By Kenn Gold
The 1st episode of Flash Gordon, after the pilot, opens with Baylin now stranded on Earth after being sent to retrieve Ming’s daughter Aura. She has taken up residence in the local park, and reports are reaching the police of a woman who steals food, climbs up a tree and turns invisible. Dale, Flash, and Zarkov hear the reports, and Zarkov has a panic attack worrying about the destruction of the universe when people find out about rift technology.
Meanwhile, on Mongo, Rankol visits the cell of the Lion-Man Tyrus, and offers him a deal. He can go to Earth and retrieve Baylin, and be rewarded, but if he fails, his fate will be such that he wishes for death. Tyrus comes thru with a nifty laser whip, and immediately kills a guard. Flash and Zarkov go to an abandoned ship yard to investigate the rift, find the body, and make an anonymous report to Dale’s fiancé, Joe.
Flash and Zarkov try to open the rift with the rift blaster left by Aura which Zarkov has repaired, but it opens up a distorted rift, which Zarkov thinks will lead to an eternity trapped between dimensions, should Flash try to enter it. (Forshadowing for later)
While Dale tries to suppress the story of Baylin, Flash fills her in on the fact that something came thru the rift.
Baylin follows Flash home, and decides to take up residence in his house. Luckily, Flash’s mother is still on the business trip that she left for during the pilot. When Tyrus arrives looking for Baylin, she paralyzes Flash and Dale, and ties them together, face to face. This leads to an awkward situation as Zarkov begins incessantly calling Flash, and his phone is set to vibrate mode.
As the story progresses, we learn that Baylin was sold to Tyrus for water rations, and is his bond-mate. She learned her skills as a bounty hunter from him, and he has come to take her back. Flash steps up, and declares his love for Baylin, to distract Tyrus, who eventually meets his fate in the broken rift.
Overall, this episode is still an introduction, as Baylin’s back story is expanded. It also features the introduction of the Lion-Men into the re-imagined story. Gina Holden still shines as Dale, and her acting skills stand out, above the rest of the ensemble. Eric Johnson as Flash, explores a bit of the Dorky side of the character that he has alluded to in interviews. It is clear that he is not really the same Flash of incarnations past, but it works for him. Zarkov’s panic attack sequence is annoying rather than funny. Other than that he is fine, and is beginning to become the Zarkov he needs to be.
The character who really begins to shine in this episode is Ming. John Ralston’s subtle evil is explored, as he must decide the fate of a Vardin ice smuggler. His own daughter Aura, who has been compromised by one of her servants pleads mercy for the man, and puts her father on the spot asking if it is a crime for a man to love his daughter. Ming at first would seem to show mercy to the man, but instead inverts Aura’s pleas, showing mercy to the daughter, but dealing harshly with the smuggler. We begin to see the subtle thought out mercilessness that will become Ming’s calling card as he explains his actions to Aura. By her request, one man would have been saved, but by dealing with the situation in his way, thousands will survive.
In some reviews of the pilot, Ming has been referred to as Ming the Accountant, or Ming the Middle Level Manager. Eric Johnson pointed out that Ming is much more like an Enron executive than the evil-for-evil’s sake dictator, and we begin to see that.
Importantly, Flash won a friend in Baylin when he defended her, and that is the beginning of her fall from Ming’s graces, and the start of her deciding that it may be better to stay on Earth. Karen Cliche plays the part well, and a bathing scene at the end (scraping with oil in the manner of the ancient Greeks) catches Flash's attention.
Joe, Dale’s fiancée is annoying because he is in the way. Interestingly still, this is the role that Eric Johnson’s character played on Smallville, being the foil between Clark and Lana, and Joe is as annoying as Whitney was there. But Dale is maybe showing some of her true feelings when she asks if would make a difference if she asked him not to go back to Mongo.
This episode is strong, and a good start at fleshing out some of the richer characters of Mongo. The costumes in the series are generally good, with the exception of the hats. What is it with the headdresses that the citizens of Mongo must wear? Drop the hats, and the costuming is fine, maybe even good. They don’t work for the Varden women. Sound effects also continue to need some work. Music and background effects should not distort the voices to a point where you can’t understand what the characters are saying, and the background music still gets too loud at inopportune times.
The strongest point of the episode is the subtle growth of Ming’s lack of mercy, and the beginning of seeing that in fact, the lawyer/accountant Ming might be a much eviler character than the Fu-Man-Chu mustached Mings of the past. The weakest parts of the episodes have to be the costumes of the Canton races, and the forced and poorly acted panic attacks of Zarkov. Gina Holden continues to be a strong presence, and fans of earlier Flash’s will continue to be distracted by the fact that not only is this Flash an average guy, but is also somewhat of a dork. Most notably improved from the pilot are the fleshed out roles that Baylin and Ming begin to play.
The episode is definitely a step towards developing a fan base who will call this show their own, and may be enough to cause some of the show's harshest critics to drop off and move on.
