The Flash is DC’s television adaptation of the comic book of the same name. It airs Tuesday nights at 8/7 Central on The CW. Our writer, Nicole Drum recaps the series each week updating you on the latest episode here in The FlashBack.
So last night’s episode was the second to last of the season. I’m trying to let that sink in a little bit because I really am not quite ready to go into hiatus. There is just so much! And what will we do next season? This episode, entitled “Rogue Air,” feels like a pretty good set up for that. This is your captain speaking. Please assume brace position for spoilers.
Our episode opens up not with Barry giving us our starting monologue, but with Eobard Thawne (whom I still prefer to call Dr. Creepyjeans.) He’s still taunting Eddie, and generally posturing about how he is going to reclaim everything he said was taken from him. It’s classic villain. I dig it.
Of course, his torment of Eddie is coming to an end and I’m glad because my ability to care about this is wearing thin. Barry has tried very hard to find Eddie, he assures Iris who is all mopey about ordering too many address labels. Who even has address labels anymore? Oh Iris. Anyway, Barry has tried real hard, but Iris manages to find Eddie and that engagement ring he had. Yay! The crew takes care of him back at the lab and Eddie tells them that Dr. Creepyjeans was working on something. This tidbit of information leads Cisco to the plot of the hour: the not-so-good doctor is restarting the particle accelerator. This is bad news in general, but especially in the specific cases of the metahumans being held in their makeshift prison.
Image Credit: The CW
Now, I don’t know about you but a permanent solution to some of these bad guy problems doesn’t sound terribly awful, but Barry is a better person than I am and he can’t take the idea of them dying because Dr. Creepy is a jerk. Instead, he comes up with a genius idea to get them out of there and transferred to that fancy island of ARGUS fame, Lian Yu. At first the plan is to do it above board, but Joe tries to enlist his district attorney friend to help (because my favorite Captain that isn’t from the Marvelverse is on his adorable honeymoon!) That goes poorly which means Barry’s Operation Rescue the Bad Guys has some logistical problems. What is Barry’s backup plan? Why, he is going to talk to my friend Leonard Snart aka CAPTAIN COLD (okay so maybe Singh is my second favorite captain) and get him to help!
Now, I’m not sure exactly why enlisting Snart was useful. It does allow for Snart to be delightfully campy, which I love, and Cisco gets to officially name Snart’s sister Golden Glider (not to mention some flirting between her and Cisco) but doesn’t make sense otherwise. The plan is that in exchange for Barry erasing all records of Snart, he will help get the bad guys to the ARGUS plane and attempt a superpower Con-Air sans Nick Cage.
It goes badly. Snart betrays Barry (though to be fair he did keep his word…you just have to be very careful when you listen to Snart) and now the Rogues are all on the loose and owe Snart. Oh yes. Yes yes. This will be good someday. But right now it’s not awesome because Barry did something stupid. Oh and speaking of stupid, I finally get the joy of the end of Iris and Eddie. See, Eddie can’t handle the future revealed to him by Dr. Creepy so instead of fighting against it he just dumps Iris. I thought I would enjoy this more, but now I’m worried she will hook up with Barry and that makes me uncomfortable.
So the metahuman relocation plan fails and to pour salt in that wound the accelerator gets powered up. This lures out Reverse Flash. Barry, despite being encouraged not to face him alone, goes out to confront Dr. Creepy. After some brief grandstanding the real adventure begins: Barry isn’t alone. He’s recruited Arrow (sporting his wannabe Ra’s hairdo) and Firestorm because Reverse Flash cant beat all three of them. Right? For a moment it looks like he actually can. For a moment I’m pretty sure he’s about to off Arrow, but nope. Thanks to some technology that my buddy Ray Palmer came up with they are able to put him down on the ground. Is he dead? I don’t know, but Arrow and Firestorm leave Barry to sort that out, which doesn’t seem smart considering that Barry hasn’t been great on ideas lately. Oh well.
So that leads us to next week and the season finale. The preview tells us that Barry is going to try to go save his mom, but now I really want to know what is going to happen. How will this resolve? What is going to happen when Barry shows up on tomorrow night’s Arrow? WILL I GET MORE SNART?
What did you think of the episode? Were you as bummed out that Nick Cage didn’t make a cameo as I was? Let’s chat in comments!
The Hudsucker 
I saw this episode too. I love Barry’s character! He’s such a good person yet this benevolence clouds his judgment of the villains. He can too trusting and he puts others ahead of himself. That’s altruistic and all but he needs to be saved sometimes too. I think the series is headed towards the Flashpoint Paradox story arc originally portrayed in the comics. He goes back in time to save his mother but that one change in the past alters the timestream a hundredfold! I hope my hypothesis is correct because Flashpoint Paradox was the best Flash story line in my opinion. You wrote a great review and I look forward to reading more from you! Have a wonderful day! :)
Thanks for the compliment! I’m with you there on loving Barry’s character and I love that we get to see the fallout from being too-trusting. I am very, very curious to see what happens with the time stream. If we do get Flashpoint Paradox it would be kind of amazing and interesting to see visually. Very much looking forward to the emotional moment with his mother next week.
There’s actually a cartoon version of The Flashpoint Paradox. I have it. It’s pretty cool. It’s a Justice League animated movie.
Loved this ep. Glad to see the moral iffyness of the Pipeline Prison finally being addressed.
Bring on the finale!
Do you think we might get Flashpoint Paradox?
I agree I think we will see a part of the Flashpoint, but not something that will last more then an episode. I say that because of the last moments of the trailer for the next episode with Barry holding his mom. That said I think we will see a world gone wrong because of what Barry does and it teaches him the rule that has echoed on both sides of Marvel and DC in their own ways. The immortal words “With Great Power, comes great responsibility” I think Barry will realize that sometimes you can’t save everyone no matter how hard you try. Though I do think we will see some changes to the story just as we did with Flashpoint where little things were changed in back story and history. It may even give us Caitlin as Killer Frost or Cisco as Vibe. Something like that, as long as they don’t break up Team Flash. We already lost their mentor we can’t have the team break up.
I agree with you, Daniel. And I would love to Cisco as Vibe, but I definitely don’t want the team broken up. I would, however, like more random Easter eggs…like the bit about the missing Ferris Air test pilot!