The Flash’s fourth episode (“The New Rogues”) is chockfull of awesome and awkward in the most delightful ways. The villains are Bonnie and Clyde, an enterprising duo of bank robbers—sorry, no. It’s Sam (Grey Damon) and Rosalind (Ashley Rickards)—aka Mirror Master and Top.
Turns out, Sam is in a snit about Snart. (And it’s so, so wonderful to see Wentworth Miller again; he’s brilliant, and I miss him on Legends. But I digress.) As Barry puts it, “Oliver told me that Snart left with some friends of ours on a…trip.” So, there’s no Snart to be found. Bonnie and Clyde return to what they do best: robbing banks and turning the world upside down. With The Flash, I often find myself wanting more from the villains, but I’m a sucker for an old gangster feel, so these two somewhat won me over.
You know who also won me over? Everyone being super awkward. When Barry tries to talk to Joe about dating Iris, I laughed. Out loud. It was a very uncomfortable and endearing—and very real—bit of TV. Barry actually tells Joe, “The next time you see us, we may kiss again in front of you.” Never has anything been so painfully hard to watch since Pee-Wee Herman’s Captain Carl (Phil Hartman) asks Miss Yvonne, “Can I…like you?” I mean, wow.
The silly and self-conscious dynamic between Joe, Iris, and Barry was well done. It felt real. It felt true. It’s a bonkers situation they find themselves in, and I think that tackling the uncomfortable elephant in the room was comedic gold.
But the awkward does not stop there, darlings. Joe gets hit on by very smart and hot Cecile (Danielle Nicolet), who eventually asks him out—and he declines, citing “family movie night” as his lie. I mean, excuse. (I may have yelled at the screen a bit, when that happened. Chump move, dude.)
On top of that, we get the best parade of Other Earth Wells. This reallllly let Tom Cavanagh shine (best line? “Riddle? Did you say riddle? How dare you, sir.”). We had Cowboy Wells. Mime Wells. Nerd Wells. (A nerdier nerd that our Wells? Perish the thought, right?) Finally, there was HR, dubbed “Wells with a sense of humor.” Harry has a bit of a charming fit that Cisco and the gang are basically replacing him, and it was startlingly nice to see that he’s grown fond of the Nerd Gang. I applaud any way to keep a Wells in the rotation, so I look forward to getting to know HR better. (Please don’t be evil. Please don’t be evil. Please don’t…)
Now, let’s talk about Jesse, who spends most of the episode training, moping, or trying to kiss Wally. She rushes into a situation in a very Early Barry moment of stupid. In fact, Barry had advised her about the importance of “the difference between having powers and having precision. … You never run in blind.” But guessssss what? Jesse does just that, gets her butt kicked, falls off a building, and ends up needing Barry to save her.
His thanks? Getting trapped in a mirror by Mirror Master. Awesome. This is a nice way to get Catilin to finally (albeit sneaky like) use her powers. To get Barry out, the mirror needs to be super cold for him to faze through. While no one’s looking, she ratchets the cold down far beyond with Cisco’s fancy freeze-y Super Soaker can do and—ta da! Barry’s back and ready to save the day. At the end of the episode, we get a glimpse of Caitlin’s powers really emerging, so clearly she can’t keep it to herself much longer.
I didn’t particularly care for the resolution of Mirror Master and Top. Barry took on Mirror using a funhouse batch of mirrors, creating an infinite loop. And Jesse ran around Top, knocking her over and then punching her. Sure, it showed that Jesse learned from her previous encounter with Not Bonnie. But the use of a Snart hologram aside, confrontation scene left a little to be desired.
But I’d be remiss in not acknowledging the lovely bromance between Harry and Cisco, who Harry introduces to HR this way: “This is Cisco Ramon. He can do anything.” Aw, you guys. If I were the Grinch, my heart would’ve grown three sizes just now. How sweet is that? It really enjoyed the banter and pseudo-rivalry between those two. We’ll see how HR and Cisco bond. But I’m thankful we didn’t end up with Wells Mime. Waaaay too clown adjacent for my tastes.
Stay Frosty, darlings!
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