What They Say:
Revenge of the Rogues – Leonard Snart returns to Central City with a new partner, a plan to steal a multi-million dollar painting – and to abduct someone close to Barry.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
The midseason finale for The Flash definitely brought to a close a really strong first half or so of the series that was already doing some great stuff. As we’ve seen from the producers before in this series and in Arrow, they won’t string a lot of stuff along that other shows would spend half a season if not more on in how it teases it out. Instead, they go in a rather good comic book form in a way by hitting the key marks and pushing them hard in order to make each episode a must-see piece for the most part. Rather than having episodes where nothing significant happens, each episode here has its own reveals. And Flash in particular seems to do a bit more in building up its rogues gallery, which makes sense considering the source material. The real fun was seeing what was going on with the Reverse-Flash in the midseason finale since that helped to elevate the show even more by giving us a really outgoing costumed villain to work with.
The cold open for this is a good bit of fun as Barry realizes that he’s not the fastest man alive and is intent on training his ass off in order to compete. That has the STAR Labs team doing some fun stuff to give him some good challenges, which is even more amusing to watch since we know Wells is the Reverse-Flash. His reasons for pushing Barry up are still his own, but it definitely colors our view of things as he knows he needs Barry for something. Things get so tense that even Wells is ready to reveal himself to save Barry, but Barry is showing that he’s getting more creative in the use of his powers so there’s some fun to it there. There’s also the really cute moment where the Reverse-Flash name comes up and while there’s a minor cringe about it, Wells has almost a wink in saying that he likes it.
While the Reverse-Flash is the big potential bad for the season, there are others that are causing their fair share of trouble as well. That brings us Captain Cold and Heatwave as Cold is looking to use his newfound weapons against the Flash in order to get some revenge. But drawing out Barry isn’t as easy as he thinks it should be since Barry is a bit focused on the Reverse-Flash. While Snart wants his revenge on Barry for what happened, he’s also there to get a bigger heist with a piece of artwork that’s in town which is worth quite a few million. Heatwave isn’t exactly thrilled about the whole situation, but there is a certain amount of trust that the two have, but also a tension that works well to make it a fun partnership to watch. Having Barry aware that Snart is back as well, having investigated that first crime scene, makes it so that everyone has a basic awareness of what’s going on.
As Barry decides to focus more on training rather than going after Snart, in hopes that Snart will just go away if Barry doesn’t engage him, we do get some fun things going on in relation to it. Wells and Cisco have put together some new shields for the police to use that will protect them from the temperature attacks, giving them a bit of a chance against Captain Cold. It’s a little comical in some ways, but there’s definitely an attempt here to rehabilitate STAR Labs image, which is definitely useful considering the event that set this whole thing in motion. Cisco definitely has a bit of showmanship about him, but also youth which makes him prone to making some awkward turns while doing it which is fun to watch.
When the show shifts back to Captain Cold and Heatwave as they go to steal the painting, we get another tease for things to come as the new owners are the Rathaways, which are the parents of one Hartley Rathaway, who will become the Pied Piper. The attack to get the painting is one that’s very fun to watch as they throw hot and cold at the cops who are able to push back against it, though they definitely take some damage from intense heat that comes from Heatwave. With a couple of cops in the burn unit because of it, the whole thing gets Barry to adjust his priorities a bit. Seeing the seriousness there paired up with Snart chewing out Mick over his performance in the attack is definitely nicely done as its made clear that Mick isn’t a smart guy, but he’s not a complete idiot either. The two of them aren’t on the same page at first, but as it comes around and we see them intent on making Central City their main base of operations and owning it is definitely enjoyable to see since it gives them a more concrete reason to stick around.
Since they’re intent on getting rid of the Flash in order to have free reign, they show some smarts in their attempts to draw him out by going after his friends. Which has Caitlin kidnapped after she and Barry started doing some research into the FIRESTORM project and discovering Professor Stein’s involvement – and his going missing after things went awry at the university. What really becomes interesting though is that when Snart calls out the Flash, he does it in a big and public way that makes it clear to the world that the Flash exists, something that was pretty much still being kept around the fringe of things. That changes things for Barry in the time to come to be sure since there’s an advantage to working in the shadows, but there’s also advantages to being out there as well.
As is fairly standard fare for the show so far, we do get a pretty good bigger action sequence in the final act of ti all, which is a challenging one for Barry as the cold weapon is definitely one that does some real damage to him. The special effects for it are pretty good all things considered and Barry having to get the two opponents to shoot across each other at the same time to negate them isn’t easy for Barry to accomplish either. We get a parallel story as well with Cisco and Joe going to rescue Caitlin and that has its own minor challenges as well, though nothing too serious. The main draw is all Barry though, but we get a great moment with Eddie stepping into things as well to protect him when the chips are down, which is great to see considering how bad things have been between them so far. It’s a good moment that helps to push forward to him and Eddie finishing off the fight in a really great way that has you wondering whether it really will change Eddie’s perceptions of the Flash.
In Summary:
Getting back on track after a month or so off for the midseason break, The Flash pretty much picks up easily where it left off while dealing with the changes at hand. Barry’s focus on training and getting better since he’s not the fastest man alive anymore makes a lot of sense, and as Joe says at one point, there’s a lot of Wells’ mentality bleeding into Barry when it comes to how he’s acting. But the real Barry always shows through and he gets himself focused well as it goes on as we get two rogues going at it in a very fun way, giving Heatwave his first main appearance and a solid pairing with Snart. There’s a lot to like with what’s going on here and we get some solid seeding of more things to come with Snart’s sister showing up, the nod towards Pied Piper and a change in living situation that should make for a great buddy comedy with Joe and Barry living together now that Iris has moved out. There’s so many avenues to explore with the show that even the throwaway pieces could make for several good episodes, if not a show on its own.
Grade: A-
