Quick (HAHAHAHA GET IT? DO YOU? DO YOU GET IT???) Thoughts on The Flash

Last week, Cisco died after discovering Harrison Wells was the Reverse Flash, Barry revealed his secret identify to Iris (Earning another stamp on his “Reveal your identity to 20 people, get a free sub” card), and the new Weather Wizard got up to Weather Wizardry and was about to destroy a good portion of Central City (and Jesse L. Martin) with a tidal wave.  And then *pop* Barry jumps the time stream to the day before…

…and, cue this week’s episode.  Everything resets, and let’s see how Barry can screw things up in new and exciting ways.  See, as Doctor Exposition tells us, when you try to change the past, time does its darnedest to make things go the way they were supposed to.  Which could be true, or could just be Wells planting time seeds in Barry’s mind for when he inevitably goes back to the night of his mother’s murder.  Especially since while Flashes can go back in time, it’s yet to be seen how they can go forward in time (since Wel…Eobard is still here…but then Barry has to get back to the future eventually right?  Except maybe it happens during Crisis and AHHHHH TIMETRAVEL NOSEBLEED).  And too many parentheticals.  Ouch, I need a new paragraph.

Barry blows off Linda because he’s all “oh, I just tell Iris my secret and she’ll fall right into my pants”, only telling Iris GOES HILARIOUSLY BAD.  And Eddie cold cocks him.  Which I promise was not a pun on purpose.  Because even though Barry decides to lock the barn door BEFORE the horse is stolen by rounding up the Weather Wizard and sticking him in the Crime Tube, now Captain Cold (and Heat Wave and his sister Lisa Snart) swing by to rough up some organized crime and kidnap Cisco (and his brother) to make them replacement awesomeguns for gun-related crime.  Lisa, who in the comics becomes Golden Glider, evil ice skating criminal, instead gets a …gold gun?  I mean, Goldface was a loser Green Lantern villain, so ripping off his gimmick isn’t going to offend anyone, but if you can shoot gold out of your gun, then you’ve won crime.  Just shoot off a few million and buy an island.  But hey, it’s your show, CW, I’m not going to complain.  Much.  Hush.

An aside about Captain Cold: I LOVE his cadence now.  The way he delivers his supervillain speeches is just great.  Wentworth Miller has bought in fully to this role, and it pays off even more at the end of the episode.  Also, they really ramp up how smart/clever he is, with him having been able to understand (well, memorize) the inner workings of the cold gun, spotting it when Cisco tries to sabotage the new one he built.

So back to Barry and Cold: Snart gets Cisco to spill the beans about Flash’s secret identity and Flash and Cold have a nice secluded tete-a-tete in the spooky forest.  Barry won’t kill him, and even if he does, Cold has a dead-man uplink ready to broadcast Barry’s secret to the world.  Barry negotiates him down to “Well, don’t kill anybody anymore”, which I’m hoping leads to many many appearances by Captain Cold and the rest of the Rogues Gallery.  Okay, another side, I loved the line reading of Barry coining “Rogues Gallery”, and Captain Cold’s on “Rogues”.  Good sign for something in between the cartoony (but still entertaining) Rogues visits of the early comics, and the slightly harder-edged Rogues we got in the later run before Flashpoint happened and everything went all hooby-gooby. 

I’m really hoping that the current status quo stays around (and thanks to time travel, who knows).  Barry’s identity being in the hands of Snart seems pretty dicey, but it’s a good amount of future tension.  Also, TRICKSTER NEXT WEEK.  My body is ready for you, Mark Hamill!