Episode Title: Rogue Time
Original Airdate: 3-25-15
Continuing where last week’s episode left off, which was also pretty much the beginning of last week’s episode since Barry found himself repeating the same day once again, but the show doesn’t go the typical time loop route for very long. And while it does undo pretty much all of the major revelations of last week’s episode as most of us would have anticipated, it did undo them in ways that I didn’t entirely expect. It was a very surprising mixture of falling into expectations while also subverting them in some subtle ways. And while there are still some serious topics coming through the episode, it always finds time to lighten the mood whenever possible. Not quite as enjoyable as last week’s Out of Time, but still a great entry in the series nonetheless.
Personally, I’m a big fan of the concept of a time loop and while I would have loved to see the Flash’s take on it, I am actually glad that the show didn’t completely go that route. Instead, it only spends a few minutes worth of Barry knowing exactly what’s going to happen, even so far as to have him capture last week’s villain the Weather Wizard with no fanfare at all which lets them move onto the third return of Captain Cold and his ever increasing team, this time joined with his sister who eventually gets her own gold-plating gun. And while it’s not exactly explained, I would imagine that while everything she shoots gets covered in and/or turns into gold, it’s likely that it merely looks like gold rather than actually being pure gold. Wentworth Miller is a lot of fun in this role and it’s no surprise that he keeps coming back because his episodes are so much fun. It’s also interesting to see how the show sends him out of this episode, it’s been announced that the plan is for him to return in the big spin-off DC team-up series, but the way he exits here it’s unclear if he will be the villain there, or quite possibly more of an anti-hero.
The rest of the events from last week are revisited in different ways. Cisco gets another chance to show off his emotional side as he has to choose between letting his jerkish brother die or giving up the Flash’s true identity. And while Captain Cold does now know Barry’s secret identity, it ends with the idea that it will be kept safe, though I’d like to think that Cold’s idea of creating an uplink to expose his secret identity to the world is actually just a YouTube video that would likely just sit with less than a dozen views for a few years. Dr. Wells gets his moment with Cisco to reveal to him that Cisco feels like a son to him, but instead of Cisco getting killed after realizing Wells’ true identity, Iris’s co-worker is the one who suffers that fate. But the episode does end with another member of the team suspecting Wells’ secret life, but instead of it being Cisco, it is Barry. And finally, there’s the whole relationship between Iris and Barry which came to a head last week, but while Barry expects the same thing to happen, he gets shut down by Iris and punched by Eddie instead. Apparently, it takes a tidal wave for her to reveal her true feelings and for him to reveal his true identity. So the status quo mostly remains which is good for fans of Cisco, and bad for Iris and Barry shippers.
Channel: Superhero 