Captain Cold (Wentworth Miller) returns to Central City in this week’s episode of The Flash. Okay, it was all an illusion reflecting the past, but it still worked. “The New Rogues” (3×04) feels like déjà-vu considering the opening scene begins with Sam Scudder (Grey Damon) transforming into Mirror Master following the particle accelerator explosion. This was the typical exposition scene found in majority of The Flash season one episodes. Again, The Flash writers continue to reflect on days from seasons past, while moving our central characters forward along this new time line. One that includes Iris West (Candace Patton) and Barry Allen (Grant Gustin) making out on the couch, Jesse Quick (Violette Beane) learning the speed force ways, and Harry (Tom Cavanagh) trying to return home in his own special way. There may be new rogues wreaking havoc on Central City these days, but Team Flash always remains the same… at least for now.
“So he creates wormholes through reflections. That’s a new one,” remarks Caitlin (Danielle Panabaker) about the new rogue in town. Since season one there has been a lot of hype and speculation about Mirror Master appearing on the show, and unfortunately he didn’t meet my expectations. His dynamic with Top (Ashley Rickards) turned the storyline into a Bonnie and Clyde retelling, except with superpowers. Not to mention, Sam’s motivation came from his fallout with Leonard Snart, not an old grudge against The Flash. Granted, this gave an opportunity for Jesse to learn some of those valuable speedster lessons that Barry went through with the original rogues crew. Anyone else shipping Wally (Keiynan Lonsdale) and Jesse after this week’s episode? I really like their on screen chemistry; even though the relationship is a bit underdeveloped at this point. Many viewers are still waiting to see if Linda Park (Malese Jow) will make a return to Central City and meet Wally West; her comic book love interest. After all, both her and Wally are from the same Earth, while Jesse is constantly finding herself going through breaches.
Where is the real Harrison Wells? This obvious, yet unaddressed plot point completely distracted me from everything else happening during the episode. “You’re sending out an inter galactic IQ test to all of your doppelgangers in the multiverse,” explains Caitlin (Danielle Panabaker) as she, Cisco (Carlos Valdes), and Harry take the scenic route to find a replacement Harrison Wells. Where is Harrison Wells? And will we ever met him? My only thought is that maybe this time around Harrison Wells died during the particle accelerator explosion. Really, it’s a significant plot point that The Flash writers are purposely using; so hopefully the payoff is good. Despite all my problems with this storyline, I cannot entirely hate an arc involving Caitlin, Cisco, and Harry teaming up. Again, it’s very reminiscent to the time before everything happened. Now, we have exchanged Harry from Earth-2 for “H.R.” from Earth-19, “And he’s not evil, and he’s nice that’s a combination of Wells that we haven’t had thus far.” If we have learned anything from The Flash‘s previous seasons it’s that every version of Harrison Wells has a tie to the overarching storyline.
Alert! Killer Frost is coming… no, Killer Frost is here… what is happening to Caitlin during that end credit scene? This is the ultimate Flashpoint side effect considering the rift between Caitlin and Team Flash due to her new metahuman abilities. Since Barry messed with the timeline, she could blame him for anything bad that comes out of her transformation, and leave the team by year’s end. Potentially, this could also draw an interesting juxtaposition between her and Wally’s season arcs; he wants to be a speedster and she just wants to return to normal. Again, this is all pure speculation, but with upcoming episodes titled “Monster” and “Killer Frost,” Caitlin’s evolution into a metahuman is likely to diverge from the supervillainess’ typical story. To be continued.
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