The Flash, 3.04 - "The New Rogues"

Warning: SPOILERS IF YOU HAVE NOT WATCHED.

Wednesdays are always my day to watch The Flash (and rant about it) and there's a lot to talk about this week. If you know me in real life and/or follow me on Tumblr, you should know I have a love-hate (mostly hate) relationship with the show. I genuinely enjoyed season 1, hated most of season 2, and....am neutral about season 3 so far. Season 2 got to the point where I was truly suffering episode after episode for my queen Iris West, and my sons Cisco Ramon and Wally West. I'm still deeply unhappy with Barry's decision to go back in time and save his mother in the season 2 finale, considering he had done that in season 1 and made the right decision to change his mind. This resulted in a complete f*ck-up of the timeline. I hate how it affects the other DCTV shows - namely, Arrow - and how selfish and hypocritical the decision was. To this day, I still believe DCTV Barry Allen is the epitome of character assassination. However, this week he wasn't too bad, and that's because the people he surrounds himself with are the best part of him. Specifically, Iris. But I'll get to that later.



I go back and forth on my opinion of Westallen. On the one hand, I believe Candice and Grant have fantastic chemistry, and that boy is so in love with Iris I'm not sure why some people wrongly believe otherwise. On the other hand, I am still angry at some (a lot) of Barry's questionable actions, and I believe Iris deserves better than someone who can completely change a timeline without a second thought. Also, I hate how the team seems to forgive him instantly while it takes so much longer for, say Oliver Queen, to earn back forgiveness. Especially Cisco, who lost his brother due to Barry's actions. He was rightfully angry at Barry, and guess what Barry did? He told Cisco, his supposed best friend, to get over it. Right. That seemed to work, as Cisco's depression MAGICALLY disappeared and hasn't come back since. After all the sh*t that Barry did just to get his mom back, he shouldn't be talking. And considering Barry's actions affect everyone everywhere while Oliver's don't, I am very bitter about the hypocritical double standards of the treatment of the characters.

But I'm not here to talk about that - let's get started on this week's episode. To be fair, most of my complaints are about how unrealistic this show is - I'll be listing all my questions in the Extras section. And yes, I know the entire concept of the show in unrealistic in itself, with a super speedster as its protagonist, but seriously? Convenient thing after convenient thing happens, and it's just a little too unbelievable. Cisco and Harry can build anything with sciency mumble-jumble in a mere 30 minutes, even one device that goes to below below freezing and another that transcends multiple universes. It makes everything look too easy, and reduces the stakes. It also makes other things look ridiculous, as to the fact that Barry can not immediately defeat every villain he encounters. He struggles, and then abruptly reaches an epiphany to neatly tie things up. Basically, why does the show sometimes make Barry a pro at defeating metas, even though we've never seen his leadership and intelligence develop, and make him a complete failure at other times? These inconsistencies will eventually make the show boring, hard to follow, and even dislikable. To be honest, it already is all three of those, sometimes. So I'm warning you, Flash writers, you may love to take comicbook storyline after storyline to please your minority of comic fans, but it's not fun for the rest of us. Good thing you casted talented actors to pull those bad storylines off.

The villains of the week were two metahumans originally after Leonard Snart (I'm pretty sure he's dead, but this is me gleaning info from my friends who watch Legends of Tomorrow. I don't, so I'm not completely sure.). Sam Scudder aka Mirror Master can, as his name implies, travel through reflective surfaces, and Rosalind aka Top can induce vertigo, like the spinning of a top. Clever, right? Actually, yeah. Props to DC for coming up with cool powers, but those names are horrible. Top, really? That just makes me think of....inappropriate things. Oops. Because Jesse fails to follow Barry's instructions, he gets stuck in a mirror, and they need to reduce the temperature drastically to get him out. The device they create doesn't lower the temperature enough, but luckily, Caitlin has secretly been a metahuman all along (in the new timeline) and uses her powers to help while the rest of the team is distracted. I'm quite interested to see where her Killer Frost storyline goes.

Meanwhile, Harry, Cisco and Caitlin decide to find Harrison Wells doppelgangers from all across the multiverse to replace Harry, who will be returning to Earth 2 soon. I'm not sure why they even need another Harry, since Team Flash worked just fine without him. This is a thinly veiled and, in my opinion, poorly written excuse to keep Tom Cavanagh on the show as well as introduce a future comicbook character. (I mean, the new Harrison Wells is definitely hiding something.) It is also an excuse to allow Tom Cavanagh to dress up in quirky costumes and do impressions he probably does off set. He's like the Flash version of John Barrowman - his character's useless and has run out of decent storylines two seasons ago, but he's still here because the actor is clearly charismatic and the showrunners and fans like him. I would also like to add that the trio's dynamic was awkward to watch in this episode. I don't know, a lot of things just seemed out of character.

Moving on - Barry and Iris try to balance their new relationship with their vigilante work, as well as Barry's insecurities of displaying PDA in front of Joe. Like I said, I love them together, even with Barry's BS, and I was very excited to see them interact as a couple. Barry admits that he's scared of having so much to lose with their new dynamic, and eventually becomes comfortable with it. This could've been a great thing for them to work through, but it was poorly written. When Iris asks if he's discussed their relationship with Joe, Barry acts like he's lying when he tells her yes, even though he's not. Why? Also, why does Iris confront them in front of Jesse and Wally? Since when did they even have movie nights? And why does Barry still live with Joe when Iris moved out ages ago? I'm so confused. But, they're kissing and calling each other "Honey" (!!) so I'll just settle for that.

Barry and Iris aren't the only ones dealing with a new relationship - there's Joe and Cecil as well as Wally and Jesse. Cecil's random reintroduction is weird, considering we haven't seen her since season 1. I had to google her name, and I honestly did not remember her in the "Previously on..." flashback at all. But whatever, they're cute. And when Cecil says "Yikes"? Yup, that's me 24/7. I don't really like Joe for all the stuff he's said about my other faves, but he deserves to be happy. As for Wally and Jesse, the two must deal with the fact that they live on separate Earths, as well as the fact that Jesse got speed and Wally didn't, even though they both got hit with dark matter. Now that I'm on the subject, why did Wally change his mind about being with her if both know she's going to leave soon? I mean, they're cute together, so I don't have any complaints, but....why the complete 180? Gosh, these inconsistencies are off-putting. Oh, by the way - is Barry ever going to tell Wally about his speedster life in the alternate timeline? Will Wally even get speed?

In conclusion, the best part of this episode were the West siblings. My entire thoughts during the episode were pretty much: Iris West is a goddess. For real - I wrote that exact sentence in my notes at least three times during my watch. And that scene where she had her hair in a bun? Let's just say that I am definitely not straight. (I'm bisexual, as stated in my bio, if you were wondering.) Also, Wally is a cutie and I love their sibling dynamic.

Once again my rants have taken up way more space than I thought they would. My next review will probably be of the upcoming episode of Arrow, so see you then!

Rating: 7.5
Extras that didn't make it in: Why did they stop the voice vibrations? Why didn't Jesse wear some kind of protection to block out Top's effects? How did she know Top was her metahuman name but not the fact that she can induce vertigo? How did Jesse overcome the vertigo the second time, again not wearing any protection? Why does she return to Earth 2 immediately after the mission? How was that any indication that she's "ready" to be a pro speedster? I'm also jealous of Grant and Violet because they got to kiss Candice and Keiynan.