TV Recap: The Flash S3E04, “The New Rogues”

The Flash’s gallery of villains has always been one of the greatest things about the character, so an episode with a title like “The New Rogues” has some expectation around it. Of The Flash’s original Rogues Gallery, nearly all of them have appeared already; Captain Cold and Heatwave have even gone on to greater things as part of Legends of Tomorrow. A few notable exceptions still remain unseen, though, and “The New Rogues” introduces two more classic Flash villains.

The way that Mirror Master and The Top were introduced is great for a number of reasons. Sam Scudder and Rosalind Dillon were members of Leonard Snart’s gang a few years back, and Snart is in the process of turning on them when a certain particle accelerator explodes. Scudder disappears into a mirror that he’s fallen on top of, and Dillon gets thrown across the warehouse space. Once he returns in the present day, we learn that Scudder has developed the ability to travel through mirrors, while Dillon can now induce crippling vertigo in those with whom she makes eye contact. After a few weeks of villains who got their powers from overarching season big bad Doctor Alchemy, it was kind of nice to see a couple of metas who got their powers the old-fashioned way – from a freak accident. Tying the characters to Snart was also a nice touch, as it immediately pulls the audience in with a familiar character.

But what’s even more fun is what Scudder and Dillon ultimately do with their powers. Scudder initially sets out for revenge on Snart, but after he breaks Rosalind Dillon out of Iron Heights and learns that Snart is gone, they instead turn their sights on…robbing banks. They don’t want to destroy the city, they don’t want to kill anyone, they just want to rob banks. Even when The Flash and Jesse Quick get involved in trying to stop them, Mirror Master and The Top primarily use their powers as a means of escape. They’re not interested in committing murder, though a little manslaughter is probably not out of the question, as when The Top gives Jesse Quick a bad case of the spins and Jesse goes tumbling off of a rooftop. Still, it’s wonderfully Silver Age, the idea that The Rogues are just simple crooks who happen to have extraordinary abilities.

The episode also gives us a proper introduction to Jesse Quick, now suited up and helping The Flash. We see Barry helping to train Jesse on how to use her speed, a nice bit of role reversal from Barry’s relationship with characters like season 1’s Harrison Wells and season 2’s Jay Garrick. Barry even comments at one point about how he’s becoming Oliver Queen, a nice nod to Ollie’s current task of training a new team over on Arrow. Jesse’s getting settled into her speed, and into a burgeoning relationship with Wally West, who initially pumps the brakes since she’s from a different Earth. One can see how that could be a potential obstacle, but it was also nice to see him get over relatively quickly a few scenes later. Even if she has to go back to her Earth soon, they might as well enjoy the time they have together.

Relationship awkwardness abounds in this episode, not just between Wally and Jesse but between our primary lovebirds, Barry and Iris. Barry’s having trouble adjusting to the new dynamic, not between he and Iris but between he and her father/his surrogate father, Joe. He freaks out a little when Joe almost catches the two of them…being intimate, and is just generally uncomfortable showing physical affection towards Iris when Joe is around. This seems like a totally reasonable response for a person in a new relationship, spending time with his significant other’s parent. Iris isn’t having it, though, and she comes across as oddly forceful about wanting to be able to kiss Barry in front of her father. Which, frankly, is weird. But Iris is an adult, and a totally adult thing to do is to make out with your boyfriend in front of your father. She demands that Barry have “The Talk” with Joe, which is delightful in its incredible discomfort. It goes poorly, and things don’t really change, but Barry finally confesses to Iris his difficulty with the changing dynamic. He does this while he’s trapped inside a mirror.

Did I not mention that at one point Barry gets trapped in a mirror? This episode was awesome.

The highlight of the episode, though, was basically any interaction between Cisco, Caitlin, and Earth-2’s Harrison Wells. Every single one of their scenes together was alive with a lightness and energy that I don’t recall having seen in a while on this show. Harry knows he’s leaving soon, and Caitlin and Cisco don’t want him to go, so they decide to send a beacon out across the Multiverse to see if they can find another Harrison Wells. This is a weird plan but definitely on par with what these guys have done in the past. The results of their search are fantastic, with Tom Cavanagh doing some solid accent work as southern cowboy Wells, British steampunk Wells, French mime Wells, and millenial hipster Wells, who despite being a hipster in a porkpie hat (or perhaps because of it?) is the one that Caitlin and Cisco like the best. It’s really nice to see Cavanagh get a chance to stretch his legs a bit on this show. The way he and Carlos Valdes play off of each other is great, whether they’re fast-talking their way through some science or trying to one-up each other in naming supervillains (Cisco’s “What you wanna GO” in Harry’s face made me laugh out loud hard). And Danielle Panabaker gets some more to do this episode as well, with Caitlin – unbeknownst to anyone else – using her secret freeze powers to help Barry escape from his mirror prison. We also learn that she may not be as in control of these powers as had been previously believed, as she freezes her showerhead solid and develops blue lips and a white streak in her hair. One wonders how much longer she’ll be able to hide these abilities before her friends find out about them.

From beginning to end, this week’s episode of The Flash was fantastic. There’s no two ways around it. It had great action and great character moments. It had ridiculous comic book science. It was dramatic and it was laugh-out-loud funny. And it finally remembered, after two-plus seasons, that Tom Cavanagh is a great comedic actor. It was full of things to love and it executed every single one of those things. I can’t wait to watch it again.

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