No Cold Shoulder for THE FLASH

Episode 104 “Going Rogue”

[Photos: Cate Cameron/The CW]

Is it ironic that Felicity Smoakin’ Hot is on the episode with so many cold quips?

This week is all about teamwork. Team Flash learns that it takes more than cool toys and fancy longjohns. Team Cold learns that it takes more than precision timing and meticulous planning. And Team West learns that it’s better to leave the radio off.

Emily Rickards jumps over from Arrow (she walked out of her office in last week’s episode, leaving Ray Palmer looking at OMAC parts…) to travel hundreds of miles to see Barry, a fact not lost on Iris. And Felicity shows up in typical Felicity fashion: with the great snappy lines. “The internet is full of weirdos and nerd rage. Lots and lots of nerd rage.”  #Olicity, anyone? #GamerGate? Any of the Kardashians? What, just me?

Anyway, Barry’s in the midst of analysis for Joe and Eddie, who are tracking Leonard Snart, a methodical thief who’s out to get the Khandaq Dynasty diamond. Snart’s first attempt is with a team that tries to hijack an armored car while Barry is at STAR playing “Operation” with Caitlin, ping pong with Cisco, and chess with Wells — all at the same time. Wells is testing his ability to multitask at high speeds.

When the alert comes in, Barry’s off to save the day. He speeds through the scene of the heist in the nick of time, but not quite completing his task. This is the biggest gripe I have about this episode. Barry thwarts the robbery, but speeds off without securing the bad guys, leaving one to panic and shoot a guard. This irritates Leonard Snart. Indeed it does.

Snart is a very smart, carefully organized guy. The appearance of the Flash throws off his delicate timing, and we get two of our first cold puns of the hour: “You lost your cool.” and “We don’t need the heat.” Snart himself is cold and calculating, to the point where he kills the guy who wants out of the operation, and then later offs the weapons supplier who brings him his new toy: a cold gun (along with a heat ray, but that’s for later). Snart figures he needs the freeze ray to stop the guy moving so fast he’s a blur —

[And a quick aside: Let’s get off this “Red Streak” crap pronto. This is not Smallville. Maybe it’s a way to set up Iris calling him “The Scarlet Speedster”, but he’s the Flash. Call him the Flash, for the love of Mike.]

— so this cold gun will do the trick. And we find out it was designed by one Cisco Ramon, who at the time wasn’t sure if Barry Allen would turn out to be just like all of the other metahumans they’ve met so far. It was a failsafe, very much like Batman has up his sleeve with regard to the Justice League, and it makes perfect sense that the Gadget Guy would make something that could stop Barry if he ever proved dangerous. Barry, naturally, sees this as a betrayal of trust, but Felicity sets him straight with a reminder that his team has been shoved together by events, and that trust has to develop over time. It’s not something that comes overnight for some people.

Felicity gets her moments, too. Hacking into the city’s communications grid to ping the GPS-enabled control chip in the cold gun, teaming up with Barry for some Trivia Night (E = MC Hammer is my new band name), and kudos to Emily Rickards and the wardrobe department for that Little Black Dress. Really.

Speaking of: I noticed that Felicity’s wardrobe throughout the episode matched the tone of The Flash — light, breezy, brighter colors. Very much in keeping with the feel of the show, compared to that of Arrow, which is much darker and Batman-esque.

Iris has also noticed how Felicity and Barry get on so well, and is hoping to do a little matchmaking. Only Barry and Felicity both recognize in each other a longing for someone else. For Barry, it’s Iris. For Felicity, it’s Oliver Queen. And the two (no, not two. Just one and one.) share a moment of understanding each other’s pain before sharing a kiss that likely will not be repeated.

Iris has relationship issues of her own, as does Eddie Thawn, both of whom are still getting the cold shoulder from Joe. The stake-out scene outside the museum holding the Khandaq Dynasty diamond, while moving the Snart plot thread forward, also gives us a nice “We’re not friends” moment between the two detectives. Joe is clearly trying to keep work and home separate. And his partner’s relationship with Iris is proving to be a distraction, something that keeps him off his game just enough that he almost gets iced by Snart. It’s only Barry’s intervention that gets him out of harm’s way in time.

But that’s not the case for one of Snart’s other victims, someone Barry couldn’t save in time because the cold gun has done its job in slowing Barry. The guilt of not being fast enough has Barry back on the treadmill, pushing himself to go faster and faster. One wonders if he’ll go fast enough to break the dimensional barrier and meet the Flash from the city across the river. Since we already have time travel, and since Geoff Johns (who co-wrote this ep) has confirmed a TV and movie multiverse, why couldn’t we get “Flash of Two Worlds” and have Jay Garrick show up?

Snart’s plans to steal the diamond from the museum get foiled, but not before he shows up in full Captain Cold regalia — parka and goggles and all. While his jumping on board a moving train may be very “hand of the writer”, the rest of the sequence works pretty well. Barry manages to save every passenger on the train as it derails from Snart’s blasting it with a freeze ray. Flash almost makes it out completely when he’s pinned to the ground by a Cold blast.

Team Flash to the rescue! Cisco, Caitlin, and Felicity, sporting a very big weapon-looking thing, threaten to shoot Snart if he doesn’t back off from Barry. Cisco’s bluffing, of course, using STAR Lab’s Very Big Vacuum (with a lot of LEDs). Snart manages to escape, but our heroes have saved the day and are all friends again.

Friends of Snart are going to be showing up soon, too. The coda for this episode has Snart meeting with Mick Rory, who will appear in the show soon as Heat Wave. This is the Prison Break cast reunion everyone is so hyped about.

And in our “Who Is Harrison Wells?” segment: he knows Felicity by reputation, having run across her accomplishments the same way he found Caitlin and Cisco. Now, given what we know about him already, it’s easy to assume his knowledge of these folks comes from the future, and if Felicity’s made that much of an impression somewhere down the line, I’m going to double down my bet that she’s the new Oracle.

Wells also has a moment with Cisco, almost losing his cool over the fact that the tech weenie would ever think to build a weapon that could harm Barry Allen. It’s almost an obsessive behavior into which we get glimpses when Wells loses control. Doesn’t happen often, but it’s enough to fuel the “Who is he?” tweets and water cooler talk.

Who do you think Harrison Wells really is?

Best lines of the night:

Barry: “Snart’s dad is in prison, too? We should start a club.”

Felicity: “I want to see it. And by ‘it’ I mean your speed.”

Cisco: “I’ve figured out a way to track Captain Cold.”
Caitlin: “You’ve got to stop naming these guys.”

Felicity: “Did I just yelp?”

Easter Eggs:

• Blackhawk Squad Security — named for the Blackhawk Squadron, who first appeared in Quality’s Military Comics #1 in August, 1941. They were a group of World War II ace pilots of various nationalities. The Blackhawks also have the distinction of being one of four character(s) to have continuous publication from the 1940s to the 1960s. The other three you might have heard of in passing: Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. The logo on the armored car is a stylized version of the Blackhawk logo from the comics: a black bird on the yellow circle.
• Khandaq — the home of Teth Adam, or as he’s known in some circles, Black Adam
• Hall of Heroes — the precursor to the Flash Museum, perhaps?
• Crisis reference — Felicity to Team Flash: “If everything about him is sped up, is he going to age faster? What would happen if he ran too fast? I mean, would he just be running and then Poof, he’s dust in a red costume?” This is a reference to how Barry Allen died in Crisis on Infinite Earths #8, in which he ran so fast to catch a tachyon, that he discorporated (and it was retconned that he merged with the Speed Force and became the lightning bolt that struck Barry Allen…).
• 52 — on the armored car and in the storage facility where Cisco kept the cold gun
• Superman references — in the train, when Barry says it’s still one of the safest ways to travel, Felicity says, “I thought that was airplanes.” And Barry racing along the train after leaving. Both of those are nods to the 1978 Superman starring Christopher Reeve. The line about planes also made it into Superman Returns.

A solid episode that moves us closer to the Flash having a proper rogues gallery, one that doesn’t have to be all metahumans. It will be interesting to see how much the writers choose to explore this season.

[Show web site at CW]     [Previous Recap: “Things You Can’t Outrun”]