The Flash Season 2 episodes 2-3 review - Flash of Two Worlds/The Family of Rogues

So, I've calmed down from my ranting of 2 weeks ago, and now I bring you more fair reviews of the following 2 episodes, until something else bugs me

Flash of Two Worlds

OK, the last episode and abundant plot-holes managed to raise my ire to pathological anger. Fortunately I’ve had a week to calm down and they helped by giving a fan moment to squee over, Blackgate Penitentiary. I know it’s an odd thing to fangasm over but Gotham City baby!

OK, let’s get to the meat of this episode. Jay Garrick has shown up and warns the team that his enemies are coming here, under the command of Zoom, a speed force user that seeks to be the only one in the multi-verse.

Naturally Barry Allen has developed trust issues after Harrison Wells and despite no evidence that Jay has lied to him in anyway spends most of the episode finding reasons not to trust him, especially easy seeing as whilst he claims to be his earth’s speedster, he is powerless and his access to the speed force isn’t present.

I know because I read it somewhere that the speed force is a multi-versal constant, but they don’t know that so how do they know what they’re looking for? Minor quibble but what the hey, this is a good episode.

We also meet a lady obsessed with joining the current army of one known as the anti-meta-human taskforce. Joe, you could be lighting a neon sign saying ‘I work with the Flash’ and it’d be less subtle than thinking you can head an anti-meta-human taskforce alone.  Anyway, she joins by the end making it an army of two. Oh and Iris’ mother arrives, just FYI

So the villain for the week is sand demon, a sandman rip-off (the Marvel one, not the DC one) that fought Jay on his earth and now zoom has brought him over to kill Barry because geez this motivation is flimsy. If Zoom wants to prove himself why not take on the Flash himself rather than sending him more of the meta-humans of the week. Glad to hear Iron Heights can take meta-humans now, at least it seems more humane than the pipeline

Oh and we find out there’s a Harrison wells on Jay’s earth, complete with sinister music. Meanwhile we have Cisco coming to terms with his powers with the help of Professor Stein. Knowing the future Cisco and Caitlin have, it’ll be interesting to see how this plays a part.

Also, there are 52 rifts. Guys, Convergence undid Crisis on Infinite Earth’s, the number 52 is no longer significant in DC Comics

Rating 7/10

The family of rogues

Guys, if you’re not gonna bother bringing in the rogues, stop using the word rogues in your title. Rogues is Captain Cold, Heat Wave, Captain Boomerang, Mirror Master and sometimes the Trickster. Golden Glider I can make some allowances for but…

OK, so we all know that Captain Cold and Heat Wave are gonna be ‘heroes’ in DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, in fact, just Legends of Tomorrow, I hate the company prefix when Marvel uses it, I still do.

So we get Captain Cold working with his father because there’s a bomb in his sister’s brain. That’s the episode’s A-plot in a nutshell. It provides some interesting dynamics, more flirting between Cisco and the Golden Glider, some amusing dynamics between Barry and Leonard as we further explore exactly how far either will go for part of their ‘deal’ ultimately ending in Leonard killing his own father once Cisco saved his sister. This act landed him in prison, but I’ll give it 2 episodes before he’s out again.

The B-plot revolves around the return of Iris’ mother revealed in the last episode. She was a former drug addict that escaped rehab and essentially did a runner. Not wanting Iris to grow up with the idea that her mother abandoned her Joe told Iris that her mother had died. Naturally her showing up has him spooked.

I was gonna do my bit about Joe being an idiot until I realised exactly what had occurred here. This sub-plot is purely setup for the eventually appearance of Wally West (sporting his New52 look because Ginger hair doesn’t exist in the DCU anymore unless you’re Guy Gardner, but at the very least it makes sense given his family) but I’m glad they got it out of the way quickly and didn’t stretch this out, it would’ve gotten old pretty quickly. Iris’ reaction was… ok…

OK, so the final moments of the episodes. Despite being categorically fine the last 2 episodes they decided now to have Martin Stein become unwell. He then goes at the end to spontaneous combusting. I still say that Ronnie’s likely still alive but anyway, they manage to create a portal to Earth 2 so Jay can go home and guess who Zoom is, yes that’s right, Harrison Wells. Yay… Look, I liked Harrison Wells and the way they should’ve gone with meeting him would be the prejudice based on what Eobard did, not having him be the villain again.

Rating 7.5/10

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