The Flash “Masquerade” Review

Season 7 Episode 13 “Cecile faces her past when a new enemy traps her in a mental mindscape. Chester questions his place on the team taking Cisco’s position.”

What I Liked?

1. The episode begins with Joe, now free from the burden of being police chief, he’s been digging into the background of Kramer, he’s found some army records and Cecile has done the same, when Joe leaves, the camera pans to Cecile’s eye, this is where we see that the real Cecile is trapped inside of her own mind, in a psychiatric hospital. The setup to this episode caught me off guard, this is setting up the beginning of a great episode.

2. This next point is where we see just how well planned this plan is by the “fake Cecile”, she gets rid of the real Cecile by trapping her inside her own mind, lives Cecile’s real-life, asks Barry to help her on a case, when he figures out the case sounds familiar, this is where she traps Barry inside the same place as the real Cecile, this was really well done, insanely well thought out and perfectly executed. Honestly, I was shocked at how great this plan was, especially for this villain being teased in a previous crossover.

3. After Cecile manipulates and slowly puts ideas into the minds of Chester and the rest of Team Flash, Chester calls in for backup, Sue Dearbon. After a well-thought-out plan of action, although it was an easy plan to Sue, we get to see a really great scene by Sue where we actually see her use her cat burglar abilities to infiltrate the room where the safe is. In another scene, I was shocked at how great they pulled it off.

4. This next scene I absolutely loved because of the character development we finally got and deserved. Earlier in the episode Cecile mentioned to Barry that this place was only one floor, this causes Barry to realize that Cecile knows exactly where they are, a psychiatric hospital where Cecile was once a patient. We get to learn so much more about the character of Cecile, she appeared and just kind of stayed, we knew nothing about her backstory until now where we learn that she lost her mother while she was young which caused her mental health to dwindle and cause her to be admitted to the hospital.

5. My next point is for Chester, and I truly believe that this scene was absolutely 100% needed, especially for a new character like Chester. After failing to notice that Cecile wasn’t herself, Chester and Iris speak, Chester tells her that he came to Star Labs to work with Cisco but the only way Cisco helped the team as he had those “bonds and relationships” with Team Flash to which Chester doesn’t exactly have those same bonds, this scene felt real, it felt raw, this was a great scene for Chester. I believe after a few more episodes we’ll see Chester grow even more as a character and truly settle into Team Flash.

6. This next scene was straight-up scary, it was something out of a horror movie but I absolutely loved it. We got to see Cecile grow as a character and defeat and overcome her old darker self who was trapped in this hospital, while in the real world we got Iris vs Psycho-Pirate in Davoe’s chair, this was a distraction so Chester could save the day.

What I disliked?

1. In this episode we get to see the return of Sue Dearbon, however, this appearance is a solo appearance and unfortunately no reappearance of Ralph Dibney, even with that mask on where saw earlier in the season when we said our “goodbyes” to the characters. This would have been such a great time to bring back the character, but I understand why they didn’t.

2. My next point is also about Sue, she came in, done her job, and then got attacked by Psycho-Pirate who made Sue shoot herself with her dart gun, for this season she has a go at Chester and made him doubt himself as a member of Team Flash like this was a straight-up b**** in this scene, I absolutely disliked this scene.

Favorite Moment

My favorite moment came towards the middle of the episode when we got to see just how intuitive Iris actually is. We got to see Iris figuring out that Cecile wasn’t herself, and we got to see Iris put all the pieces together, this might of been “just a typical scene” but in reality, this scene proves how good of a journalist Iris actually is.

Standout Character

For me, I was stuck on who to choose for this one section of the review, I went back and forth between Cecile and Chester but ultimately I had to give it to Chester even though it was a big Cecile episode, I just think Chester deserved it more.

The Verdict

This episode might have been a filler episode but overall this was one huge character develop-driven episode, for both Cecile and Chester, those two characters were given so much character development in this episode which made this “filler” episode stand out. Overall it was a really great episode.

Rating: 8.3/10

Photo: The Flash Season 7 Episode 13 “Masquerade” Review.