The past few years have not been in vain – Barry and Iris are finally together! Things are going well in their personal lives but Jesse Quick is back from Earth-2 and now has speed powers. With Alchemy laying low, Barry intends to impart some speed wisdom but even the Flash was a slow learner at the beginning.
Mirror Mirror
With time being less linear in the Arrowverse than reality, we get a special treat this week – Leonard Snart! The opening scene has Sam Scudder treating himself and his criminal girlfriend after pulling a heist three years ago. But the rules Snart plays by are there to avoid the attention the pair will bring. A fight ensues with Snart about to kill Scudder as he lies stunned on a mirror. Only the particle accelerator explosion saves him but Scudder disappears into the mirror for three years.
Fast-forward back to the present and Barry is teaching Jesse how to better use her powers. The advice he imparts is identical to the same Oliver gave him – minus a couple of arrow points. Jesse goes somewhere with Wally, an understandably grumpy Harry watching them leave. The original Team Flash lament that they don’t get time with Harry and Harry comes up with a bizarre plan – find another Harrison Wells in the multiverse.
Awkward
Barry and Iris are enjoying a night in with each other just before Joe arrives and the combined embarrassment almost kills everybody. Their weird family dynamic of Papa-Iris, Adoptive Papa-Barry and the Barry-Iris sibling parts makes things extremely weird. Just when things couldn’t be any worse, Scudder throws a criminal through his mirrors and out of the second floor after being unable to find Snart.
Barry reveals to Joe that Snart is ‘gone’ after Oliver told him that Snart and ‘some friends of ours left on a trip’. In another awkward family moment, the pair attempt to discuss the Barry/Iris thing and things get really weird. There are ‘I love you’s and ‘adult’s being thrown around. It’s cringy.
Cisco, Snow, and Harry are going Wells-Fishing by sending out a signal into the multiverse with an equation embedded. Any Wells advanced enough to understand it will track them back and make a visit. The cringe doesn’t stop this week as Wally friend zones Jesse because – despite mutual attraction – she will return home soon.
Name Calling
With a new meta-human menace running around, Cisco needs to name names. In a brilliant twist, Wells beats him to it with Mirror Master. Earth-2 hosted Mirror Master Evan McCullough with his Mirror Gun. Their only lead is Rosalind Dillion who has the ability to induce vertigo. In possibly the greatest face-off in the Arrowverse, Cisco speeds in with ‘Top’ to beat out Harry for the naming rights. Whilst interrogating Dillion, Joe watches Scudder grab her and disappear through the glass on her cell.
Scudder is attempting to catch up to the three years he was stuck in the mirror. To him, it was only overnight. Dillion reveals her abilities as Top and he persuades her to team up with him to take down Snart. With Snart gone, Dillon redirects their sights on the Flash.
Whilst discussing the disappearance of Top and Mirror Master, Snow, Ramon and Wells receive replies from various other-Wells. Their first reply seems to be a colonial era Wells with a Texan drawl. Next entry is Earth-17 Wells. It appears that this reality had Britain maintain the colonies as he is quite the Steampunk upper-class Brit. I’m not even sure how the next one came about but somehow there is a French Wells – a mime!! Earth-19 Wells is accepted by Caitlin and Cisco but Harry’s gut doesn’t agree.
Through The Looking Glass
A double-date night of Barry/Iris and Wally/Jesse is going weird with Joe sitting in. Despite their previous discussion, things are still weird between Joe and Barry. With Iris staring them down, the arrival of bad news is good news with the Flash now able to run off with Jesse close behind.
Mirror Master and Top escape through a reflection with the speedsters chasing after them. It appears that their speed inside the mirrors is comparable to the Flash’s speed. Barry is forced to catch Jesse after Top gives her vertigo. When they land, Scudder traps him inside a mirror.
Now back at Star Labs, Barry seems to be talking backward. In possibly the weirdest twist yet, Cisco already has a device which translates backward talk through glass. This is a man who spends his time saving the city and making useless gadgets at the same time. Jesse runs off to pity herself and Wally chases after her to reverse the earlier friend zoning.
With Snart reappearing once again, the Cold Gun is also back in town! Cisco and Wells are attempting to lower the mirror to such a temperature that Barry can phase out of it again. They can’t do it soon enough as captive Barry confesses to his trepidation towards his relationship with Iris is over the changes in his life.
Their miracle device proves to not be getting the mirror cold enough for Barry to phase out of the mirror but neither Cisco or Harry can think of a way to get the temperature lower. Everybody except Caitlin leaves to check a meta-human alert and she freezes the mirror from behind where Barry can’t see.
Reflections
Once he has broken free, Jesse and Barry use a hologram of Snart to lure Top and Scudder to an abandoned fairground. Jesse closes her eyes to protect herself against vertigo and sends the Top spinning. The Mirror Master seems to be in his prime inside a ring of mirrors but is actually trapped. Mirrors reflecting mirrors results in an infinite loop that he can’t escape from.
Earth-19 Wells arrives and appears to have a sense of humour unlike the rest of his counterparts. I hereby dub him ‘Hipster-Wells’ in future cross-Well interactions. Before Harry leaves, he tells Cisco that they didn’t get Barry out of the mirror. Jesse promises to return and Harry tries to tell them one last thing before Jesse speeds them home.
Apparently, over the embarrassment of being together with Iris, Barry kisses her in front of Joe and announces his plans to move out again. It comes across more as getting kicked out but the trio enjoys a laugh over it.
Now alone in her apartment, Caitlin accidentally freezes her entire shower over despite the boiling water streaming out. When drying her hair in the mirror, we can see that her lips are now turning blue and a part of her hair is quickly cut off after turning white. It appears that Killer Frost is starting to bleed through more and more.
Observations
- New Rogues has quite a strong relationship element to it. There is the Barry/Iris/Joe dynamic and the budding Jesse/Wally romance. Although the tones come across strong, they do not quite overpower the episode.
- Jesse falling down in her training shows that even superheroes are just as fallible as the rest of us. It makes the character that much more relatable.
- Even though the character development doesn’t quite overpower the episode, you will receive a large dose of cringe. There is plenty of awkward moments to laugh at.
- The new Top is a great addition to the universe. Despite originally being male, the addition of a female version evens out the Flash Rogues lineup.