Catching Up: The Flash Episode 403, "Luck Be a Lady"

THE FLASH continues its fourth-season winning streak with this episode, featuring the advent of Rebecca Sharpe, aka Hazard (SUGAR LYN BEARD), a girl with notoriously bad luck who finally has the tables turn thanks to her becoming a metahuman.

After we learn through The Thinker (NEIL SANDILANDS) and The Mechanic (KIM ENGELBRECHT) just how important Rebecca is to The Thinker's overall plans, we jump to S.T.A.R. Labs, where a breach is opening, and Wally West (KEIYNAN LONSDALE) awaits with a stuffed teddy bear and a bouquet of flowers. But it's not speedster Jesse Quick who comes through the warp, but her father, Harry Wells (TOM CAVANAGH). He's delivering something to Wally: a break-up box. And he's very uncomfortable doing it.

Then we see Rebecca after her luck changes, walking into a bank and calmly walking out with bags of cash -- almost unnoticed, as everyone suddenly has their own catastrophes to deal with. Even when The Flash (GRANT GUSTIN) shows up to stop her, he slips on a spilled barrel of marbles. Seriously. This forces Cisco Ramon (CARLOS VALDES) into a debate with Harry over luck versus "quantum entanglement." Cisco's all about the bad juju, despite being a scientific genius, while Harry remains steadfastly agnostic about higher powers. But the arrival of Hazard also brings with it the question: Where are these new metas coming from, since neither Rebecca nor Kilg%re (seen last episode) were in Central City when the particle accelerator accident happened that created The Flash. We'll get more on that later!

Cisco reveals there is still some tech in Barry's suit, and it registered traces of dark matter on Rebecca when he encountered her. With Barry and Harry, the use a dark matter detector to track down her location, and instead find the concentrated spot where she became Hazard -- a simple street corner. Barry recognizes it as the corner where he emerged from the Speed Force at the beginning of the episode, bringing with him a wave of dark matter that washed over a busload of people, including Hazard and Kilg%re.

Meanwhile, Team Flash begins to think they are cursed. Barry and Iris (CANDICE PATTON) can't find a wedding venue, as one after the other becomes unavailable. Iris tries to get married right away, crashing a funeral to use the priest afterward -- and even that falls through hilariously.  Joe West (JESSE L. MARTIN) and Cecile (DANIELLE NICOLET) debate what to do about the West home, as the plumbing begins to show its age. (Keep a sharp ear out for the "This house is bitchin'" phrase we heard in Barry's babble in episode 401!)

As Rebecca continues her good luck, she creates an equal and opposite field of "bad luck" for those around her. And when she goes to the casino and hits a million dollar winning streak, that field grows out -- and up -- to encompass the city and its air space! Flash is once again fumbling to capture her, and then the S.T.A.R. Labs accelerator comes online again, threatening to explode. Cisco and Harry rush to try to stop it, when Harry hits a brainstorm: Let it happen.

The wash of energy from the accelerator temporarily expunges Hazard's quantum bad luck field, allowing Barry to capture her and get her to Iron Heights. But Harry begins to see a pattern to things, and begins to wonder if there's someone calling the shots: a villain (the Samuroid) demands the Flash appear, so they pull him from the Speed Force, which in turn creates a wave of metas. And now we all have to wonder -- did Clifford Devoe want the accelerator wave to wash over the city?

There are things planned -- and there are things quite unplanned! For the latter, witness Cecile's announcement to Joe at the end of this episode. Say goodbye to those plans for a happy retirement, Joe! Also, we lose another speedster!