TV REVIEW: Captain Cold Steals the Show in The Flash’s “Rogue Air”

By Justin Carter

Over the weekend, it was revealed the CW has gone forward with a spinoff of The Flash and Arrow, titled DC’s Legends of Tomorrow. The spinoff-spinoff will have, among others, Wentworth Miller’s Captain Cold as a lead and with that in mind, it’s easy to see this as a backdoor pilot for the show. Cold leaves the episode with the closest thing to a reboot that anyone could get in the world of comic books, via a clean slate, courtesy of Barry. Good old, stupid Barry.

The cause for Barry and Cold crossing paths again comes courtesy of Wells, who’s actually been setting up camp with Eddie inside the particle accelerator for the past few weeks. Also inside the accelerator is a device primed to go off in just a few days that looks pretty much like a bomb, prompting Team Flash to get the locked up metahumans out of their prisons to Lian Yu, where at least they can work on their tans.

To be honest, I forgot most of the metahumans incarcerated besides Rainbow Raider, and only then because of the Flash/Arrow crossover from earlier this season. The show doesn’t spend any time reestablishing them, in fact, I’m pretty certain that only two of them are referred to by their real names. Up until Joe had mentioned it, I straight up forgot that the team was also planning to rehabilitate the metahumans they put away. But as Caitlin said, they’ve been busy. Few, if any of the ones in custody seem actually capable of going through normal life without murdering someone before noon, with the only exception being teleporter Peekaboo who basically bolts the moment the opportunity presents itself.

Turns out that transporting five super-powered humans who’ve all killed at least four people isn’t as easy as one would think, so Barry tracks down Cold and asks for his help. I’m sure I’ve said it before, but Wentworth Miller is absolutely is great as Captain Cold. His deadpan and often patronizing delivery works well with everyone else, and it always feels like a game of sarcastic tug of war whenever he’s talking with Peyton List. He’s clearly loving the role, such as when he just straight up ices Deathbolt with the casual reply that the dude owed him money. Even his delivery about betraying Barry and setting the rest of the Rogues free is perfect in its timing and delivery, because why wouldn’t he betray Barry? With his criminal record completely wiped out, he leaves the show primed and ready for Legends of Tomorrow, and I couldn’t be more excited to see him interact with Ray Palmer and Martin Stein.

Once the metahumans split up, the episode finally gets down to the 3 v 1 showdown of Flash, Al Sah-him and Firestorm going up against Reverse-Flash. The timing of this is a little weird, given that there’s no indication that he called Firestorm beforehand, and Sah-him’s appearance is even more confusing. His appearance here is obviously meant to be before everything that happened last week on Arrow, but I’m still wondering how he was able to get even half a mile out of Nanda Parbat when Ra’s seems to have a death grip on the guy and his movements. This could be explained, but I think it’s just one of those things you have to run with when you’re watching a show about a guy who gets super-speed after getting struck by lightning. While it does feel a bit heavy on the crossovers and stumbles the return of the bad metahumans, the action is pretty fun and everything is put in place for a finale next week that’ll surely go down as awesome. Especially now that they’ve captured Wells…

Additional Notes

Of course “Cold as Ice” is playing as Cold is hanging out in a bar. Wouldn’t be him if otherwise.

Cold’s sister Lisa returns, where she flirts with Cisco and is officially nicknamed “Golden Glider.” It’s pretty great watching her put the moves on him and he’s just flabbergasted.

Seriously, is there no security at STAR Labs? Or doors?

Barry mentions that Ferris Air got shut down after one of their test pilots went missing. Some guy named Hal Jordan, maybe?

Eddie breaks things off with Iris, and that honestly feels like the best decision for him after what he’s been through.

Miller’s line: “I’m a criminal, and a liar, and I hurt people, and I rob them” is spoken with such “of course I betrayed you, ya moron” that it’s funny even before he’s finished his sentence.”