The Flash Season 1, Episode 16 Recap: Rogue Time

It’s quite possible that Barry Allen was too busy adjusting to his surrogate family and his studies growing up to take in many sci-fi movies. That would explain why he doesn’t realize that mucking around with the timestream isn’t a good idea, even if you have the best of intentions.

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Or, maybe he understands that just fine, and he’s simply not considering all the angles after the crazy events of last week’s episode. I’m guessing it’s that. So we’ve got the whole time travel thing, plus the return of Captain Cold and Heat Wave with a little familial assistance. Better buckle in for another action-packed edition of The Flash, as we zip into “Rogue Time.”

Not-So-Fast Recap: We start right where we left off last week, and by that, I mean in the middle of last week’s episode. Time travel is fun!

Summoned to the morgue, Barry is able to solve the crime before Eddie Thawne even brings the evidence, weirding out Joe West, and when he gets to S.T.A.R. Labs, he surprises his colleagues by knowing what they are going to say ahead of time. Harrison Wells wants a word, and he asks if Barry has broken the time barrier. But of course he has! Barry tries to tell Wells about the future an the bad things on the way, but Harrison waves him off, cautioning that time is fragile. He implores Barry to do everything just as he did before. After that talk, Wells goes to his future room and consults with Gideon, asking for a notification if the future changes. Can I get those on my phone?

Barry follows Harrison’s advice for all of about five minutes, deciding to go stop Mark Mardon before he can even get his career as Weather Wizard started. He’s quite surprised there’s even other meta-humans out there. Barry tells the S.T.A.R. Labs crew it was just a hunch after locking Mardon in the Pipeline, and he gets berated by Wells, who is certain time will make something even worse happen to compensate.

Meanwhile, our old friends Leonard Snart and Mick Rory are in front of a Don Santini, who scoffs at the idea that the duo is anything without their fancy weapons. Turns out he’s wrong, as the Rogues easily kill the Don, beat up his goons and tell one of them to inform everyone that there’s a new godfather, and his name is Cold.

Caitlin accompanies Cisco to his brother’s birthday party. It doesn’t go well, as Cisco’s bro is kind of a jerk. Barry is spending his time on the treadmill, confused because he’s running just as fast but isn’t breaking the time barrier. Wells says a number of factors could make things different, including his body chemistry levels and other science-sounding stuff. Joe arrives and inquires about Barry’s recent weird behavior, but he simply says Joe has to trust him. Wells isn’t filling in the. blanks either. Barry’s late for a lunch date with Linda Park anyway.

Only that doesn’t go so well. Asked if he really cares for her, Barry is less than convincing, and they break up. A moment later, Barry blunders a bit when he realizes that he hasn’t met Mason Bridge yet (time travel, again!) before asking Iris to meet him for coffee later. Before leaving, Barry tells mason that Wells had nothing to do with Simon Stagg’s disappearance. He’s wrong, but hey.

Cisco meets Barry for drinks, surprised that he’s taking the break-up with Linda so well. An attractive blonde wants to buy Cisco a drink, so Barry kindly steps out of the way. Even though part of Cisco must know it’s too good to be true, the woman named Lisa says she’s a structural engineer and wants to take Cisco home.

Unfortunately, home is the place the Snarts call home. That’s Lisa Snart, Leonard’s sister, and he’s not too pleased about Cisco’s intentions. She lured Cisco into this trap so that he could rebuild the cold and heat guns, and they’ve got Cisco’s brother Dante as motivation. Oh, and Lisa wants a gun too, something pretty and toxic. Gold, maybe?

At Jitters, Barry is really excited, riding a wave of overconfidence when he tells Iris that he knows she’s been thinking about him. Only it doesn’t work out the way he expects, and Iris tells him she loves Eddie and that it’s not fair to keep making her the bad guy. Oops.

A call from Joe alerts Team Flash to the fact that Snart is back and hitting up the Santini casino. Lisa shows off her new gun that turns things to gold, and even though the Flash stops them, he has to let them go after Captain Cold reveals that he has Cisco. Barry goes to tell Joe the bad news and gets a solid punch to the face from Eddie, with a warning to stay away from Iris.

A depressed Barry returns to S.T.A.R. Labs s able to convince Wells to listen to his tales of time travel woe. Asked why Iris wouldn’t react the same way the second time through the same day, Harrison theorizes that it might have taken the tragedy of the impending tidal wave to jar her true feelings to the forefront. The ability to travel through time is dangerous, and if Barry uses it to go back even further, who knows what havoc he might wreak? Barry asks about saving his mom and whether he should do it or not, and Harrison wonders how many other people might die if he does. Oh, you clever bastard. Caitlin arrives and asks if they’ve found Cisco. Ah yeah, that’s what they were supposed to be doing!

He’s still held captive, and the strenuous circumstances get Dante to open up about how he’s always been jealous of Cisco. Saying he’s tired of never fighting for anything in his life, Dante tries to escape, which only gets him and Cisco a brutal beating from Mick Rory. Lisa manages to calm Mick down, while Leonard says he’ll let the brothers go if Cisco answers one question: who is the Flash? Cisco says he doesn’t know, but a blast from Cold’s gun gives Dante first-degree frostbite, and it looks like there’s not going to be any choice.

That’s exactly how it goes down, with Cisco returning to his teammates and apologizing to Barry for selling him out. Our hero is equally apologetic for putting Cisco in danger, but that doesn’t stop everyone’s favorite resident tinkerer from vowing that he’s going to leave so nothing like this ever happens again.

Joe drops in on Iris and suggests that if she truly loves Eddie, she should convince both him and Barry of that fact. At S.T.A.R. Labs, Harrison wants to show Cisco something before he leaves. They head down to the room where something pretty tragic happened last week, and Wells gives a similar speech about how he almost considers Cisco like a son. Caitlin calls for them to return, and they do. That went … better this time, with 100 percent less death.

The casino wasn’t the target after all, and the Snarts and Rory uses motorcycles to chase down a truck. Flash zips in and grabs Cold, taking him to the middle of a forest so they can talk. Unmasking since Snart knows his identity anyway, Barry wonders why Cold does what he does. Snart says it’s the adrenaline and the fact that he’s good at it. He’s also not willing to leave Central City, since it’s his home. Flash offers that if Cold is as good as he says he is, no one else needs to die. Snart considers that, as well as Barry’s promise that if any of Snart’s rogues gallery goes after any of Barry’s family or friends, he’ll take Cold in and lock him away for good. Seems like we’ve got a stalemate on our hands. As Flash runs off without offering to give Cold a lift, Snart says to himself, “Rogues. Cute.”

Later that night, Barry gets his biggest shock yet when he is greeted by a hug from Eddie and concern from Iris. They say Caitlin told them about his “lightning psychosis,” which makes him react with unexpected declarations of affection and other strange behavior as an after-effect of the lightning strike. Thanks Caitlin!

Mason Bridge is working on his Harrison Wells story when he suffers a computer outage. That’d be the kind caused by the Reverse-Flash. Even after telling the villain that everything he had on Wells is on the flash drive he kept, Bridge still gets a vibrated fist through the chest. Reverse-Flash chuckles while erasing the rest of the paper’s computers and cleaning up the crime scene, noting that Mason really was on to the story of the century — this century, anyway.

We return to S.T.A.R. Labs one last time, where Barry asks Harrison if he made a mistake letting Snart go. He’s about to ask about Stagg when he gets spooked by seeing a TV report about Bridge being found dead. Does Wells suspect that he suspects? Interesting.

Joe wants to know why Barry asked him for a meeting in his lab so late at night, and his reply is that Joe might have been right about Dr. Wells after all.

“Which part?” Joe asks.

“All of it,” Barry says.

Favorite moment: Not so many funny one-liners for Cisco this week, as he was too busy on the emotional roller coaster this week. From a fan’s standpoint, I have to say the best part was Flash tricking Cold into establishing the Rogues’ code of not killing innocents. A little heavy-handed, perhaps, but effective nonetheless.

Final thought: Cisco is back, but that seems to have only delayed the inevitable when it comes to Reverse-Flash having to show his cards. The game of cat and mouse over the last part of this season could be a lot of fun. This wasn’t the “OMG” fest of last week, but the revelations still kept coming.

Next: Previously, on The Flash: our recap of Out of Time

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