Review: ‘The Flash’ – ‘Revenge of the Rogues’

A quick review of tonight's “The Flash” coming up just as soon as I make you try scuba diving and Indian food…

“Revenge of the Rogues” upped the ante for our hero on several levels. It gave Captain Cold a partner in Heat Wave. It made Flash's existence very public, rather than an urban legend being chronicled by Iris' blog, and for now at least seems to have put the cops (including the very heroic Eddie Thawne) back on his side. These are big deals for the evolution of both the character and the show. Some of the Rogues have to be able to return again and again, and Captain Cold continues to work, even if Dominic Purcell attempted to chew every piece of scenery as Heat Wave. And if the idea is for the Flash to be inspirational in a way his counterpart in Starling City can't be, then at a certain point, other people had to learn about him – which in turn gives Cisco and the other STAR Labs people their first shot at public redemption.

The concluding battle with the two Rogues was one of the show's better action sequences to date, and I really like the idea of Joe and Barry as roommates. (I assume Barry will have to revisit his landlord at regular speed to try to get back his security deposit.) It's also interesting, from a fanboy standpoint, to see the show working Jason Rusch into the Caitlin subplot, which reflects on an additional generation of Firestorm comics, even as the show is still in the early process of explaining what happened to Ronnie and Professor Stein (glimpsed here in photograph form as Victor Garber).

Due to the crunch of other Tuesday shows (“Parks and Recreation” and “Justified” are both back on the night for a little while longer), I may have to downgrade “Flash” to periodic reviewing for a while. That's party a product of a busy schedule, but also a reflection of a show that has its act together on a lot of levels, and maybe doesn't need to be analyzed every single week.

What did everybody else think?

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