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FLASH SPOILER Review: Episode 1×16- “Rogue Time”

The Flash (1×16) – “Rogue
Time”
Written by: Brooke Eikmeier and Kai Yu
Wu
Story By: Grainne Godfree
Directed by: John Behring
Picking up where we left off last week, Barry is on the
street corner after having traveled back in time one day.  His confused disbelief only grows when Cisco
and Wells ask him what’s wrong via his ear piece and tell him to get over to
the morgue.  Barry protests he’d already
been there the night before they convince him to go.
At the morgue, Barry’s fear and confusion seem to double by
the second.  It becomes clear quite
quickly that something happened.  He shows
Joe the coroner’s body and Eddie arrives with the recording of his murder.  This time it’s Barry that identifies the
attacker’s voice as Mark Mardon.
Cisco and Caitlin arrive at STAR Labs the next day, already
discussing Cisco’s brother’s birthday party.  Cisco explains that he and his brother have a
bit of a sibling rivalry and that his parents seem to think of his older
brother as the greatest thing since sliced bread.  Caitlin offers to go with him but when she
vows to find pictures of him with short hair he rescinds the invite.
They find Barry, Joe and Dr. Wells discussing the Mardon
brothers and Barry quickly makes it clear he knows more than he should.  At least, it’s clear to Dr. Wells and he
calls Barry into the other room.  Once
there he accuses Barry of time traveling and Barry doesn’t try to deny it,
rather he tries to explain but Wells will heard none of it for fear of further
damaging the time stream.  He tells Barry
in no uncertain terms he must relive the day precisely to the moment or face
dire consequences.
Wells leaves Barry and heads to his secret room.  He first confirms that the future is
undamaged then instructs Gideon to inform him if any changes show themselves.
Barry arrives at the station and sees Eddie and Joe in a
meeting with Captain Singh.  He thinks
back of the Captain’s injuries in the previous timeline and becomes visibly
shaken.  When Joe and Eddie leave the
office, Joe confides in Barry that he will find Mardon and bring him in, even
if it kills him.  This causes Barry to
remember Mardon’s attempt on their lives and he excuses himself abruptly.  He speeds across town and capture Mardon in
his hideout.
Barry is locking Mardon away in The Pipeline to Caitlin and
Cisco’s amazement.  Wells is another
matter, he is angry with Barry for tampering with the timeline and warns him
again that time has a way of correcting itself.
In the home of the Santini crime family, two men are brought
before the Don. They are quickly revealed as Snart and Rory.  The two men are oddly confident for being
bound and surrounded and when the Don asks why, they get the jump on the room,
leaving one man alive to tell the rest that they run the family now.
Caitlin and Cisco arrive at the party and Cisco introduces
his friend to his older brother, Dante. 
Dante and Cisco exchange pleasantries before Cisco offers his gift to
his brother.  Dante receives the gift
rather gracelessly then leaves.  Back at
STAR Labs, Barry is trying to recreate the incident but no matter how much
speed he musters he can’t seem to break the time barrier.  Wells tries to offer reasons why but Barry is
clearly frustrated.  Joe arrives and asks
why Barry didn’t tell him he caught Mardon but Barry is evasive.  But before Joe can press, Linda calls and
reminds Barry of their date.
Barry arrives at the paper and he and Linda talk.  She likes Barry but she doesn’t think his
heart is into their budding relationship. 
He admits that she’s right and the two break things off peacefully.  Linda even urges Barry to go after Iris.
Mason Bridge walks over to Iris then and as he’s about to
talk to her about Simon Stagg’s murder, Barry arrives and asks for Iris to meet
him at Jitters.  As he walks out, he
tells Mason he’s wrong about Wells and Stagg.
Barry meets Cisco at a bar to help Cisco drown his
sorrows.  But before they can do much
drinking a blonde comes over to their table and mass a pass at Cisco.  Barry excuses himself and leaves Cisco to
talk with the woman.  The pair end up at
her place, but she quickly reveals herself as Lisa Snart.  Leonard Snart arrives and offers Cisco a
deal:  They’ve taken Dante, Cisco can
either make them new guns or he can kill Cisco’s brother.
By the next morning Cisco has finished rebuilding the heat
and cold guns but Cold notices that Cisco tried to sabotage his weapon by removing
the firing pin.  Cisco replaces the
weapons and when it seems he’s about to kill the Ramon brothers Lisa asks for
her own weapon.  Leonard tells Cisco to
get to work.
Barry is waiting for Iris at Jitters and when she arrives
Barry tries to convince her to leave Eddie for him she gets angry and asks him
to stop.  She tells him she’s with Eddie
and she’s tired of “being the bad guy” with him before she
leaves.  Barry arrives at the Lab later
and Caitlin asks if he’s heard from Cisco. 
Barry is quite sure their friend is fine since the last time he saw him.  Barry’s cell phone rings, it’s Joe.  He tells Barry that Snart and Rory are
back.  The pair was spotted at the
Santini family’s Casino.  Joe hangs up
and Wells is clearly saying “I told you so” to Barry when he says
“This day just keeps getting better, doesn’t it?”
Captain Cold walks into the Casino and is greeted by the Santini
family.  They start to threaten him when
Lisa interrupts.  When one of the men
pulls a gun on her she fires her new weapon, covering the man in gold.  Cold then opens fire with the cold gun and a
fire fight breaks out.
Barry arrives on the scene, first pulling all the Santini
men out then he addresses Cold.  Leonard
trains his gun on Barry but Barry takes Lisa hostage.  Cold counters by telling him he has Cisco and
Dante and unless Barry wants his friend dead he’ll let them go.
When the cops arrive, Joe asks why Barry let them go and he
explains.  Joe tells him to get back to
STAR Labs so they can work on a plan but Eddie arrives with a plan of his
own.  That plan being to knock Barry’s
teeth down his throat.  He warns Barry
away from Iris and laments that he honestly thought they were friends.
At STAR Labs, Wells and Barry are looking over security
footage of Cisco leaving with Lisa the night before but her plate’s been frozen
over, rendering it unreadable.  Barry is
frustrated and when he tries to talk to Wells the older man shuts him down but
Barry begs him to listen.  He explains
everything that happened in the previous timeline and why he had to stop
Mardon.  The two end up discussing Iris’
and her seeming change of heart.  Wells
says that it’s likely that the stress of the danger caused her to evaluate her
feelings instead of ignoring them.
Barry then says that he thought he was helping by stopping
Mardon.  Wells explains that there is no
way to foresee what happens when you change the past and because of that it is
dangerous.  Barry then brings up his
mother’s murder and asks if Wells is telling him not to try Wells replies,
“How many more people could die, if your mother lives?”
Mick is guarding Cisco and Dante while the two discuss their
situation and eventually their relationship. 
Dante admits that he’s always been jealous of Cisco because he always
seemed unafraid.  Dante then breaks the
table leg he’s tied to off and picks it up to club Mick.  Mick gets the drop on him and when Cisco
tries to fight him, Mick begins to pummel him until Leonard and Lisa call him
off.  Leonard then uses the cold gun on
Dante and tells Cisco he’ll let them go if Cisco tells him who the Flash is.
The others are still trying to track down Cisco when he
enters the Lab.  He quickly explains that
he told Cold who Barry is to save his brother. 
Barry tries to forgive him but Cisco refuses to forgive himself and he
tells them he’s quitting STAR Labs.
Joe visits Iris at the paper and the pair discuss what
happened between her and Barry and Barry and Eddie.  Iris tells him that Barry was too late, and
Joe asks who she loves.  Iris answers
that she loves Eddie, and then Joe replies that she needs to do a better job of
making Barry and Eddie see that because neither man is convinced.
Cisco is packing up his things when Wells asks him to come
down to the containment cell they built for the Reverse Flash.  There the two men discuss that he was forced
to choose between two people they cared about that they care about him and
don’t want him to go.  He then mirrors
what he said in the previous timeline before killing Cisco; that he’s come to
think of him like a son.
Caitlin then calls them up to the main lab where Barry
explains that they hit the casino so the Santinis would move the money out and
they could steal it.
Across town, the Santinis are driving the money to a secure
location when Lisa, Leonard and Mick make their move.  Moments after Mick lights the trailer’s
wheels on fire, Barry speeds in and abducts Leonard which causes Mick and Lisa
to crash their motorcycles.
Barry tries to convince Leonard to leave town but he’s not
about to quit when he has an advantage. 
Barry does manage to convince him not to kill anyone anymore if he wants
to keep pressing his luck with Barry but Barry warns that if he and the rest of
the Rogues ever go after someone he cares about again, he will take them down
and not worry about Leonard telling the world who he is. Cold agrees and Barry
leaves.
Barry arrives at Jitters later and finds Eddie and Iris with
Caitlin.  The couple seems much happier
to 
see him than the last time he talked to either of them and Caitlin explained
that the reason Barry had been acting strange was “Lightning
Psychosis.”  She told that the
lightning strike would cause lapses of judgement and being overly
affectionate.  Eddie and Iris believe
Caitlin’s explanation and congratulate Barry for seeking help.
A thunder storm seems to be rolling in as Mason Bridge works
late at the paper on his expose of Harrison Wells.  The power flickers and the Reverse Flash
arrives soon after.  He roughs Mason up
pretty badly while demanding the evidence. 
Mason gives it up and the Reverse Flash seems to leave, but before Mason
can relax, the Reverse Flash’s hand comes of out his chest from behind the wall
he’d been hiding behind.  Mason is dead
and Reverse Flash destroys his hard drive before leaving.
Barry and Wells are discussing the deal he made with Cold
when he notices a news report about the disappearance of Mason and he quickly
puts two and two together before leaving hastily.  Later, Barry is in his lab at the Station and
Joe arrives.  When Joe asks him why he
asked to meet him there Barry says he thinks Joe has been right about Wells all
along.  When Joe asks him what he’s right
about, Barry says: “All of it.”
Pretty solid episode this week, considering much of it was a
reset from the previous week.  However,
they did a really good job of showing the consequences of time travel, upping
the stakes for when Barry inevitably travels back in time to save his mother.
The relationship between Cisco and his brother was nothing
that hasn’t been explored in television before but I enjoyed the relationship
building between Cisco and Wells in the shadow of what happened last week in
the previous timeline.  It shows that
even despite himself Eobard can’t help but care for these people even if he’s
perfectly willing to sacrifice them to return to his time.
The Rogues are coming together very nicely as well as their
relationship with the Flash.  Peyton List
is a good addition as Lisa Snart and she fits with the already well-established
chemistry between Wentworth Miller and Dominic Purcell.  As for the seeming send-off of Malese Jow and
Roger Howarth as Linda Park and Mason Bridge, I’ll miss both characters particularly
Linda as I really liked her scenes with Grant.
Again, I find myself frustrated by the Iris storyline, but I
will admit it’s mostly due to personal taste. 
Last, but by no means least, it’s great to see Barry
starting to realize that he and Wells may not be allies.  I’ve loved the arc of Wells manipulating
Barry’s need for a father figure all the while maneuvering his own plans into
place.  Whatever those plans may be, and
as the final act of the Season begins I’m sure we’re about to find out.
It may seem like the episode was too much about the reset
button, but truly it was there to show that the consequences seem to outweigh
the actions when it comes to time travel. 
If things spiraled out of control that badly by changes in a single day,
imagine how unpredictably dangerous it will be if Barry actually manages to
save Nora.
Three Things We
Learned This Week:
1)     
Barry now understands that you cannot change the
past without consequences.
2)     
Captain Cold knows Barry’s identity but seems
content to keep it secret for now.
3)     
Barry has given the Rogues not only their name
but their rule against killing.
Three Questions:
1)     
Will Mason’s disappearance raise Iris’
suspicions?
2)     
What is the missing ingredient to Barry being
able to travel through time?
3)     
Can Barry bring himself to try and save his mother
now that he knows how dangerous tampering with time can be?

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