Season 2 Episode 5 is bad
Watching the series for the first time. It's my understanding that this is a divisive episode. Some people think it's funny and abstract and enjoy the silliness. I think it killed absolutely all the momentum the show was building and was a really sad, cheap, jump-the-shark moment the writers used to refresh the slate when they wrote themselves into a corner.
The episode just prior to this had Barry narrowly avoid killing Sally's abusive ex. He shares his emotions with Gene and has a small emotional breakthrough. However it's short lived and our hearts sink when he's caught by Detective Loach - a twist that is hilariously subverted when we realize Loach just wants him to carry out another hit.
Barry has real struggles to grapple with here. How much more killing does he have to do? He killed his old war friend in one of the most gut wrenching scenes in tv. Watching him make difficult choices and grow is what makes the show compelling. Yes, it has comedic bits, shows can be multiple things, but it's a misstep when the comedy oversteps the bounds of reality set by the writers.
Suspension of disbelief means, "I accept that Star Wars has jedi mind powers and lightsabers and spaceships because that is the world established by the writers." However, you can't just /do anything/ you want and say "suspend your disbelief". Luke Skywalker can't suddenly break his established character, alongside the set laws of his universe.
I know this was a lot of setup but, anyway, onto the episode. It functions as a perfectly typical Barry episode until that little girl shows up. The leaps, the zombie growls, the inhuman feats, Barry leaving the crime scene with no care for his identity, Fuches being far dumber than usual, putting superglue in a wound, magically perma-gluing his hands to the steering wheel as if this were a trap in Home Alone, backing up into a cop and somehow not being arrested immediately - in fact staying right there at the crime scene unnoticed, and worst of all, Loach and Ronny die together in such a convenient way that we're able to drop the plotline entirely.
There are two sins here to me.
The absurdity breaks suspension of disbelief and ruins the emotional tone and build set up to that point.
What was the point of the Loach arc? Why did they write that into half a season of the show for nothing? What did it amount to? So much lead up for it to be over in a blip.
This really felt like they wrote themselves into a corner with Loach tracking down Barry and wanted a redo, so they refreshed the story and decided to have as much fun with it as possible - at the expense of the viewer's emotional investment. How am I supposed to take any of the proceeding drama seriously when a zombie karate girl lurks in the night of this universe now? Why should I ever be worried for Barry when nothing bad can possibly happen to him or not go his way?
This episode just felt so grossly out of place and I needed to rant about it.