The Flash: Rogue Time
March 26, 2015 7:56 AM - Season 1, Episode 16 - Subscribe

Barry tries to make the most of his new advantage over Weather Wizard, but events get out of hand quickly.

Mark Mardon is quickly dealt with so the rest of the episode can focus on our growing team of Rogues - Captain Cold, Heatwave and now Lisa Snart, not yet codenamed Golden Glider. Cold's brutality reaches a new height as he captures and tortures Cisco and his brother to learn Barry's secret identity, but when the episode ends, Flash and Cold have reached an "understanding" where the Rogues will stop using lethal force and stay away from the STAR Labs team, and in return Barry won't annihilate them. Meanwhile, Cisco and Dr. Wells get a coda to their heartbreaking scene from "Out Of Time" and Barry has a new excuse for his behavior toward Iris -- Lightning Psychosis! It's totally a thing.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish (32 comments total)
 
The Flash/Cold tête-à-tête was the highlight of this episode for me.

Of course this episode begged the question, how did Barry taking out the Weather Wizard mean that Cold and Heatwave (and the soon-to-be named Golden Glider) now got to rob a casino.

And man, after a handful of dates, Barry's heart is expected to ache for Linda if he truly wants to be in a relationship with her? Even if he didn't have the hots for Iris, he should have dumped Linda for the red flag of that statement.
posted by inturnaround at 8:24 AM on March 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


Wentworth Miller killed that scene. As much as I don't really buy Flash making a deal with this version of Cold, after everything he's done so far, I do love that we're getting the nonlethal, friendly-enemy version of the Rogues after all. (If you're unfamiliar with that arrangement, this scene from Justice League Unlimited sums it up pretty well.)
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 8:37 AM on March 26, 2015 [4 favorites]


I like how Wells is getting more and more paranoid about other people messing with the time stream. Does that mean we're at Back To The Future time travel where if Barry kicks Eddie in the nards super hard or something , Wells will start to fade away?
posted by robocop is bleeding at 8:38 AM on March 26, 2015 [3 favorites]


Why didn't Cisco just lie about who The Flash is? He really didn't have to do anything but come up with a plausible name. "Okay, I'll tell you. The Flash is...Spelvin! George Spelvin! Now let my brother and me go!"

Also, if Wells knows how everything plays out from his vantage point of the future, he should have known that Barry would travel backward a day and alter the timeline and should have left himself a warning, or a reminder to kill Cisco on that day, or whatever to keep things going along his anticipated trajectory.
posted by briank at 8:54 AM on March 26, 2015


I'll just leave this here.
posted by ODiV at 9:21 AM on March 26, 2015 [3 favorites]


Opinions of Cisco just went up +1000 due to actor awesomeness.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 9:40 AM on March 26, 2015 [5 favorites]


A good example of how this show nails its tone (from my perspective) is the Lightning Psychosis bit. Because it's ridiculous. But it's also meant to be a joke (and actually kinda funny). But it ALSO solves a super-necessary plot point that if not dealt with would turn the show into a large collection of people who need to speak to each other not speaking to each other.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 10:02 AM on March 26, 2015 [3 favorites]


From the way Wells continually checks his Future Newspaper for signs that Barry still disappears, it's clear that he doesn't have a perfect future vantage point from which he knows how everything should happen. I mean... the last episode and this one and the entire season have made it clear that he's gone back in time and changed how things happened, in some as yet unknown way. So he can't possibly know what's going to happen, he only has whatever he knew about the first time around (if there is a "first time" in time travel), and other History Facts that might be relevant.

That said, Barry mentioned his "speed mirage" thing to Wells early in 1.15, so he might have had some indication this was coming. There's also the question of how Wells knew about Mason. Has he been aware of the reporter following him? Did he overhear Barry telling Caitlin and Cisco during 1.15, and has somehow kept the memories but is pretending he hadn't, thus the big show of telling Barry not to tell him anything? Goddangit show, get back here and stop making me ponder these things.

Also, Snart knows that the Flash is working with STAR Labs. Barry's name is actually verifiable as an associate -- Mason the reporter knew he hung out there, people at the hospital where he was taken would know that Barry was taken to STAR Labs, even people at the police station might be aware that Barry is friends with them and hangs out there. So Cisco could have lied but he probably cared too much about his brother to do so.

Opinions of Cisco just went up +1000 [...]
HAHA, god. I'd only seen the Season's Greetings one. Those two actors are ridiculous.
posted by automatic cabinet at 11:24 AM on March 26, 2015


Yeah, if they want to replace the coffee place where Iris used to work with a karaoke bar as they not-home/not-office hang out spot just to give an excuse for the actors to sing every once and a while, I'd be totally on board with that.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 12:04 PM on March 26, 2015 [2 favorites]


(I knew the coffee place was called "Jitters" but for some reason didn't want to seem like I knew it, which is probably pretty silly in an Internet thread about an individual episode of the show)
posted by MCMikeNamara at 12:05 PM on March 26, 2015


However, I keep wondering if Wells *did* go back to change things. He did state that, from his perspective, he was working to protect everyone like himself (meta-humans.) Something in the future had him worried, leading him to the past and getting stuck there. But did he go back to change things, or to prevent a change? And how does future-Flash's disappearance tie into that? Did he go back to prevent Barry from saving his mother? Given that Wells is now the cause for the creation of meta-humans, did something happen that would have prevented meta-humans from happening?
posted by insert.witticism.here at 12:56 PM on March 26, 2015


I can see the case for both interpretations -- whether he went back as a crazy time-traveling supervillain to kill Barry as a child (but then didn't), or whether he went back as a crazy time-traveling utilitarian to kill adult Barry in order to stop him from preventing Nora's murder. But either way, as you say, he then got stuck in the past, and I'm pretty sure he's made a lot of changes as Harrison Wells.
posted by automatic cabinet at 1:23 PM on March 26, 2015


he went back as a crazy time-traveling utilitarian to kill adult Barry in order to stop him from preventing Nora's murder

...okay, but in that case, who murdered Barry's mom in the first place?
posted by mstokes650 at 1:35 PM on March 26, 2015


...okay, but in that case, who murdered Barry's mom in the first place?

*pipe organ chord of mystery*

Wells says (and the writers made the claim some time back that we never see Wells lie on camera) that Nora's death "did not originate" with him or his work.

*different pipe organ chord of mystery*

In other words I don't know, there are too many loose ends and I've picked up too much information from random interviews and writer & actor comments.
posted by automatic cabinet at 1:46 PM on March 26, 2015


Was anyone else really skeeved out about Our Hero threatening Cold with "my private prison where you'll never see the light of day again?"
posted by kewb at 3:22 PM on March 26, 2015 [2 favorites]


(Sorry, posted too soon.)

I get that it's been a problem since episode three, but playing it as Wells's idea is a little different than the Flash joking with Arrow about it or actually using it as a threat.
posted by kewb at 3:23 PM on March 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


Regarding Wells knowing about Mason: there's a lot of speculation on Reddit that as a speedster, Wells may retain memory (perhaps via his computer) of the previous timeline. Of course there are other explanations, such as Wells generally being on the ball about these things, but I found it oddly specific that he turned up knowing that Mason was on his case but not knowing where the evidence was - hence the former theory.

Overall I didn't think it was quite as epic as last week. It's a bit of an unfair comparison as you can't kill Cisco every week, but besides that, I felt the casino set and the gold gun were weak. Plus points were Cisco's relationship with his brother, Barry being knocked back by Iris, Barry being punched, and Captain Cold's scenery-chewing.
posted by adrianhon at 4:45 PM on March 26, 2015


I'm a little confused about how the time travel rules work. For Wells to make any sense, it's got to be a Back to the Future kind of thing where you can tweak things now and the future changes. But that's not what happened w Barry.

They clearly had two diverging timelines that split from the moment Barry pulls up in Gastown and goes, "oh boy." It's not like there's two Barrys running around and confusing people, and the events of the day obviously play out very differently in the two episodes.

So the timelines split and Barry 1 (the slower Barry who's experiencing this day for the first time) goes with one timeline, and Barry 2 (the faster one who has already been through this day once, kissed Iris, and then went back in time) goes with the other one. So this makes me wonder what happened in Timeline 1 once Barry popped out. Does it just evaporate? That doesn't seem right. Why should the existence of the universe depend on whether Barry Allen is in it or not? What makes the most sense to me is that timeline carried on, except now Barry is gone, pretty much forever, because he went back and branched off into a different timeline. (Note Wells's newspaper that talks about the Flash having vanished.)

So did the tidal wave wipe out the city we've been in all this season and kill everyone we care about (except the already dead Cisco) because Barry wasn't there to stop it? Every time the Flash breaks through the time barrier is he forever abandoning his world and everyone he loves to whatever horrible fate would befall them if the Flash weren't around to be their hero? It's kind of a dark thought.
posted by Naberius at 8:28 PM on March 26, 2015 [2 favorites]


Regarding Wells knowing about Mason: there's a lot of speculation on Reddit that as a speedster, Wells may retain memory (perhaps via his computer) of the previous timeline.
I'd been hearing some speculation like that over on Tumblr too. I'd find that the most interesting possibility for sure.

(Note Wells's newspaper that talks about the Flash having vanished.)
That newspaper is dated ten years in the future. It refers to a different disappearance. As far as time travel rules go (and there are a lot of different kinds), I don't think what you describe makes any sense for the show, but it's certainly one of the interesting problems that various other time travel stories have explored.
posted by automatic cabinet at 8:46 PM on March 26, 2015


That newspaper is dated ten years in the future. It refers to a different disappearance.

Yeah, I knew that. It's kind of what I was thinking of - whenever the Flash travels through time, he's vanishing from where he was. Not just this time but every time. And - assuming that the city he departed from didn't just blink out or something - it's still there. And I don't think Barry is ever going back to that place. He's not traveling back uptime to the future he came from. He's branched off into a new timeline entirely, created by the changes he made.

It's kind of a philosophical question really. I'm not sure what impact it has beyond that, whether there are other timelines out there where Barry has screwed up irreparably or other unfixable bad things have happened like Cisco's death. Even if that Cisco is still dead, Barry has created a timeline where Cisco lives, and I guess one dead Cisco (in a place you never experience) plus one live one is better than just one dead Cisco. From Barry's POV it's still about him getting a chance to make things better than they were. The only exception to it just being an interesting philosophical question is, of course, Wells, who seems to think he can get back to the world he left.

Basically, time travel sucks. Witness Timecrimes, in which a guy is just hanging out in his back yard, minding his own business, when time travel just appears out of a clear blue sky and fucks up his life. It's evil, time travel is, and it hates us.
posted by Naberius at 7:10 AM on March 27, 2015


Why didn't Cisco just lie about who The Flash is? He really didn't have to do anything but come up with a plausible name. "Okay, I'll tell you. The Flash is...Spelvin! George Spelvin! Now let my brother and me go!"

Oh I think that made perfect sense. Cold has to drop a serious threat on Cisco to get this far. The I know where to find you and your family and it's going to be way worse if I have to come back to ask again is implied and I respect the show for not spelling it out. The fact that Cold also lets Cisco go and reveal his blabbing fits perfectly well with his ego and style, too.

As was said above, I am madly loving Wentworth Miller in this part. It's exactly the right level of ham and I smile every moment he's on screen.
posted by phearlez at 9:04 AM on March 27, 2015 [5 favorites]


Spoiler alert - what they're filming right now. Don't even mouse over the link unless you want to be spoiled.
posted by the webmistress at 9:59 AM on March 27, 2015


He's branched off into a new timeline entirely, created by the changes he made.

I honestly don't think that's how this show's doing time travel, but hey, let's wait and see.
posted by automatic cabinet at 10:00 AM on March 27, 2015


kewb: Was anyone else really skeeved out about Our Hero threatening Cold with "my private prison where you'll never see the light of day again?"

Yes. The metahuman prison thing has been bugging me since the beginning, but I was able to give it a pass because of the cartoony tone of the show.

Making it clear that Barry knows how fucked up it is seems like a big mistake on the part of the writers. They need to address this soon.
posted by brundlefly at 12:30 PM on March 27, 2015 [1 favorite]


I really think that once Evil Wells is revealed, all of a sudden everyone will discover their morals and realise how horrible the secret prison was. We can only hope they feel a little guilty about it in the process.

As for multiple timelines, I don't get the impression that the show is written for a multiverse. I suppose it's possible but I certainly think it's more straightforward for the writers and audience to assume that there's a single, unitary universe that gets overwritten when someone travels back in time. And if Wells wants to restore 'his' timeline, I assume that he has a specific picture in mind of what the future should be and he'll keep on changing the past/present until that comes to pass.
posted by adrianhon at 5:47 PM on March 27, 2015 [2 favorites]


Also, I like how The Flash is getting more conversation on Fanfare than SHIELD. I watch SHIELD, it's fun, but there's just nowhere near as much to chat and speculate about as there is here!
posted by adrianhon at 5:47 PM on March 27, 2015


Time travel is crazy. I suspect we'll have to revisit the parallel timeline eventually, though. I doubt the writers can resist a "Mirror Mirror" riff (who could?). Personally, I'm just curious as to whether Barry was able to stop the tidal wave. I'm pretty sure he was -- see previous -- but it would be kind of ironic if all the shocking plot developments at the end of the previous episode were rendered meaningless an instant later when everyone in Central City died anyhow.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 6:13 PM on March 27, 2015


I suspect we'll have to revisit the parallel timeline eventually, though. I doubt the writers can resist a "Mirror Mirror" riff (who could?).

Which will of course involve the Mirror Master, probably my second favorite of Flash's rogues after Cold.
posted by kewb at 4:09 PM on March 28, 2015 [1 favorite]


They clearly had two diverging timelines that split from the moment Barry pulls up in Gastown and goes, "oh boy." It's not like there's two Barrys running around and confusing people, and the events of the day obviously play out very differently in the two episodes.

I dunno about that - the fact that they had the "back-in-time-Barry" stop at the exact same time & place as "Barry 1" (guy walking the two dogs, lady trying to hail a taxi and complaining that she's going to be late) makes me think that adrianhon is right; the show's not going to go for multiverses and diverging timelines. Events get overwritten. And I think we've already seen this; in Ep. 7 ("Power Outage"), Barry gets drained of his powers, and when Wells checks his "future newspaper" via Gideon, there's no mention of The Flash, the headlines are totally different. Once Barry's powers are restored, the paper returns to the version about The Flash going missing. So I think the show's going for a single universe.
posted by soundguy99 at 9:04 PM on March 28, 2015 [1 favorite]


kewb: Was anyone else really skeeved out about Our Hero threatening Cold with "my private prison where you'll never see the light of day again?"

Yes. The metahuman prison thing has been bugging me since the beginning, but I was able to give it a pass because of the cartoony tone of the show.

Making it clear that Barry knows how fucked up it is seems like a big mistake on the part of the writers. They need to address this soon.


Also, how do they feed them and I didn't see any little toilets in those cells, either...
posted by SmileyChewtrain at 3:46 PM on March 30, 2015


I actually prefer Barry acknowledging the prison. At least he's thinking about it and seems to realize that it's not really that awesome.
posted by ODiV at 3:55 PM on March 30, 2015 [1 favorite]


Basically, time travel sucks.... It's evil, time travel is, and it hates us.

"I hate temporal mechanics." — Miles O'Brien and Miles O'Brien, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine "Visionary"
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 7:05 PM on April 2, 2015


« Older Podcast: The Adventure Zone: E...   |  Avatar: The Last Airbender: Th... Newer »

You are not logged in, either login or create an account to post comments

poster