Season 3 / Episode 14 / The CW
Won’t lie, Attack on Central City ain’t have shit on the hype levels in Gorilla City (Part 1), but they gave us a pretty insane King Kong vs. Mighty Joe Young climactic showdown and got cookies and cream sexy on us from so many angles. Let’s get into the culmination of this two-part primetime primate battle royale.
The Caramel Love Nest: Barry done caught a mean case of jungle fever after his visit to the heart of Africa, cuz homeboy is up at 6 in the morning making the illest continental breakfast spread in speed force history.
How you got pancakes and waffles? Sausage and bacon? You doin too much vanilla bean. I appreciate the thoughtfulness of it all, but you celebrating prematurely bruh. Barry thinks he stopped the Gorilla Gang from attacking, thus changing Iris’ future, but they marching on C-City like Caesar and the squad at the Golden Gate Bridge. Oh and this lil Master Chef Jr. opening was allllll a setup to continue the Barry and Iris convert innocent questions into bedroom foreplay challenge. These two on another level of adorable lately. I ain’t even mad.
S.T.A.R. Labs: Harry Wells and HR haven’t been seeing eye to eye, to say the least. HR’s jolly ass is runnin around all hopped up on Mountain Dew Coffee, decorating the Speed Lab for Friendship Day (E-19 V-Day) when Harry comes in and begins spewing the most venomous hate OG Earth has seen in months. We spittin toothpaste and plaque residue in cats coffee mugs now? That’s the level of disrespect Harry on when it comes to the ‘moron’ HR? Daaaaaammmnn das a glacial level cold blooded ass move.
The rest of the team pulls up and they think it’s great, cuz CW. Mr. Sumptuous Day is unfazed by his grumpy alternate universe self and breaks out the Friends Cards and love officially infects the air. Barry and Iris get googly eyes at each other. Caitlin and Cisco bond over their very single status, even though Caitlin frontin like she aint hop aboard the Fish and Chips Indiana Jones train like 3 episodes ago. And Cisco can’t shake the near misses he’s had since Gilded Glider, back when Captain Cold was poppin. Jesse and Wally discuss their ‘It’s complicated’ situation when Jesse gets the bright idea to finally tell her dad about her decision to stay on Earth-1 and explore this oatmeal creme pie lovin with Wally.
They visit Julian’s asshole tendencies havin replacement of the episode and break the news to him. The response was surprisingly…accepting. If being with Wally makes his little girl happy, he’s wit it. Or so he claimed.
Theeeennnnnn just when everything was lookin all Ice Cube “Today was a good day”, Gypsy gotta come burstin outta breaches fuckin up some commas. Luckily, lurking in the shadows ready to LET IT GO was Harry who put her down with his massive Ratchet and Clank hammer. She wakes up in the pipeline confused AF. She claims she was hunting down a breacher on Earth-2 in Africa, when she lost consciousness. The team realizes she must be telling the truth for her to be coming up in their house stuntin on some fuck-gurl shit. They also realize that she must’ve been under the control of Grodd, which means he must’ve used her to get to OG Earth because his powers don’t work unless he’s on the same planet. Aka Grodd is on OG Earth and most likely making his way to destroy the city that created him.
Cue the menacing monkey music as we get a siiiiccckkkk shot of Grodd and his army of genius gorillas standing on a cliff overlooking the city they’re about to invade.
2 Steps Ahead
S.T.A.R. Labs: Team Flash decides they must stop the primates from strolling into the city and creating the headline they fought so hard to erase last episode. They plan a preemptive strike and have Cisco vibe the future battleground. He sees the cross streets where it all goes down, so always ready to let it fly, Joe West is like, “Iiiight bet. I got the SWAT team ready with the YOPPERS. It’s time to go ape.” Flash is like, “Poppin pops. Wally and Jesse, suit da fuck up. It’s time to bring the Kid Flash and Quick noise to these brolic lemurs.”
Dem Streetz: Joe, SWAT, The Flash, Kid Flash and Jesse Quick are all in place, when a whole bunch of nothing goes down. That is, until Grodd decides to exploit Barry’s weakness and harm someone close to him. This time, the greatest dad on television is the one caught in the Gorilla’s crosshairs. Grodd takes over Joe’s mind and forces him to put a gun to his head and pull the trigger.
*Heart beating in my chest like a Swizz Beatz track* YO. This was one of the rare times in The Flash history where I believed some truly horrific shit was about to go down.
Fam. Joe pulls the trigger and you see the flames shoot out the back of the gun and if you’re anything like me, or anyone who agrees with the BNP sentiment of how great Joe West is, then your cot-damn heart sunk quicker than the Lusitania (thought I was gonna say Titanic didn’t ya?). I was shook for a real hot second, but Bast thank the Speed Force GAWD, for his swift push stopped a pivotal character from catching the lead fade! Barry realizes this was all a distraction, but distracting them from what?
S.T.A.R. Labs: Cisco can’t get a fixed location on the gaggle of gorillas they know are hiding somewhere in or outside the city so they decide to think outside the box. AKA they drop some head splitting scientific jargon about using magnets so they can take a look at the Grodd memories Joe vaguely remembers from his time under mind control.
Somewhere else in the S.T.A.R. Labs basement HR lies his ass off and tells Wally that he’s sick and doesn’t know how much time he has left. Can’t front, homie got my ass with that tearjerker BS too. I was like, damm that’s where they goin with Harry now? I got got. Anyway, Jesse finds Wally in the pipeline being Charmin Ultrasoft. He tells her the E-1 move is off cuz she needs to spend time wit her dying dad. Didn’t take long for Jesse to see right through that bullshit. He was dead smack in the middle of creating his magnet memory machine when she ran up on him mad ski mask way and shut that nonsense down! Harry went from a dick to a shook one quick quick.
Putting The Pieces Together
They get the Magnet Memory Machine set up and Joe into a trance-like state. He immediately begins creating a police sketch of some dude who looks like Bobby from King of the Hill with a chopped and screwed ass hairline. Cisco can’t get a hit on him in the facial recognition software, and it’s in this moment that we realize how much Cisco stay tryna be on Felicity Da Hack Goddess level, but ain’t got shit on the Arrow repper!
[quote_box author=”” profession=””]Sidebar: Speaking of Arrow, Barry has been in his bag and doing a lot of Oliver Brooding lately. He got hit with okie doke thinking the telepathic Gorilla situation was handled, then found out they comin for his city, family and friends, and nearly murked ya pops out a whole hour ago. So, Barry’s been playing the big moment contemplation game with Gorilla Grodd. Will he have to adopt Oliver Queen’s policy of killing an enemy if it’s the only option? That’s the unfathomable question that Barry has been avoiding his entire time as Central City’s savior. I’m glad the writers waited until the entire city and his love were both at risk for him to finally reach this point.[/quote_box]
S.T.A.R. Labs: While everyone is stumped at what to do with this sketch, the moronic one himself, HR suggested that they search through military personnel (cuz of his zeeked up military hairline) and they finally get their man. He’s a high ranking official with nuclear weapon level clearance aaaaand what do you know? Grodd just invaded dude’s mind and activated some nuclear missiles so Flash jumps into action and tells the baby Speedsters to stay put in case they need to zip everyone to safety. He speeds down to the nuclear warhead zone and has to try every combination known to man (made that up) in order to stop the city from being leveled, on some Pain attacking Konoha shit. Of course, he finally gets the code after Harry sprinkles a few more pebbles of hate on HR for asking another (admittedly dumb) question.
This just pisses Grodd off more, who orders his super-powered genius gorillas to attack the city. Cisco immediately gets the mental wheels churning as The Flash, Kid Flash, and Jesse Quick buzz on down to the concrete jungle and soon to be warzone. Cisco hops over to Earth-19 to recruit Gypsy in their efforts to stop Grodd. She dubbed it at first, but Cisco appealed to the heroine inside her and convinces her to help him on some secret mission, as our speedsters bring the ruckus.
Late Episode Shockers
Grodd’s army is beatin the brakes off every one of our team members!! For every 10 speed punches landed, 1 Kong sized haymaker sends Kid Flash flying 20 ft away. Flash is super punched into last year. Jesse Quick is G checked into next Tuesday. Shit was lookin real grim for the squad until a breach opens up and A NEW PLAYER HAS ENTERED THE GAME!! Challenger Alert!!
Vibe and Gypsy lead the way for Solovar who comes out snarling, groveling, and looking for the traitor Grodd. The Gorilla showdown is set and immediately pops off something severe. These muscled monkeys are going to town on each others asses! The battle goes building rooftop, where Solovar begins to gain the upper hand right before tumbling around, trading blows and drop-kicking Grodd’s weak ass 30 stories to his demise. Barry convinces Solovar to spare his life and all is back to normal in C-City.
Cisco finally makes a move on Gypsy, who tells Cisco he wouldn’t be able to handle her (true) right before planting a bodacious kiss on our boy. No dramatic exit this time. Just laying a wet one on our boy who seems to attract the most gorgeous and unstable women in superhero history. Do your thang Cisco!
Back at The Caramel Love Nest, Iris walks into another apartment filled with romance personified. There’s mufuckin candles on candles on candles, roses, Grandma Esther’s noodles, and Mr. Panty Dropper himself waiting for the love of his life. He’s done worrying about the future and instead will be living in the moment. Speaking of in that moment, he drops down on one knee and asks for Iris’ hand in marriage. Mulatto babies really are coming homies!
Cut to our final scene of Jesse and Wally watching Casablanca in black and white (appropriate) being as adorable as can be. They must be watching this show too, cuz Jesse has flipped the convert-innocent-questions-into-bedroom-foreplay challenge into her very own, convert-his-advances-into-getting-me-food challenge. Wally obliges and runs out to grab some Big Belly Burger, but runs into Savitar while in route. Wally bout to get his chain tooken!
Flash Facts
Quote of the Episode: Heroes always find another way.
Earth 19 Surprise Bombs Dropped by HR (Gypsy this ep): Luke Skywalker is Luke Starkiller on E-19 (Luke’s name from an early draft of Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope).
That speedster on Earth-19 though?! Who could it be?? Lookin a whole like The Accelerated Man. Easter Eggs galore!
The Idea of Hope: This theme is intertwined all throughout this episode. In addition to the Quote of the Episode, Barry has to remember what he has been about since day 1. He had to have hope that he would figure out a way to take down Grodd without killing him. He had hope that Solovar would refrain from killing Grodd even though that’s their custom in a leadership battle. He has hope that handing over Grodd to ARGUS will end well. Or fuck it, let’s have a Gorilla Grodd vs. King Shark Pay-Per-View battle. I got $5 on it.
Fighting the Urge to Kill: There was one scene between Harry and Barry that summed this one up for me. “Barry, there’s a thousand things that I’ve done that I’m not proud of — some of them recently. Every time I do one of those things, it makes it easier to do it the next time. I look at you out there battling the darkness with honor and hope…”
The HR and Harry relationship was… hmmmm… tough to get through this week. Harry was relentless, even when HR was the only one who could figure out how to help the team out.
Grandma Esther sounds like the culinary TRUTH!
Earth-2 has Rocky folks! It’s confirmed.
For a show with a history of dropping the ball and having pretty weak Part 2 Episodes, this one brought the right amount of pop, despair, and optimism. The Gorilla battle was Super CGI’d out and I didn’t give a flying fuck. That gorilla warfare was crack and I hope the show continues to embrace their wild ass rogue gallery and Silver Age wildness. The second half of season 3 has been pure fun and nostalgia. Keep up the great work Berlanti and co. Need to catch up? Season 3 recaps locked and loaded in the chamber located here.
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