Last night’s episode, Family Of Rogues, took the focus away from the multiverse – aside from Jay’s research on the breach – and brought the fight back to Earth-1 with some homegrown villains making their reappearance in Barry’s life.
Both Lisa and Leonard made their reappearances in Central City, but it was the addition of Louis Snart (played by Michael Ironside), their father who, in a way, caused some headaches for Barry and the gang. Much to Cisco’s happiness, his previous sexual tension with Lisa was still in full bloom, which, to my surprise, she showed her vulnerable side more than not.
Add in the introduction of the long thought dead Mrs. Francine West to the mix and you have a long backstory that is just now coming to the forefront. Joe’s past finally came to light when he revealed to Iris the true story about what happened to her mother, a drug addiction gone wrong. Way back when, 911 received a call from a young girl who said he mother was non-responsive, she gave the address and Joe responded. The little girl was Iris and it was Francine that had passed out on the couch. Joe put her in rehab, where she disappeared up until now.
With the eldest Snart calling the shots, Wentworth Miller’s Leonard “Captain Cold” Snart was backed into an unlikely partnership with his cold hearted father. But to Lisa’s confusion, she did not understand why. Revealing to Cisco the long and abusive relationship between her and her old man, the relationship between her and her brother shows its true strength, the older brother who will do anything to protect his younger sister. With Captain Cold still holding onto the cold gun, Barry and Leonard’s first meeting ended with Leonard turning Barry into a frozen Flash.
Through the episode it became clear Louis had people doing his bidding by the use of thermite bombs planted in peoples heads. But the question was still there: “If Snart hates his father, why is he working with him?” When Barry and Patty Spivot investigate the former techs headless body, they discover the thermite present in the body. When Cisco was examining Lisa, the discovery of thermite present on her skin was the knot that tied everything together. Barry then infiltrated the Snart duo, as a way of earning trust and bringing Louis down. Playing the new and smart tech, Barry successfully got them past security twice and a locked vault, all before Louis pulled a Joker-esque move from The Dark Knight and “killed” his henchman on Barry.
Barry was then able to speed away and change into his well known red suit and stop Louis from getting away. In the vault room, the tension quickly rose, as Barry confronted the two while Cisco fought to remove the bomb. After extracting it, Leonard took his father’s life into his own hands and froze his heart.
Among the team, the, in my opinion, awkwardly forced romantic vibe between Caitlin and Jay took an even more awkward turn when Jay spent the entire episode, it seemed, locked away in the basement, working on stabilizing the largest breach. Using his physicist self instead of his superhero self, he was able to build a device that I’m not even going to begin to try and explain it’s name. In essence, it took the breach and harnessed the energy to allow it to open up and allow passage between worlds.
The end of the episode was, in my opinion, well done. On the Flash front, the episode remained grounded and left room for the multiverse, not shoving it down my throat. I was really happy to see that Iris and Joe’s relationship didn’t take a hit for Joe’s hiding of the truth. I thought that by causing a rift between the two would have been a bit of a distraction from the overall plot.
My favorite part of this episode was when the group is standing around the breach. Jay is weighing his options of returning home, Barry is finally beginning to hone in on his sense of when will be coming and going through this breach. Cisco is daring to test out what stands before him in the breach. Then, the curious case of Dr. Stein, seemingly feeling better after falling ill last week, we see him toss his heart monitor into the void, but it suickly takes a turn when his eyes go white and he bursts into a familiar F.I.R.E.S.T.O.R.M. flame and then quickly bursts into a blue flame before extinguishing and falling to the ground. While I can only speculate, it seems like the lack of Ronnie is getting worse and worse, which we can only wonder what is happening to Ronnie as well, if he is even out there. Given that next weeks episode is named “The Fury Of The Firestorm,” we will get a closer look at the plagued doctor.
Finally, the show ended on another high note, when the breach produced a figure, a Dr. Harrison Wells, who menacingly looked around before the show cut to the credits.
The things that I really liked about this episode were simple.
The stories are more character driven than last season, it seems. Everyone has a story, whether or not that story has made an appearance yet. The season is also remaining very well-grounded and not straying too far, despite having to deal with an intense storyline such as the multiverse. Just through three episodes, we see an ever-expanding story behind not just Barry, but everyone around him.
It seems like love is in the air all around the group, Cisco and Lisa, Jay and Caitlin and even an awkward and bumbling relationship between Barry and Patty, who I am very anxious to see the two become more trusting than ever. Given that we saw the future headline that read Iris West-Allen, we can assume that the two’s relationship isn’t much of anything, but we still have a large number of episodes to watch in order to find the truth between the two.
By far, each and every episode has a way to keep me entertained, with the next season continually gaining speed, we look to next week in the exciting storyline that is, The Flash.
