The Flash 2x17 "Flash Back" Easter Egg Review

So there were so many Easter Egg's in Tuesday's episode, "Flash Back". Let's dive right in!

                                                                                                                                 

The easter egg that stood out most to me was the list of Flash's villains. There are both classic Rogues and more obscure villains. It took a moment for me to figure out the pattern, but it has almost every single villain in the order they made there appearance.

From Right to Left, the list reads

Weather Wizard/Clyde Mardon ("Pilot" 1x1)

 Captain Clone/Danton Black ("Fastest Man Alive" 1x2)

 The Mist/Kyle Nimbus (Things You Can't Outrun" 1x3)

 Captain Cold/Leonard Snart ("Going Rogue" 1x4)

 Goldfinger/General Wade Eiling ("Plastique" 1x5)

 Girder/Tony Woodward ("The Flash Is Born" 1x6)

 Blackout/Farooq Gibran ("Power Outage" 1x7)

 Reverse Flash/Eobard Thawne ("The Man in the Yellow Suit" 1x9)

 Heat Wave/Mick Rory ("Revenge of the Rogues" 1x10)

 Pied Piper/Hartley Rathaway ("The Sound and the Fury" 1x11)

 Peek-A-Boo/Deshawn "Shawna" Baez ("Crazy for You" 1x12)

????? Weather Wizard/Mark Mardon ("Out of Time" 1x15)

 The Trickster/James Jesse ("Tricksters" 1x17)

What I don't understand is what the Xs are for. All of the profiles are Xed out but Hartley. Even the villains to the right of Hartley that Barry would not have met yet in that time are Xed out.. These include Peek-A-Boo, Weather Wizard (Mark Mardon), and The Trickster (James Jesse). The Xs can't stand for villains dead or in custody since Heat Wave and Captain Cold are on a mission in Legends of Tomorrow. So the Xes elude me. I'm also not entirely sure if the 2nd to last photo is Mark Mardon or another villain.

What also makes me curious is the villains absent from this list. It skips over Roy G. Bivolo/Rainbow Raider from the 8th episode, "Flash vs. Arrow". Obviously there is no Gorilla Grodd photo, so episodes 13 and 14 are also skipped over. They skipped over episode 16, "Rogue Time", which introduces Lisa Snart/Golden Glider. It makes me wonder if they are not considering her a villain since season 2 episode 3, "Family of Rogues". The second Trickster, Axel walker, is also absent from the list. I really hope he comes back one day though. He is one of my favorite Rogues in the New 52 Flash comics.

It is very cute that they end the list on episode 1x17, considering this episode is 2x17. Very nice little detail.

                                                                                                                                

Moving on, I wanted to address a few of the newspaper clippings seen next to the pictures.

Nothing stood out to me particularly. These clippings merely reflected past events of the show. I did notice that the side article on the bottom picture was written by Mason Bridge, with is a nice little homage to Iris's old boss who was killed by the Reverse Flash.

                                                                                                                                    

If you've seen Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (which I'm sure you have), the Ezra Miller's Flash makes an appearance in Batman's dream. He says, "Bruce, Bruce! Lois! Lois Lane, she is the key. Am I too soon? I'm too soon! You were right about him, you always have been right about him! Fear him! Find us Bruce! You have to find us!" Basically the Barry of the cinematic universe traveled back in time to warn Batman about something, but visited him to early. I felt like this was a tiny nod to Ezra Miller's Flash from the movie. Except in this episode, our Flash visits Hartley Rathaway a little to soon.

                                                                                                                                  

This is one of my favorite Cisco shirts so far. If you don't know what Catbug is, click this link now!Catbug!!!

                                                                                                                                  



I wonder if Firestorm's fate will change because of this? Since Legends of Tomorrow uses Jax, not Ronnie, as the 2nd half of Firestorm, I'm not exactly sure what this line means for Ronnie's future. But it clearly must be important, since they seem to emphasize this line on the show.

                                                                                                                                  

 The line above is said by Eobard Thawne, the Reverse Flash. What would be insanely cool is if Zoom and the Reverse Flash teamed up in the season finale of season 2. Next week fans are getting the backstory of Zoom, and it is possible that Eobard might have some connection to the black-suit speedster. It may also be possible Eobard is referring to Kid Flash, Wally West, and Trajectory. It makes me wonder just how many other speedsters there are? Will fans get Inertia any time soon?

                                                                                                                               

And finally, its time for me to address Hartley Rathaway as a hero and as a son. Let me give a quick backstory from the comics about the Pied Piper.

 

So Hartley is born deaf to two super rich parents. His dad is able to give Hartley some hearing implants so he can regain his hearing ability. After that, Hartley becomes obsessed with sound. He turns into a musical prodigy and learns to hypnotize people with his flute. Eventually he turns to crime, and while his parents don't approve, they tolerate it. They simply pay his bail and help him come up with aliases to keep a good family reputation.

After a while, Hartley turns from crime and becomes reformed, working as a vigilante. His parents still don't approve of his work as an outlaw, and eventually disown him. Finally, Hartley's mom, Rachel, writes a letter asking him to come back home. Hartley does, only to find that the Turtle (he was recently in episode 2x10 "Potential Energy") has taken his parents hostage. Hartley frees his parents and saves the day, becoming redeemed in his parents eyes. It's pretty emotional.

The one thing I hate about comics is that no one ever gets a happily ever after. Rathaway's parents are eventually murdered, and Hartley gets framed for it. He even believes he must have killed them. Wally West discovers that Hartley is innocent and that Mirror Master killed his parents. Not knowing this, Hartley breaks out of prison and teams up with The Rogues, hoping to infiltrate the team. He ends up on the run with the Trickster, James Jesse, when multiple super heroes try to kill the Rogues for being tricked by Inertia into killing Barth Allen.

Now on to my theory. It has been officially confirmed that Mirror Master is going to be in season two of the Flash. I think that it would be an interesting story line if they introduced the villain by having him kill Hartley's parents. The latest episode of The Flash seemed to emphasize the part at the end of the show about Hartley having dinner with his parents. I want to see if Hartley really is going to stay hero or not. He is the only one of the Rogues to go straight and stay hero permanently. So to have his parents killed, especially since he was so close to them in the comics, would be a big test for him. Fans could see if he would remain on Team Flash or, pardon my pun, go Rogue.

Also I really want to meet Hartley's family in this new timeline. He actually has a younger, disabled sister, Jerrie Rathaway, in the comics, and that might be something the show could work with. The last time we saw Hartley's parents was in season 1 episode 10, "Revenge of the Rogues". They had bought a very expensive painting called "Fire and Ice", which was stolen from them by Heat Wave and Captain Cold. So did that not happen in this timeline since Hartley is cool with his parents or what? So many questions to be answered in upcoming episodes!

                                                                                                                                    

Okay, that's all the Easter eggs I could find and conspiracy theories I could concoct. Great job playing Pied Piper Andy Mientus! Hope ya'll enjoyed this Easter Egg Review! Be on the lookout for a special on Heat Wave in Legends of Tomorrow.

The Flash 2x17 "Flash Back" Review (With Pied Piper!)

Let the brotp fanfic writing commence! #thebaes

Holy Harry Potter! That was insane!!! Prepare for spoilers and fangirling!!! (I promise, I will attempt to keep my exclamation marks to a minimum) This is kind of long so I'm making it into two parts. This will be a spoiler review. The next post will be an Easter Egg review. It will show all the little details that relate to the comics or other parts of the show. What you're about to read is a step-by-step walk through of the episode, with my opinions at each bend. If you guys like this 2-part review layout, I'll continue to do it for more episodes. At least the big ones with major Rogues.

Cisco's Catbug shirt is life.

 

So, let's start out with a quick summary of tonight's episode, "Flash Back", of season 2. Or season 1, kind of. "Flash Back" is exactly what it's name implies, one giant flashback to episode 1x11, a time where Harrison Wells was Eobard Thawne and Eddie was still alive and Zoom wasn't even in the equation. Barry, in a desperate need for speed, attempts to travel back in time to speak with his old mentor, the Reverse Flash, about a formula to make him run faster. He succeeds in the time travel part, but causes a lot of problems along the way.

"Caught you again." (Flash from the future)

"Wait What?"

 

Time for some juicy details. Barry first arrives in the past to see his old self battling his foe, Hartley Rathaway, also known as the Pied Piper(!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!). There is a series of déjà vu moments as clips from "The Sound and The Fury" are shown at different angles, but Barry wastes no time in knocking out the past Flash and taking over his identity. Instead of the long, drawn out fight shown in the original episode, future Barry is easily able to detain Hartley and put him behind bars, err, glass. Barry, remembering that Hartley has explosives in his earbuds, forces Pied Piper to take them out, thus avoiding a future battle with him. Eobard Thawne, disguised as Dr. Wells, is very suspicious as to how Allen knew about the bombs, but Allen plays it off as luck. Honestly, Barry is a horrible actor. He should stick to the CSI and hero work.
 

 

Hartley looking adorable as usual.

 

It's about then that the time wraith decides to come and look for Barry at the police station. What is a time wraith? Glad you asked. Time wraiths are these terrifying, creepy ghost-zombies that don't like it when speedsters mess up the time stream. Eobard explains to Barry (who at this point has already figured out that Barry is Barry from the future because the horrifying time wraith showed up), that the only reason Barry hadn't been caught by one when he time traveled before was because he got lucky. So, Barry is forced to deal with this monster all the while trying to convince everyone else who still thinks he's the present (past?) Barry that he is, in fact the present/past Barry. And he has to convince Eobard to help him with his speed by saying that Eobard gets to go back home in the future when in reality he actually gets killed because his descendant/Barry's love interest's boyfriend shoots himself. Confusing? I know. 

Eobard Thawne discover's Barry is from future (PS: Awesome scene).

 

Skip ahead a few minutes and the time wraith strikes again. This time it attacks Cisco, Caitlin, and Hartley at Star Labs. (It seems to me like the time wraith is causing more problems than Barry.) Luckily it's Pied Piper to the rescue! He puts on his awesome gloves and emits a certain sound frequency that sends the time wraith flying for its life. This is actually a really totally amazingly awesome moment, because we get to see Hartley have his first scene leading up to him becoming a good guy!!! At this point in the episode I already knew they were going to make Hartley turn hero. I mean honestly, he's the one that goes straight in the comics. I love him as a Rogue, but making him a good guy made me so happy happy I swear (! x infinity).
 

 Forget Zoom, Zombie-Flash is 10 times more scary.

 

In the end, a bunch of stuff happens, but basically Barry just gets a chip from Eobard with all the speed info and returns back the future. Yay, problem solved! Unfortunately...no. When Barry arrives in the present, the time wraith is there waiting for him.  Luckily it's Pied Piper to the resuce... again! Aparently all that screwing around with the time stream left Hartley as, what did I tell you, a hero!!! Hartley is so adorable as a hero. He gives off a kind of naïve, super cheerful, Atom vibe. But he pulls it off so much better than Ray Palmer (sorry Atom fans). Plus, he says some stuff about his parents that I really want to talk about, but I'll dive into that in the Easter Egg portion I'll be posting Thursday.

Pied Piper doing the Monster Mash. Probably.

 

So, that basically sums up the episode! I really liked what they did Pied Piper's character. I was kind of hoping they would make him a regular on team Flash, but considering they just added Harry and Jesse, I suppose they can't afford that big of cast. When the Rogues do finally decide to have an official team up, it will be interesting to see what stance Hartley will take. Will he stay as a hero forever or turn villain? And if he turns villain, will it be temporary or permanet? Write what you are hoping for in the comments below.

As a normal Flash fan, I give this episode 7 lightning bolts out of 10.

As a Rogues fan, I give this episode 9 and 1/2 sound vibrations out of 10.
 

Top Five Rogue Youtube Tributes

There are many ways for fans to show their appreciation for the Rogues. One way is to make YouTube music videos. If you look hard enough, you can find multiple videos dedicated to the Rogues. There are many poorly edited ones, and some that have very good quality. Below is a list of what I believe to be the top 5 Rogue tributes on YouTube.

1. Flash The Rogues Tribute

by Arkham Asylum

This video deserves first place for a reason. It immediately draws viewers in with an interesting, catchy song, Come with Me Now by Kongos. The song creates a sort of energetic, enthralling, and intimidating mood. Throughout the song, Arkham Asylum represents each Rogue perfectly, showing their most dramatic moments from the show, The Flash on CW.  Each clip is of high quality resolution and timed to the song down to the beat.

The only negatives are that it solely features characters from The Flash television show, which limits material available to use and prevents certain characters, such as Mirror Master, from appearing. However, using other sources might have upset it's quality. It is so well edited that those facts can be easily overlooked.

2. Rogues Tribute

by Arkham Asylum

This tribute, also created by YouTuber Arkham Asylum, placed second because it included all aspects of the Rogues in media. Many videos simply contain comic strip pictures or clips of The Flash television show on the CW. However, this video included clips from The Flash, as well as Justice League Unlimited, Batman the Brave and the Bold, Justice League: New Frontier, Justice League: Flashpoint Paradox, The Batman, Justice League: Doom, and Young Justice. 

The video quality was slightly above average, some clips fairing better than others. The music, Enemies by Shinedown, was an excellent choice. Though the tempo didn't fit well with the theme (there's a part of the song where it gets a little "screamy"), the lyrics were timed perfectly. Towards the beginning, the artist sings, "From the top", and a clip of the supervillain Top spinning appears. It was very creative. The video also had a great ending, showing Mirror Master stabbing a knife into a newspaper picture of the Flash.

3. The Rogues (The Flash) - AC/DC - Spoilin' For a Fight

by cenagang54

The video above combines clips from The Flash in relation to the AC/DC song, Spoilin' For a Fight, with spoken video from the show and voiceovers. This works great in the beginning, with Captain Cold saying what can arguably be called the greatest Rogues line of the show, "The Rogues... Cute." It transitions well into the high-tempo music, and starts the video off great. The clips shown after that are extremely well edited and can all be seen clearly. cenagang54 did an excellent job.

What puts this video below the others is it's choppy ending. The creator tries to show a scene of each villain's name being stated each time the line "Spoilin' for a fight" is sung. This sounds like a good idea in theory, but in the end only hurt the tribute. It just got annoying. I have to agree with Harrison Wells on this one, when at the end he tells Cisco, "Would you stop doing that?" Also, this video included villains that aren't regarded as classic Rogues. I can see Girder and possibly Peek-A-Boo being considered one, but not the Mist. Of course, the recent Supergirl/Flash crossover episode even called Blackout a Rouge. This video is still worth comic Rogues fans' time, even with the more obscure characters.

4. Flash: The Rogues Tribute-"Renegade"

by BizarroPat345

Typically fan-made videos with only pictures aren't as exciting to watch, but this one lands number 4 because of it's excellent image choice. All the images are iconic ones, whether classic covers, comic strips, or character depictions. Plus, their resolution is phenomenal. If you are looking to draw any of the Rogues characters, I recommend watching this video for inspiration. It includes all of the mainstream Rogue teammates.

5. Flash Rogues Tribute

by KittyKatPro's channel

(link)

So... this video has very bad resolution... and it's not complete. These are two facts that would typically remove it from such a list. However, the creator is extremely creative. They found a way to display different comic book images as if it were a moving picture in itself. There's one moment where it only shows the Rogues weapons as if they were firing them at the Flash that I enjoyed the most. The quality does get better as the tribute continues, and despite my initial displeasure with it, I was incredibly pleased with the implementation of the images. It deserves a spot on the list, even if last.

Honorable Mention:

"The Rogues | say something [preview; for Paul]"

by Habro97

This video would have won first place if it had been complete. Unfortunately, the author never finished it, and only created a preview. The 26 seconds shown are edited in such a way that it feels like a comic book come to life, and the song fits the theme of the New 52 Rogues perfectly. A quick viewing is necessary for anyone who is a fan of New 52 Flash.



I would like to make a note that for now I am simply going to post at random until I can get a good schedule going. I think the best option would be Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, so I can do a episode review on The Flash in case one of the Rogues are in it (Like Pied Piper Tonight!!!) and a Legends of Tomorrow episode review the night after they air. This is not official yet, so stay tuned for updates.

Captain Boomerang in "The Lego Batman Movie"

A teaser trailer for Warner Brother's upcoming film, "The Lego Batman Movie", was recently released. Audiences were first introduced to this Lego form of our lovable crime fighting vigilante, Batman, in "The Lego Movie". This is a spinoff of that movie, which was released in 2014. Fans of the Justice League can be just as excited for this film as they can be for "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice", considering this movie has a confirmed sighting of at least 8 of the Justice League members. These include Batman, Superman, Aquaman, Green Arrow, Wonder Woman, Cyborg, Green Lantern, and the Flash.

Obviously, with any film featuring the Flash, there is a chance that the Rogues will make an appearance. The role might be as big as their beginning role in "Justice League: Flash Point Paradox", or as small as a cameo or Easter egg. It is officially confirmed that one of the Rogues will be appearing in "The Lego Batman Movie", and that Rogue is none other than George "Digger" Harkness, also known as Captain Boomerang.

The trailer gave us a quick glimpse of Digger getting kicked in the face by Batman. In the process he loses both his hat, his gun, and his tooth. It is unclear if he will be fighting with the Rogues, with the Suicide Squad, or with a bunch of random villains, but at one point in the film he will be considered a bad guy, worthy of getting beat up by Batman. The other villains in the background are hard to make out, but in the screen shot before, with Batman jumping in th air, one can see the Scarecrow in a sort of helicopter. Scarecrow is solely a Batman, not a Flash, villain. It may be possible that a major part of the plot of the film will be all DC villains joining together to fight the Justice League. Something interesting to note is that Digger is not holding a boomerang, but a gun. Either the gun holds an important part to the story, a boomerang was to difficult to animate, or the writers were just being lazy.

Whether more Rogues will show up, or if Captain Boomerang will get a speaking part is unknown. Whatever happens, it is nice to see one of the major Rogues getting shown up close on the big screen, even if they are getting kicked in the jaw. Plus, the possibility of getting more Rogues than just Captain Cold in a Lego set to build is very exciting.