Warning! The following contains spoilers for The Flash Season 9 episode "The Mask of the Red Death." Read at your own risk!
Javicia Leslie's Red Death has officially arrived on The Flash, and while she's still not Batman, she's using some of his most iconic lines. Not only did the character recite the iconic "I am vengeance" line in the latest episode, but she also busted out a classic quote from 1989 Batman that starred Michael Keaton. Even though the CW series didn't get the actor to show up in the flesh like The Flash movie's Ezra Miller once did, recycling this iconic line just be the next best thing. And I'm ready for a rewatch of Keaton's first movie as Batman!
The scene in question occurred when Iris met up with who she originally believed was Ryan Wilder hoping to enlist Team Flash's help to fight her doppelganger, Red Death. Unfortunately for her, however, Iris is a crackerjack journalist and quickly deduced that the woman wasn't the Ryan she knew, but actually Red Death. The villain, realizing the jig was up, slowly put on her speedster armor and dropped this doozy of a line on Mrs. West-Allen:
You want to get nuts? Come on, let's get nuts.
It's still early in The Flash Season 9, but I think that may go down as one of my favorite scenes of the season. It perfectly fit the gravity of the situation and in no way felt like it was forced into the scene. It also, of course, reminded me of the iconic scene between Bruce Wayne and The Joker in the apartment in 1989's Batman, which never fails to put a smile on my face.
Iris did have a gun pointed at Red Death but unfortunately did not respond to the villain's question with, "You ever dance with the devil in the pale moonlight?" Apparently, The Flash writers could only go so far with referencing the classic movie, and I applaud them for going as far as they did!
Plus, it gave me the perfect excuse to seek out the original scene online, as I don't currently have the time to binge it with my HBO Max subscription:
What a great movie! Hopefully The Flash pulling this off only means good things for the rest of Season 9. This season already won me over recently when it might've unintentionally turned the Killer Frost and Caitlin Snow storyline into a big homage to a classic Star Trek episode. Now we're getting quotes from classic Batman movies? Final seasons are often loaded with Easter eggs and fan service, and we were blessed to get two solid callbacks this episode.
The question is, just how many more Batman references will be snuck into The Flash Season 9? The Arrowverse has done about all it can over the years to pay homage to The Dark Knight despite seemingly never being able to actually use him outside of a Crisis. Still, it's cool to see Red Death after that tease so long ago, and if we're lucky, we'll keep getting references as long as she's in the mix.
The Flash airs new episodes on The CW on Wednesdays at 8:00 p.m. ET. The final season is nearly a third of the way over, so now is the perfect time to catch up and watch along. It's also a good time to check out the 2023 TV schedule and see what other shows will arrive when it's over.
