THE FLASH “Kiss, Kiss, Breach, Breach” Review: A Mawkishly Sentimental Hour

The Flash — “Kiss Kiss Breach Breach” Pictured: Danny Trejo as Breacher — Photo: Dean Buscher/The CW

The Flash “Kiss Kiss, Breach Breach” Review: A Mawkishly Sentimental Hour

By Justin Carter

Sometimes The Flash is goofy, but sometimes it amps up the melodrama to a degree that proceedings become mawkishly sentimental.

Tuesday’s “Kiss, Kiss, Breach, Breach” was such an episode, and an hour, which upon reflection did not offer a solid follow up to last week’s electric mix of bloody horror film and emotional accepting one’s mortality. 

This week Barry and Iris decide to go on vacation, leaving Cisco and his handy Barry AI BARI in charge. When Breacher shows up in the middle of the night while he and Kamila are sleeping, it’s to drop the news that Gypsy was murdered by her longtime nemesis Echo. What follows is a fairly interesting mystery as the three try and find Echo before Earth-19’s cops can, leading them to discover that Echo is just another Cisco doppelganger. (These Ciscos really like their sound-themed codenames, huh?) 

It’s a good thread that makes good use of all parts of Cisco’s skillset; he manages to get one over on the Earth-19 police force and Echo, thanks to his brains, does a little bit of Vibing to see Gypsy’s murder, and gets to fight himself. It’s also nice to just see Danny Trejo again, and the dynamic between Cisco and Kamila feels natural enough for her to groove along easily with what is a ridiculous situation. What makes it weird and overly-sentimental is the weird energy around Gypsy’s death; Echo uses a gun to wholly eradicate her and more or less ensure she won’t ever show up again, and the episode closes with Cisco giving a monologue about how she helped him learn who he needed to be. It’s off-putting for a character who has only shown up intermittently. I had to double check and make sure actor Jess Camacho hadn’t passed at some point between seasons. (She hadn’t; she’s on CBS’ All Rise and HBO’s Watchmen.)

That feeling extends to our other pair of storylines, the first being Joe and Nash trapped in the tunnels underneath Central City while Nash goes Monitor hunting. Short on oxygen, Joe gives a speech about how he was so depressed after his divorce years ago that he went to church and then came home to his neighbors making food for him and Iris. It’s all meant to illustrate how Joe has faith in people, you see, but it’s hokey as hell. The same goes for Killer Frost tagging out so Caitlin can appeal to Ramsey by reminding him of the faith his mother had in him. 

“Kiss Kiss Breach Breach” is by no means a bad episode, but one that leans in a bit too much and ends up looking silly for playing things incredibly straight. Nothing is bad here, but you also wouldn’t be missing too much if you skipped out on this one. 

Additional Notes

• Nash claims he knows of a way to save Barry from the Crisis. Or at least, he thinks he does. 
• Breacher mentions side effects of getting rid of one’s Vibe powers, which will no doubt play a role in things to come later on. 
• See you in two weeks when the show gets its Bond on.