Around the time Oliver Queen’s name was first mentioned is when “Rogue Air” started going off the rails for me. This is not to say I’d regard the episode as a train wreck. Far from it. However, watching it reminded me of the first time I saw Iron Man 2, which goes from “I don’t know why everyone was so down on this movie” during its engaging first hour to “Oh, I totally see why people say this is over-burdened with Marvel Cinematic Universe exposition” during its second hour.
The first 7 or so minutes of “Rogue Air” were remarkably compelling, even if the chilling opening voice-over from Dr. Wells about getting what he deserves was unintentionally undercut by the generally clunky montage of Barry, Caitlin, etc. staring longingly at framed photos of loved ones (I guess that shows up better on camera than having them stare at pictures on their cell phones or at one of those digital picture frames which runs a constant slideshow). Dr. Wells taunts his hostage Eddie, Barry re-assures Iris that they’ll rescue Eddie even though a “hope and a prayer” is pretty much their only remaining option for finding him, and Cisco realizes that the wheelchair Wells left behind is actually a ginormous battery (and, by extension, a pretty big clue Wells oddly left in their laps). They all realize Dr. Wells’ big plan is to re-start the participle accelerator, and he’s actually been hiding in the particle accelerator wing of STAR Labs the entire time. Before they can confront him, he zooms past them and outruns a pursuing Barry, leaving behind a special surprise by unleashing one of the imprisoned metahumans, the teleporting Peekaboo.
Doug Jones as Jake Simmons, Paul Anthony as Roy G. Bivolo, Liam McIntyre as Mark Mardon, Britne Oldford as Shawna Baez and Anthony Carrigan as Kyle Nimbus
Holy. Crap. It is on. The Flash is chasing after The Reverse Flash. Caitlin is running away from Peekaboo, Danielle Panabaker no doubt calling on her Friday the 13th experience for proper “running away from relentless pursuer” acting. Joe and Cisco have actually been locked inside the particle accelerator chamber where it sure seems like all of the other metahumans are about to be released, the Reverse Flash’s plan echoing the way Bane once released everyone from Arkham Asylum just to keep Batman busy and increasingly weakened. We’re not even 8 minutes into the episode at this point!
And then…argh. The situation is quickly contained, Iris knocking out Peekaboo, all of the prisoners staying put because their prison cell doors were never actually unlocking, Eddie quickly rescued. The entire episode turns into a re-examination of the ethics of Team Flash’s supervillain prison (the DA tells Joe they’re at least guilty of human trafficking and unlawful imprisonment), the Team forced to explore alternate options since they can’t stop whatever Dr. Wells put into motion and a re-ignited particle accelerator will kill all of the prisoners if they’re not moved beforehand. Suddenly, Barry and Joe are talking about Oliver Queen’s island prison, referring to places with weird names like Lian Yu and Nanda Parbat, name-dropping ARGUS and Diggle and briefly explaining that Diggle’s wife Lyla works for ARGUS. This all leads to a comic book version of the film Con Air if all of those prisoners never even made it to the plane before executing their prison breakout. Along the way, Captain Cold and his sister, whom Cisco begrudgingly dubs The Golden Glider, briefly partner with Team Flash before giving way to a sudden, yet inevitable betrayal.
And then The Flash, Firestorm and Oliver Queen fight Reverse Flash. At the very end of the episode. For no longer than 3 minutes.
Again, I’m going to have go with argh here.
I don’t know that it was completely necessary to now spend a week mostly dealing with the ethics and practicalities of their supervillain prison, particularly since while those are elements we the fans have debated and joked about it has barely been discussed at all on the show prior to this point. Early on, Joe admonishes the group for the prison, arguing that he thought the original point was to rehabilitate all of the prisoners to which Caitlin offers up a humorous, “Yeah, but we got really busy.” Wait, was that ever actually their stated intention? I’m trying to think back to way back at the beginning of the season to remember if they had ever actually talked about using the prison to rehabilitate the bad guys. Either way, we’re in episode 22 now. The idea that they have a supervillain prison is just something we completely accept at this point, long since having moved past questioning, “Yeah, but how are they feeding all of them? What’s the bathroom situation like?” To bring this all up now is great and all, but did you have to do it right before the big fight you’d been building up to all year?
Sure, this isn’t a big budget movie, and they can’t nor should they pull a Man of Steel and have the good guy fight the bad guy for what seems like the final 40 minutes of the movie. The Flash probably stalled because they only have so much money and time to make a full-on Flash vs. Reverse Flash fight into something amazing. It’s likely no coincidence that when we finally did get the big fight in this episode seemingly half of it was actually just Stephen Amell and Tom Cavanagh engaging in hand-to-hand combat, Oliver having temporarily neutralized Reverse Flash’s speed. There’s also the fact that while present-day Barry has now defeated present-day Reverse Flash he still has a big fight with him in the past in the living room of the Allen family household.
THE BOTTOM LINE
My impatience is clearly showing because while certainly overstuffed “Rogue Air” managed to be a heck of a good time, albeit with plenty of “I hope you also watch Arrow because otherwise you might be a tad confused right now.” I just really, really wanted to get that final fight scene far sooner.
THE NOTES
2. Watching Eddie and Iris’s dance in this episode, I kept thinking of Terminator’s, “There’s not fate but what we make for ourselves.” Good for Iris refusing to give into some sort of pre-ordained history, but also good for Eddie for walking away from someone who may not love him as much as he loves her.
3. What will Iris do with all of those Iris West/Eddie Thawne return labels now?
4. Remember how Wolverine always gets his ass kicked by Magneto in the X-Men films because his powers are useless against Magneto? That’s how I felt about Reverse Flash so easily tossing Firestorm aside during the fight.
5. Firestorm couldn’t stick around to say a quick hello to his fiancé? Wait, he is still engaged to Caitlin, right? Either way, Firestorm opted to walk off with a complete stranger, Oliver Queen, clearly sensing that in a different life the two of them might in fact be cousins.
6. The above Firestorm jokes are obviously nullified if he does actually stick around and shows up in the season finale.
7. Don’t even try to figure out the continuity of exactly how all of this links up with what’s happening on Arrow right now. Just know that this event will directly lead to Barry appearing in the Arrow season finale tonight.
8. Captain Cold is the type of villain who hangs out in bars which just so happen to play songs like Foreigner’s “Cold As Ice” in the background. He also orders his drinks “extra cold.” That’s how he rolls.
9. Was that really the most intimidating dive bar they could find for Captain Cold? With its cheap big screen TV and wall-lining pinball machines, it looked more like the backroom of a sports/game-themed restaurant than a local hangout for a badass criminal.
10. Seriously, Team Flash has got to remember to lock the doors into STAR Labs. They really suck at that lately.
11. And now we know that Oliver Queen apparently lives to be 86-years-old, or at least he did in one timeline.
12. Insert your Wentworth Miller Prison Break jokes here.
13. Cisco and Golden Glider – Our resident nerd is quite possibly heading for a walk on the wild side.
SECOND OPINIONS
Hitfix – By bringing back so many supervillains, on top of having Arrow(*) and Firestorm show up to help Barry fight Reverse-Flash, “Rogue Air” arguably tried to squeeze too much into a single hour.
