‘Rogue Time’ Plot:
The Flash (Grant Gustin) learns that Captain Cold (Wentworth Miller) and Heat Wave (Dominic Purcell) have returned to Central City. This time Snart has brought along his baby sister Lisa aka Golden Glider (Peyton List) to help wreak havoc on the city.
I’d hate to be the episode that follows ‘Out of Time,’ too.
Let me be clear. I thoroughly enjoyed ‘Rogue Time.’ I thought it was funny and interesting and it did a really good job of showing off some characters we see far too little of. It just seems like between the big reveal of last week and next week’s Trickster insanity, this week being just okay was kind of a letdown. It focused mainly on a couple of family issues. Let’s looks at the families in question:
The Ramóns
After last week’s excellent performance, Carlos Valdes was given another chance to shine in Rogue Time. The main plot followed Cisco through a horrible family party and then an even worse family hostage situation that led to more Cisco waterworks. I don’t want the show to overdo it, but the last few weeks have proven that he is an excellent actor and Carlos can be more than just a lovable nerd.
Cisco is responsible for most of the developments this week. He does some more folding under pressure. It isn’t very heroic but in that situation, I expect any of us would do the exact same thing. In the first instance, he creates the Rogues’ new guns. In the second, he reveals Barry’s secret identity to Snart. Neither one turns out too tragically. We are probably a couple mafiosos down in Central City, but otherwise the consequences this episode weren’t at high. More importantly, Cisco’s brother is a huge jerk and his family is crazy for not being more proud of their son who is a NUCLEAR PHYSICIST at like 25.
The Snarts
This week’s new addition to Flash’s rogues gallery (name check) was a criminal named Lisa Snart, from the up and coming Snart crime family. She was the one who rescued Captain Cold and Heatwave from the prison transport a couple of episodes ago. Besides owning a pretty unconvincing wig, she is also the proud owner of a new golden gun. What exactly it does is anyone’s guess. It’s only used briefly and it seems to cover objects in gold but if that’s true, why are the Rogues still committing crimes at all? They have a gun that literally makes gold! Besides seducing Cisco, Lisa doesn’t have a ton to do besides crash the motorcycle and hang around the growing team.
Leonard Snart a.k.a. Captain Cold had a lot more to do this episode. He kidnaps Cisco to rebuild the guns. I thought the point of Cold learning the gun inside and out was so that he could remake the gun were he to lose it. Having Cisco recreate the gun seems like it is going to be a tough thing to do every time the Rogues get captured. Also Cold revealed his true intentions to Barry. He wants to steal because he enjoys crime. He doesn’t want the money and he isn’t a psychopath who really likes killing. That realization gives Barry the opportunity to set some ground rules with Snart, chief among them being the “No Killing” rule that the Rogues are well known for in the comics. Barry’s logic made good sense. If Snart is as good as he says he is he should be able to commit crimes without killing anyone. It seems like that promise might be a little more difficult to keep when dealing with Heatwave the completely insane serial arsonist but we’ll see how that plays out in the future.
The Wests
So no surprise here. Barry’s attempt to re-confess his love to Iris fell flat. Since he isn’t able to tell her that he is the Flash, the moment wasn’t the same. Also Wells theorized that the heightened levels of adrenaline played a big part in Iris’ reaction and that’s probably correct considering everything Wells theorizes turns out to be correct. Iris is caught in the middle of a very CW love triangle in which she clearly has feelings for Barry but sticks with Eddie because he got there first. That’s an excellent way of determining who gets the front seat. I doubt it works so well with relationships, but what do I know? Also Barry is now single because his girlfriend of two dates broke up with him because they weren’t in love enough. Considering Barry can didge real bullets, Barry really dodged a metaphorical one there.
The Allens
Barry begins this episode with a big revelation. Following the events of last week’s episode, Barry can now travel back in time. In this instance he only travels back a day but this information fuels Barry’s reserve to go back and save his mother from the Man in the Yellow Suit. When he explains the phenomenon to his mentor, Dr. Wells wants nothing to do with it. He warns Barry that time will correct itself and one catastrophe will replace another. That never really comes to pass but it does seem to run perpendicular to Wells’ current plan. And speaking of that plan…
The Thawnes
Both Eddie and Eobard both did work this week. Eddie had his moment where he sucker punched Barry. Then he sucker hugged him as an apology. Eobard, on the other hand, sucker punched and killed Mason Bridges and more importantly killed his computer with all of the evidence pointing to Wells killing Simon Stagg way back in Episode 2. In a wonderful bit of directing, the most subtle and important change from last week’s timeline was the tragic timing occurring at the Central City Citizen where everytime Mason was about to tell someone his Wells theory, that person was busy and missed it. Fortunately before the time-jog, Barry did speak with Mason and he finally seems to be on to Wells. Isn’t that just like Barry. He gets there but he’s always a little late.
Rating: 7/10
https://youtu.be/Lkij00xF5Kc
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Matthew Nando Kelly is an incredibly cool and handsome staff writer for Pop-Break who was allowed to write his own bio. Aside from weekly Flash reviews, he writes about film, television, music, and video games. Matthew also has a podcast called Mad Bracket Status where he discusses pop culture related brackets with fellow Pop-Break writer DJ Chapman. He loves U2, cats, and the New Orleans Saints. He can also occasionally be found writing lists on Topless Robot and his twitter handle is @NationofNando
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