The final season of the Flash was remarkably uneven and had some real issues at times. There were several puzzling choices in “The Good, The Bad, and The Lucky.” The main character and his wife, among the few remaining characters from the first season, take most of this episode off, they bring back a minor character from the dead (thanks to more complications and ripples from Crisis), and there are a few inconsistences and just plain weird things happening throughout the show.

Even the introductory voiceover gets handed off, as Becky Sharp, guest not-quite-villain this week, brings viewers up to speed on her life and past exploits. In the comics, Becky Sharp is Hazard, the granddaughter of the Golden Age villain The Gambler (but not the version over on Stargirl, which is on a separate Earth). Here, she’s more or less a bumbler who accidentally gets the power to affect luck around her and reforms from being a villain after a clash with Flash several episodes (and seasons) ago.

Becky starts off the show with an impressive run of really bad luck and eventually ends up in the custody of CCPD. I think they’re still trying to rehab the character after her initial very unsympathetic appearances, but Captain Kramer manages to figure out there are pieces of the story around Becky that aren’t making sense and calls Cecile to ask her to defend the young woman. For her part, Cecile is on the phone with daughter Jenna, talking about Cecile’s upcoming visit. Joe taking Jenna and moving out to the country was a fairly lame storyline developed to cover Jesse Martin’s departure from the series. With Cecile promising her young daughter that she won’t miss her train, you know roughly what’s going to happen as the episode goes on.

Over at STAR, the source of many of Central City’s problems and some solutions, Barry and Iris announce a road trip to Coast City. Apparently, they are trying to limit Barry moving Iris at superspeed while she’s pregnant, mostly for plot device reasons. As soon as the power couple are gone, Allegra gets a call from her landlord. Most of the supporting characters on this show don’t get scenes at home, so we’ve known nothing about her living circumstances until now. Evidently, her apartment has a lot of issues, and Chester offers to come take a look at the hot water, the current problem. This starts off a round of flirting, and Khione looks on approvingly. While Allegra goes to tell her landlord off, Chester decides to help Mark try and figure out exactly what Khione’s largely undefined powers are.

Kramer briefs Cecile on the particulars of Becky’s case, and there are lots of odd little notes throughout this scene and the episode suggesting the writers are largely, or completely, unfamiliar with police procedure, investigations, and the bail system to say the least. Cecile agrees to take the case and start next week, but Becky panics about going to jail for the weekend. Somehow, in this world, getting a lawyer makes the difference between jail or bail, even though it changes nothing on the case and the investigating police captain already doubts the case. Accompanied by Allegra, who I guess is done shouting at her landlord, Cecile and Becky go back to Becky’s place, which has been released by CSI ridiculously fast. I wonder who is working the case with Barry being gone, since the only CSIs we’ve ever seen for the CCPD are named characters on the show and none of them are around. Allegra’s powers help find a clue the police overlooked, and Becky is forced to consider something she really didn’t want to.

This new clue leads to an interview with a potential suspect who really seems off to everyone involved. Cecile pushes in the questioning, and the new suspect, Tony, starts talking, but what he is saying shocks Becky, who insists he’s wrong. Following up on Tony’s information, they end up at a seedy bar where Cecile gets bad news and has an issue with her powers that is very convenient for the story. The rest of the scene plays out oddly, with Allegra seeming to forget she had powers until a bit later in the action, a hostage being taken, and the heroes not going after the fleeing bad guys because… reasons. As all this goes on, and badly, Mark, Chester, and Khione try and crack the mystery of her powers. Mark is clearly pushing for certain results, and grows remarkably frustrated when he doesn’t get them. Khione remains her generally unruffled self while Chester just gives them data and more or less hides behind his equipment.

Regrouping at Cecile’s office, they go over their lack of useful progress. Cecile has made a really stupid decision with predictable results, and managed to miss her train, to the surprise of no one who has been paying attention to the episode. Of course, she knows someone who could fix that problem for her very easily, actually several someones, but doesn’t contact any of them so she can wallow, I guess. Becky overhears something that upsets her, runs off crying, and gets herself captured by some very well-informed thugs. Once again, Cecile and Allegra manage to be of no real use and get used for a cheap visual joke. Later, Chester tries and fails to track Becky, Cecile has a temper tantrum/self pity party and stalks off, and Chester gets an idea about what’s going on. Mark and Khione have a talk about what he was hoping for and how he’s feeling, Khione gets philosophical, and then they both get a surprise.

Cecile has withdrawn to her office, where she has a phone conversation with Jenna that Allegra comes in on the end of. Apparently, despite gangsters hunting them and causing problems, Cecile still hasn’t learned to lock her office door. Cecile has a long emotional outburst about many things going wrong with her life, and Allegra brings up a few things she’s noticed. Just after Allegra offers some sage advice, Chester calls and has more information for them. He has analyzed something they found, and this leads them to new information and a passing sidequest that gets mentioned for later. They come up with a new plan based on the most recent strings of deductions and go try and take care of matters.

Becky has been forced back into her old costume, which is a great recreation of her look from the comics, and is being forced to use her powers to help someone she’d really rather have nothing to do with. Exactly how this scenario is working, with some of a casino being blocked off for a private party where the house is losing lots of money and no one is investigating, is never explained. Despite having lots of contacts in the superhero community, Cecile and Allegra decide to tackle this on their own, still with no costumes or masks. Their powers are still not working great, but that doesn’t stop them. Chester manages to help out as the guy in the van/on the keyboards, and somehow a more or less common event, or at least a normal one, causes a big panic for no real reason. Eventually the good guys (or girls in this case) win, there’s lots of good news, and Cecile makes an offer most of us figured out was coming a while back.

In an epilogue scene, set one week later, Barry and Iris return (one week is pretty good for driving from the mid-West to the West Coast and back, but distances never quite make sense in superhero shows), there’s a surprise party, and everyone seems more or less happy. As things draw to a close, there’s another mention of a recurring character who remains off screen (I guess they were on a budget), and Khione gets a surprise to leave them all scratching their heads at the end.

What I Liked: I do appreciate them giving supporting characters some screen time, and Cecile and Allegra have the potential to make a good team. Mark’s current emotional issues at least make sense with his history. While it was obvious and took a bit coming, Cecile’s suggestion near the end made a lot of sense and solves several problems (even if some of them were just introduced this episode). Characters being randomly back from the dead post-Crisis, while confusing and even a bit annoying, is something that happened a lot after the series in the comics, so I guess it’s only fair they’re doing the same thing here.

What I Didn’t: There were so many problems with this episode. I’m not sure there was enough evidence to even justify Becky being arrested, let alone held without bail. There were a lot of small things that didn’t make sense (Why did the heroes let the bad guys just run off? Why are Allegra and Cecile still running around without costumes and masks when they’re working with the guy who told Oliver he should wear one? Why did Allegra seem to forget she had powers at one point?). This could have been a decent episode with a few small changes. I really wonder if the writers’ room was just phoning it in at this point.

This was a flawed episode that felt like filler, which is an odd choice for the final season. While it was nice to see Becky again, I’m giving this one a 2 out of 5. Really, Flash should go out on a higher note.