The Flash "Out of Time" Review: Everything Out of Joint

The Flash S01E15: "Out of Time"

When The Flash airs an episode like "Out of Time" as Episode 15 instead of as a season finale, it says a good bit where television is as a medium. Because 15 or 20 years ago, the episode absolutely would've been a finale, what with its wild, show-changing cliffhanger that would've left us dying in anticipation as we sat through a summer full of reruns (remember when TV networks only aired reruns during the summer?) while waiting for the next season to start so we could find out what would happen next. Now? We only have to wait a week. One long, horrible, slow-moving week.

I love that it wasn't a season finale, though. Sure, there's the lack of having to wait, but there's also the fact that in the old days, the season premieres that tended to follow such cliffhangers were often driven to return to the status quo. That isn't always a bad thing—hey there, Star Trek: TNG's "The Best of Both Worlds" Part 1 and Part 2—but it's so easy to undermine a cliffhanger that your audience fretted over for months by saying, "That was wild, right? Back to business as usual!" However, since only seven days will have passed between now and next week's "Rogue Time," the fact that Barry could undo everything big that happened in "Out of Time"—Joe getting kidnapped, a metahuman storming police headquarters, Cisco learning the truth about Harrison and then being killed by Harrison, Iris and Barry confirming their feelings for one another and Iris learning that Barry is the Flash—likely won't feel like some sort of anticlimax. Instead, it will serve as an extension of the narrative this episode established. In short, I'd much prefer to see all these developments undone next week rather than see them undone after waiting for three months.

Of course, that's assuming any of them can be undone, which says something else about where television is as medium. Barry may not be able to change any of what went down in "Out of Time," and The Flash may be willing to allow all of it to stand. After all, in today's TV landscape, its somewhat common for a character to die when viewers least expect him to, or for some startling secret to be revealed long before viewers thought it would be. Network television's inherent narrative conservativeness has eroded enough that we've reached the point where a show like The Flash could go either way in next week's episode, and it probably won't surprise us, even while it may leave us to thrilled and/or angry, depending on our desired outcomes.

No matter what, "Out of Time" and next week's "Rogue Time" are important milestones for the show. Time travel has been an important aspect of Flash storylines in the comics for decades, and now The Flash is wading into those waters and will be establishing its own rules in that regard. This is a big deal for a number of the show's plots—namely Nora Allen's murder and Harrison Wells/Eobard Thawne being trapped in the present day—and setting up so many potential game-changers gives The Flash lots of room to play without necessarily focusing on Nora and Harrison. It's smart and very exciting.

The time travel aspect certainly enhanced a lot of "Out of Time" after the fact as well as the potential for next week's episode, but remove it from the episode and just end with Barry running super fast to stop a giant wave from destroying the city, and it was still a very exciting hour of The Flash. Sure, our Villain of the Week was still a guy bent on revenge, but at least Mark Mardon/Weather Wizard (Liam McIntyre of Spartacus fame) was very aggressive about getting that revenge, and it was centered on a character we cared about. Given how much I've been worried about Joe biting the dust for the past few episodes, you can imagine that I was sort of worried about Mardon's vigorous pursuit of Joe and how it might all end.

The nice thing about Mardon compared to the other metahumans is that his powers—which often define these characters far more than actual personalities, and did in Mardon's case—created a more opportunities for varied uses of those powers. Controlling the weather gave Mardon more options than just turning into a cloud of poisonous gas or teleporting here, there, and everywhere. Forming giant hailstones to pummel a guy to death? Cool. Creating a tiny thunderstorm over a car so as to blow it up with a bolt of lightning? Very cool. Summoning a tsunami to kill two people...well, it seem liked the maximum amount of overkill for a guy who had previously focused on finesse over showmanship, but the show needed Barry to run real fast again so he could travel back in time. I guess Maron was just very excited he was finally getting his revenge and let himself lose control a little bit. It happens?

It was also a little odd that Joe became as reckless as he did after Mardon's assault on police headquarters. I get that Joe understands the danger that Mardon poses far more than his colleagues given that they are still sort unaware of metahumans aside from the Flash and doesn't want to endanger them, but Joe's also not an idiot, so not saying, "Okay, people, that guy did some weird shit to the building and severely injured our boss; we need to be prepared to get this done." felt more like the plot bending Joe to fit its demands. It's something the show has generally avoided with Joe's motivations, so I'm willing to not dwell on it, but it still stood out a bit.

At this point, you're probably like, "Dammit, just talk about Cisco, already!" Given that I suspect that the show will ultimately undo large chunks, if not all, of the events in this episode, I'm not really freaking out of over Cisco's death. I still gasped at it, of course, unaware of the time travel that was to come at the end, because it was a damn good sequence that was very well-acted by Carlos Valdes and Tom Cavanagh. Upon seeing Wells, Valdes made sure that Cisco behaved as if he knew was going to die. The crying and the "I can help you" last ditch effort were really gut-wrenching stuff that, provided Cisco was going to stay dead, would've been a really intense, emotional way for that character to go out. As it will likely stand, it was just a really intense and emotional scene. Either way, I wasn't fully aware how attached I had become to Cisco. I like Cisco, a lot, but compared to Caitlin, the show hasn't developed him as much, so I didn't think I was very invested in him. Proved that I don't myself as well as I sometimes think, Flash.

Even if it had just been Valdes nailing it, the scene would've been great, but Cavanagh was bringing it, too, and so was the writing for Wells/Thawne. I really love that the show has gone to great lengths to make Wells/Thawne not your standard secretive supervillain with an evil plan. He is, and he has an evil plan, but he's also been stuck in the current timeline for 15 years. He's had to acclimate to a degree to survive, and I really believe that he loves Ghostbusters and Back to the Future. I do think that despite the fact that to him Cisco is already dead, that Wells/Thawne has come to care about the people at S.T.A.R. Labs and that he meant it when he said Cisco was like a son to him. He may still want to kill Barry Allen, but he doesn't want to (and can't, obviously) kill this Barry Allen, and that if he didn't have to kill Cisco just then, he wouldn't have.

I thought Cavanagh really got at that tension between doing what he needed to do survive while acknowledging that, on some level, the mask of Harrison Wells often stopped being a mask sometimes. There's resignation and regret in Cavanagh's delivery that got to me almost as much Valdes barely keeping back Cisco's fear.

Meanwhile, in the worst part of the show, Barry and Iris were all over one another in front of their significant others, and it was painful to watch. I admit it's painful because I so very deeply do not care about this, and of the stuff for the show to undo, everything that happened regarding these love birds should not be undone. Watching Iris be all, "Oh, Linda's not right for you, Barry." is really already really tiring. Yes, we've all sometimes realize we wanted to be with people once they're not available to us, even while we're involved with someone else, but The Flash isn't writing this well at all since it never really done much to establish Eddie and Iris as a couple, or why they would want to be a couple. Without even emotional connections between the characters—I don't even need to actually feel invested in the relationship if there's at least that—it just comes off as romantic plotting for the sake of romantic plotting. At least Eddie called Iris out on hers and Barry's behaviors.

The only interesting stuff to come out of it was Mason zeroing in on Harrison as a shady character. I do feel like the episode just sprang the whole "Where's Simon Stagg?" thing on us without any groundwork, and considering the show's appreciation of TV news reports and newspapers, it would've been easy to sneak in at least a mention of somewhere. As reasons to investigate Harrison go, however, it's as good as any. Of course, given the potential for time traveling shenanigans, your guess is as good as mine if we ever actually to get see what Mason has in store for the big Sunday edition. Also: They're waiting for the Sunday edition? Guess they're not worried about being scooped!

LEFT IN THE DUST

– In the comics, the Weather Wizard often has a wand, and that's what controls the weather around him. On The Flash, I just love the the fact that it looks like Cisco welded together a lightsaber and a sonic screwdriver as a means of counteracting Mardon's abilities.

– I liked how "Out of Time" was not at all subtle about when Mardon was about to strike. Rain out of nowhere over Joe's car and loud wind sounds in the apartment before Joe got sucked out a window were nice tip-offs for the audience, but not distracting in a way that a score might've been.

– Caitlin is a horrible double agent.

– "Being his fiancé makes him family, doctor." You tell it, The Flash.

– I'm taking a vacation next week so I will not be reviewing "Rogue Time." I am very sad about this because I've been looking forward to the episode all month, and after "Out of Time," I'm really looking forward to it. Stupid vacation! Anyway, TV.com's own MaryAnn Sleasman has kindly agreed to fill in for me, so you'll get her take on what will likely be a fun episode.

What'd you think of "Out of Time"?