the building, taking some photos of Loring and a few other men doing some sort of deal. He turns to find one of Loring’s men standing in front of him. The man smashes Ralph’s camera and tries to drown him in a nearby barrel of water. As Ralph struggles, he’s saved by Sue, who hits Ralph’s attacker with a flying kick. She asks Ralph if he still wants her to stay in the car.

At CC Jitters, Ralph and Sue are having a cup of coffee. Ralph seems concerned about being out in public with Sue, but she says they’re safe. She then tries to blow Ralph off since he doesn’t trust her to take care of herself. Ralph insists that he never bails on a case, and the two make a plan to break in to the warehouse to get the information they need. Cecile arrives and introduces herself. Her powers tell her something’s going on, and taking Ralph aside she says she thinks he and Sue are on a “similar wavelength.” 

In the Mirrorverse, Eva and Iris bring the mirror down to absolute zero. The mirror cracks, then shatters to the floor. At their apparent failure, Eva herself cracks, telling Iris how she watched her husband grieve for her and eventually move on. She just can’t move on herself, she says.

Meanwhile, at S.T.A.R. Labs, Mirror-Iris finds the mirror gun in storage. She’s interrupted by Nash Wells (Tom Cavanagh), himself skulking around the darkened room. He tells her he’s taking inventory per Cisco’s request, and an image of the Earth-2 Harrison “Harry” Wells appears behind Iris and tells Nash he’s lying. Mirror-Iris also lies and tells Nash she was looking for her future daughter’s journal. She asks Nash not to tell Barry, and as the two talk Harry chides Nash for keeping secrets. Mirror-Iris exits, leaving Nash alone. He looks at the book he’s holding: the diary of Harry Wells.

That night, at the warehouse, Ralph and Sue have successfully broken in, but are quickly spotted. Scrambling up to Loring’s office, they search for his ledger with proof of his misdeeds. Instead Ralph finds a key to a safety deposit box at Central City Mercantile Bank. Fleeing from Loring’s men, Ralph and Sue get to the roof. With no other escape, Ralph grabs Sue and stretches his arm out, grabbing the next rooftop and swinging the two of them down to the ground, revealing to Sue that he’s Elongated Man.

I Walk The Line

Back at Ralph’s office, Ralph tells Sue how he got his powers. Sue saus she appreciates Ralph for trusting her with his secret, and he suggests they get a warrant from his friends at CCPD to search the deposit box. Sue says they don’t have time, and suggests the ycould break into the bank and get the ledger themselves now. Ralph says he won’t commit a crime, and Sue says something about her parents that convinces Ralph to agree to help her. He says he’ll help her go in, but once they have the ledger they have to take it to the CCPD. Sue agrees.

The next day, at the CCPD headquarters, Barry tells Joe the fire in the case file he looked over was started by ultraviolet light rays, similar to the ones Doctor Light and Ultraviolet use. Joe produces a pile of other files with similar MOs, and says they’re all related to Joseph Carver and Black Hole. He thinks someone in the CCPD is helping cover things up for Carver. Barry tells Joe about Iris’s investigation and the mirror gun, and Joe insists they can trust Iris because she’s family.

In the Mirrorverse, Iris tries to tell Eva everything is going to be okay, but Eva strongly disagrees. As she gets agitated, a shard of the broken mirror flies off the ground and into Eva’s hand. She looks at it and asks what happened, and Iris says it may be their way out. 

Shortly, at the Central City Mercantile Bank, Joe West and another CCPD officer arrive, and Joe tells the bank manager he got a tip about a possible break-in. The manager leads him to the safe and opens it, saying they have nothing to worry about. The other officer tazes the bank manager to the ground. She removes a mask to reveal Sue, and Joe relaxes and turns back into Ralph. Inside the vault, Ralph suggests to Sue that she could make a good detective. She says growing up as a socialite led her to end up not knowing who she really is, and Ralph says he understands how she feels, and that getting his powers helped him find his place in the world. Sue finds and opens the deposit box, and removes a small box from inside. Ralph wonders why the ledger is so small, and Sue kicks him in the head, knocking him down. She locks the cage inside the vault with Ralph still inside.

Ring of Fire

A stunned Ralph gets to his feet, and Sue reveals the huge diamond inside the box she stole. It’s then that Ralph realizes Sue set him up — she knew Ralph was looking for her, so she came back to Central City and concocted a story about Loring being after her to get Ralph to unwittingly help her rob him. Sue says her parents don’t know she’s a thief, and tells Ralph not to tell them and she won’t tell anyone he’s Elongated Man.

Outside the vault, Loring and his heavily-armed men are waiting for her. Loring says she tripped a silent alarm on the deposit box when she accessed it. Meanwhile, inside, Ralph tries to find a way out, and notices a sprinkler valve on the ceiling. He pulls his Elongated Man costume out of his pocket. Back in the lobby, Loring’s men raise their guns, and the sprinkler head falls off the ceiling as Ralph squeezes his way out. He wraps Sue up in his giant rubber arms as Loring’s men open fire, and the two bicker as Sue removes her police officer’s uniform to reveal a black catsuit underneath. As they talk they hear Loring and his men get knocked out. Ralph lowers his arms, and they find the Black Hole assassin Ultraviolet waiting. She says Sue has something that belongs to her, and casually refers to Sue as “old friend.”

Ralph is hit by a blast of ultraviolet radiation while saving the recovering bank manager, and Sue and Ultraviolet engage in hand-to-hand combat. As Ralph awakens, Sue slides the box over to him, causing Ultraviolet to turn and approach him. Ralph opens the box to find it empty, and Sue escapes with the diamond. Ultraviolet also escapes in a rage and a flash of UV light. A badly burned Ralph struggles to sit up, and Loring and his men rise and prepare to finish him off. Just then The Flash arrives with the CCPD, and they take the goons into custody, Barry helping and upset Ralph to his feet.

Back at S.T.A.R. Labs, Barry, Mirror-Iris, and Ralph use facial recognition software to find that Sue’s not in Central City anmore. Ralph is annoyed that Sue played him, and he storms out. With Ralph gone, Barry presents Mirror-Iris with the mirror gun. He tells her about what he and Joe found about the killings related to Carver, and says he trusts Iris to use the mirror gun to bring Black Hole down. Mirror-Iris thanks him and exits, a smile on her face.

In the Mirrorverse, Iris realizes that Eva has a connection to the mirror thanks to the dark matter wave from the particle accelerator explosion. Eva argues that she’s not some metahuman criminal like Scudder was, and Iris agrees, saying she’s a survivor, and that it’s time to prove it. Eva reconstructs the mirror with her powers, and suddenly Iris sees Barry at home. Barry looks in the direction of the mirror in their living room, but doesn’t appear to see Iris. The image of Barry fades, and a confused Eva asks how she did any of what she just did. Iris says they’ll figure it out together.

Elsewhere, Sue Dearbon is in a small, darkened room. Information on Ralph Dibny is tacked to the wall, and a copy of the Central City Citizen declaring the connection between McCulloch Technologies and Black Hole is visible on a nearby table. She places her freshly-stolen diamond under an analyzer, which reads the gem and reveals Black Hole markings inside it. “Game on,” Sue says with a wry smile.

To be continued!

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Overall, The Flash S6E12 was a solid proper introduction for the Arrowverse’s iteration of Sue Dearbon. Aside from the clear chemistry between Sawyer and Dreyfuss, at this point it’s hard to see how Sue could ever end up being bride to the Elongated Man as she was in the comics, but that’s definitely going to be part of the fun with this character. Iris’s storyline also made some progress, though she’s still trapped in that mirror, so maybe not as much progress as one would’ve liked. Will she and Eva finally figure out a way to free themselves? Will Barry realize his wife has been replaced with a sinister duplicate? And just what game is Sue Dearbon playing with Black Hole? Come back next week to find out!