The Flash faces the Snart Family
What They Say:
Barry and the team ally with the kidnapped Captain Cold’s sister, but Barry feels duped when he learns Snart is working on something with his father; Joe faces a difficult decision.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
The search for Zoom takes a bit of a back seat this week as Barry and the team has to deal with a more conventional villain. Lisa Snart (Golden Glider) arrives at S.T.A.R. Labs seeking their aid in finding her brother, Leonard (Captain Cold) who has been kidnapped. It is revealed that Cold is apparently working with their father, Lewis, a domineering and abusive career criminal. Naturally skeptical, Barry tracks down Cold with whom he has a peace treaty with dating back to last season. Cold refuses to divulge why he is working with his father, however.
Lewis and Cold are planning to rob a haul of diamonds from a high tech safe. Lewis kills their tech guy by setting off a bomb that he implanted in his head. This leads the team to discover that Cold has been blackmailed into working with his hated father because Lewis has planted a similar bomb in Lisa’s head. Barry goes undercover as the new tech guy to help them with the robbery and essentially stall the villains until Cisco can successfully remove the bomb from Lisa’s head.
In other developments, Caitlin successfully finds a way to open the breach to Earth-2 that is within S.T.A.R. Labs. While Jay Garrick (The Golden Age Flash) is anxious to return home and track down Zoom, he agrees to stay on Earth-1 a bit longer to assist Barry with the breaches on their world. Professor Stein seems to have recovered from his fainting spell last episode only to burst into flame similar to that of Firestorm only with blue-colored flames. If that wasn’t enough, Joe and Iris are shocked by a person who returns to town.
This episode is proof that even when the show steps away from its major plotline, it still can be fantastic! Wentworth Miller continues to be a true blast to watch as Captain Cold with his measured way of delivering his lines and his…pun intended…chilly demeanor. Michael Ironside, who guest-stars as Lewis Snart, is one of the great, modern character actors who always delivers a solid performance in everything he does. The scenes between the smitten Cisco (who plays that shy puppy love routine so well) and Lisa Snart were an added bonus. Professor Stein’s situation and the preview from next week of course herald the coming of the new Firestorm.
The Flash has always had an issue with consistency in terms of his powers in the comics and the same issue exists in the show. It is in these instances where we have to suspend logic and just go along for the ride. For example, in the opening segment, Iris is following up on a story and finds herself trapped in a high rides building with a couple of men shooting at her. Barry, in his lab (however far away that is), tells her to literally take a leap of faith and jump out the window while she is many stories in the air. The Flash races up the building to catch her safely! Well if he could do that why couldn’t he just use his super speed to knockout Lewis Snart rather than having to wait on Cisco to remove the bomb? Ok, Ok…like I said, don’t think about it too much. Just enjoy another great episode.
Grade: A-
And next week:
A good quieter episode after the packed season so far, so this worked for me. Any episode with Michael Ironside is a good episode. Always have fond memories of him dating back to the original V miniseries.