Flash Review: “Going Rogue”

A dangerous career criminal ups his game when he realizes he’s up against a superhero—and he receives assistance from an unlikely and unwilling ally.

Title: “Going Rogue”

Directed by Glen Winter
Written by Geoff Johns, Kai Yu Wu

Grant Gustin as Barry Allen / The Flash
Candice Patton as Iris West
Danielle Panabaker as Caitlin Snow
Carlos Valdes as Cisco Ramon
Tom Cavanagh as Harrison Wells
Jesse L. Martin as Detective Joe West
Emily Bett Rickards as Felicity Smoak
Wentworth Miller as Len Snart / Captain Cold
John Wesley Shipp as Henry Allen
Patrick Sabongui as Captain David Singh
Al Sapienza as Detective Fred Chyre

Full cast and crew information may be found at the imdb

Premise

A career criminal realizes he needs to become something more if he must deal with an actual superhero. He becomes a supervillain with the aid of an advanced device: one developed by Cisco Ramon. Meanwhile, Felicity Smoak visits Central City and assists Team Flash.

High Points

Cisco and crew confronting Captain Cold makes for a cool scene not just because we see Team Flash stepping up. Cisco gets his redemption and we see the thrill of a nerd watching a nerdy world coming into existence.

Low Point

The Flash stops for a nooo! moment even though Captain Cold is still around with the gun. That’s okay, though, because Cold just leaves without taking the final shot.

The Scores:

Originality: 2/6 They stayed close to Cold’s origin, though he does not develop his own gun, and added worthwhile, though hardly groundbreaking, relationship-building.

The hero has created his own archenemy.

Effects: 5/6

Acting: 5/6 The actors do well with the humorous bits, which form an important part of the show. Special guest Emily Bett Rickards as Felicity Smoak interacts effectively with this cast, and she has a chemistry with Gustin he needs to develop with Candice Patton. I found Martin and Patton—strong actors overall—curiously flat in their important confrontation over Iris’s relationship with her father’s partner.

Story: 5/6

Emotional Response: 5/6 Despite elements of angst, this show remembers that superheroes are supposed to be fun.

Production: 6/6

Overall: 5/6 I suppose I should stop saying how much I want to see the entire mass-media DCU expanded from these shows. Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne need to be in this reality.

In total, “Going Rogue” receives 33/42

Easter Eggs and Allusions

The armored car belongs to Blackhawk Security.

The diamond Snart steals is from Kahndaq, a Middle Eastern country in the DC Universe.

Felicity makes an allusion (though she does not know it, of course) to Barry’s death in Crisis on Infinite Earths.

Barry nearly announces his new name—but he gets interrupted and, for now, he remains:

2 replies on “Flash Review: “Going Rogue””

  1. This one was great from a team-building angle, and it was fun to see the new villain forming (and without involving the particle accelerator, even.) Sometimes the creepiest/best villains are not the super-powered ones, but the super-crazy. And he survived and escaped,

    I had a couple nitpicky low points though:
    * If you can cause a remote firmware update to download to the gun, why can’t said firmware update disable/brick the gun? Perhaps they didn’t have time to do that, but the general easy with which firmware updates brick actual, real-world devices, I wouldn’t think it would be difficult.
    * There were plenty of places Barry could have completely taken down Cold if he had been thinking more clearly. But perhaps that is what they were alluding to with the loss of the chess match: He may be fast, but he isn’t always making the best decisions when using his powers.

    The highs more than outweigh the lows, though, and it continues on its upward path. It started out good and keeps getting better. I think the lighter tone is helping it out more than they realize. Arrow is great, but I think it gets weighed down by drama/brooding at times.

    It goes back to something I’ve said before. The reason Marvel wins more often at movies is because the Marvel movies are fun. Not necessarily comedic, but fun to watch and enjoy, and perhaps a bit campy. That’s something The Flash has going for it in a big way.

    • Perhaps the firmware update would only download to the gun but still needed confirmation from the user to install. That would also explain why Cold knew to disable it afterwards.

      As for Barry’s strategic errors I think it has to be one of those things where you simply shouldn’t think about it too much.

      Really there’s only two ways a villain should be able to challenge Barry. First they’re as fast as him (either through super speed or by slowing him down), or second, they pose a challenge for which speed is useless (ie poison gas guy who was impervious to physical punishment or a mystery).

      Any other challenge Barry just knocks them out before they have a change to act. I suspect the writers’ main challenge will distracting us from this fact.

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