Catching Up: The Flash Episode 304, "The New Rogues"

Before I get into this episode, I need to address something really important: the obligatory episode introduction. I get that Barry (GRANT GUSTIN) needs to bring the viewers up to speed (pun half-intended), but can they please get him to re-shoot this? Because the current one has him sounding so over-the-top when if finishes. "I am... The Flasssshhhh! It sounds like he's making fun of his own name. It's very off-putting.

The episode opens with fan-favorite Leonard Snart (WENTWORTH MILLER) having a dispute with fellow criminals Sam Scudder (GREY DAMON) and Rosalind Dillon (ASHLEY RICKARDS, no relation to ARROW's Emily Bett Rickards that we can find). Before you question what good old Captain Cold is doing, since, you know, we saw him die last season on LEGENDS OF THE FUTURE, this is a Flashback scene set at the time of the dark matter explosion. Scudder crashes through a mirror and doesn't come out. Dillon gains the ability to create vertigo, making you feel like the room is spinning. Three years later, Scudder steps out of a mirror, with no sense of time having passed.

Over at S.T.A.R. Labs, Barry gives Jesse (VIOLETT BEANE) advice during her training, when he gets jolted with the realization that he has now become Oliver Queen. After the training, Jesse and Wally West (KEIYNAN LONSDALE) go out while Cisco (CARLOS VALDES) and Caitlin (DANIELLE PANABAKER) lament that Harrison Wells (TOM CAVANAGH) will be returning to Earth-2 soon. Harrison offers them a wacky suggestion that they actually start to follow through on -- recruiting another Harrison Wells from somewhere out there in the multiverse! Seems as though the writers couldn't feasibly keep the Wellses here on Earth-1, but needed to find a way to get the most out of their investment in Cavanagh. More on that later.

Many times throughout the episode, we watch awkward relationships. Barry feels weird kissing Iris (CANDACE PATTON) in front of her dad, Joe (JESSE L. MARTIN), which should be even weirder than that since Joe raised both of them so he's sort of kissing his sister. Joe has his own issues, because he's having a reciprocal interest with a co-worker, Cecile Horton (DANIELLE NICOLET) that he isn't following through on. You'll see this a few times between actual action scenes.

After Team Flash send "an elaborate Help Wanted ad" out into the multiverse, Scudder makes a move and they analyze how his powers work. Harrison beats Cisco to the naming with Mirror Master, mentioning that they had a Mirror Master named McCullough on Earth-2 who used a mirror gun to warp dimensions. Not to be outdone, Cisco jumps in with Top when categorizing Rosalind Dillon's vertigo-inducing powers. (In DC Comics, The Top was Roscoe Dillon, and was the paramour of Leonard Snart's sister, Golden Glider.)

The comedy in this episode comes from the introduction of "All the Myriad Wells" (with apologies to Larry Niven). We meet a drawling, burping Wells in a duster and cowboy hat, a Victorian steampunk Wells offering greetings to "Terra Prime," a French mime Wells, and a hipster Wells from Earth-19. Cisco and Caitlin both like him, but Harrison says his gut tells him no. But it could just be that Harrison can't stand the idea of being replaced on the team. (Earth-19 in the DC Universe is an Edwardian world, but that doesn't seem to be the case here.)

When Team Flash goes after Mirror Master and Top, Flash can see the path Mirror Master travels along all the reflective windows. He tells Jesse Quick to stay back, but she naturally ignores that and follows him. Because of that, she isn't prepared to deal with Top, who causes her to fall from the building. When Flash diverts to catch her, Mirror Master pushes Flash into a reflection, trapping him in the mirror.

Getting Flash out and finding a way to capture Mirror Master involve some really cool plot devices that I won't give away here, but things you're going to want to watch for when viewing this episode include:

• Should Caitlin invest in some L'Oréal Preference to deal with premature whitening?
• What the heck is a Mise en abyme?
• What do we need to know about Earth-19?
• What should you "never, ever" do while Harrison Wells is gone?