Season 2 / Episode 11 / The CW

Andddd you say Central City!

Wattup, my ninjas? Had a little revamping over here at BNP and I’ll be taking over The Flash recaps for Omar. He’s obviously a busy man and doesn’t care about you or your couch. Boo this man. Boycott this guy. Fling him from a tower. Hit him with the RKO off the Brooklyn Bridge.

Okay okay, so we kick off this episode with the team responding to a stolen chemical transport truck running a muck through dem Central City streets. Barry flashes over to the scene of a dozen CCPD squad cars in chase, literally doing nothing to stop this runaway bomb from taking out a city block. Flash runs up into the drivers seat and sees that the big rig is, well, rigged to not stop, so he has to science the shit out of this situation. Epiphany hits when he finds a cross wrench in the truck, so he shows off his low key NASCAR obsession and pit crews dem wheels off and the truck comes to a screeching halt. Little does Flash know, this was all a ‘save the day’ setup perpetrated by the returning Reverse Flash, Eobard Thawne. The HONEY MUSTARD FLASH is back ya’ll! You know Barry gon’ be out his natural mind when he finds out.

The Flash returns to S.T.A.R. labs for their patented post-hero debrief, after the team discovers Turtle is dead. Their hope to find a way to stop Zoom just took a major hit. Jay Garrick immediately suspects Earth-2 Wells and all Harry has to say is, “I wouldn’t kill him, he could’ve helped me get my daughter back. You trash Jay, can’t even get back to your own world wit ya slow ass.”

Cisco and Harry venture off to do their love/hate lab parter thing after Barry suggested they try to figure out a way to close the 52 breaches scattered throughout the city. You know, the ones they conveniently like to forget could produce a city stampeding monster at any moment?

 

Yeah, well Harry actin’ like he trying to do just that, but on the low-low he’s working on some secretive shit that probably will probably end in some grimy backstabbing. Cisco had been doing some thinking and is trying to figure out why and how he vibes. He never vibes when he simply touches someone or grabs and object, but Harry knows there is always a trigger with someone’s powers and Cisco’s power is usually triggered when he’s scared. Fear and adrenaline is the key. Harry runs off with a plan and pops up on Cisco with the Reverse Flash suit on, scaring the living daylights outta Cisco, causing him to vibe and bear witness to the fact that the one and only Honey Mustard Flash is back.

At the CCPD, Barry and Patty are being all weird now that she’s decided to move away and go to Forensics school. Patty wants things to be normal and Barry like, “The fuq you expect to happen when you hit me with the dueces so you can chase your dream career?”

Patty: “Um… but.. I thought we would be able to have a normal convo… I had hoped… The way I pictured it in my convoluted mind… we don’t have to make things awkwar… errrr… I’ll go now.”

Mercury Labs: Sirens and alarms start blaring in the laboratory of Cristina ‘Tina’ McGee. Reverse Flash takes out her body guards and attempts to kidnap Dr. McGee but The Flash shows up and yells out Eobard Thawne’s name as soon as he sees the guy… ’cause that’s not weird. Thawne is surprised he knows his name, then invokes his inner most Hemingway and eloquently says, now that he knows what time period The Flash was created in… that he will die. Then he proceeds to speed deck the shit out of The Flash. Barry comes to pretty quickly, but they gone.

S.T.A.R. Labs: The team is buggin’ out trying to figure out how the hell his Grey Poupon ass is back in their world. Harry’s sneaky, undercover, ridiculously intelligent ass breaks down that going back in the past causes alternate timeline rules and possibilities. He then explains how Eobard Thawn could very easily still be alive, despite Eddie Thawne’s sacrifice. They can’t even handle this and all go off to contemplate life and what the hell else could have changed. Meanwhile, Caitlin has her very own online CW.com show about saving all the men in her life that are on the verge of death. She tells Barry that Jay has been dying since he lost his speed and conjures up a plan to find the Earth-1 Jay to do some sort of a cell regeneration transplant.

Eobard tells Dr. McGee to help him with his tachyon particle device, then learns he must have gotten stuck here once before after McGee says that a man in a yellow suit tried to steal her tachyon prototype before. Let this serve as the beginning of 21st century lessons received by The Reverse Flash all in one episode. He learns new things about “himself” left and right in this one.

Iris and Joe go to see Francine in the hospital and things get CW soft as baby bottoms, but very touching. All that animosity and hate she felt when Francine first showed up has dissolved and Iris just wishes her mom had shown up sooner. Joe consoles Iris after she pours her heart to her dying mom.

S.T.A.R. Labs: Harry installs a wavelength trigger in a pair of goggles that stimulates Cisco’s fear zone as well as ups his sleep modes so he can control his vibes. He gives the bad boys a shot and vibes out something meannnn.

Different events in time are whirling around him until he concentrates on Thawne. He sees Dr. McGee and Thawne in the lab as she completes the tachyon speed machine. After it’s complete, Thawne lets McGee go free like he promised proceeds to hand speed chop McGee to death and runs through the portal, back to the future.

Barry’s Bachelor Pad Lab: Patty drops by to talk, but fiiiirst she wants to probe and ask questions about why Caitlin is there and how she never knew that Barry and Joe sometimes work with S.T.A.R. Labs. He deflects her inquiries and gets cold serious again as Patty’s literally begging on the inside for him to ask her to stay. He psuedo says that he loves her.

A glimmer of hope sparks in Patty’s eye.

Then Barry shuts that nonsense down real quick!

Patty ain’t done though. She aint never been one to allow one shred of evidence go by unnoticed or unresearched. Before you know it, she pulls up on Joe and drops the “I know he’s The Flash” bomb, and Joe stumbles… a rare stumble. Patty, unphased by his weak job of lying, keeps it moving.

Iris and Wally have a heart-to-heart at the auto body shop and Iris advises him to go see his mom and to stop this foolish racing. Wally tells her that he won’t stop racing until the hospital bills stop racing in. Then when moms takes the big sleep I’ma switch gears to racing The Flash… but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. She hits lil bro with the dead fiance guilt trip and Wally just standing there like, “Andddd this is my problem howwww?”

She urges him to go see mom dukes before it’s too late.

S.T.A.R. Labs: Cisco tells Caitlin, Jay, Harry, and Barry what he saw in the vibe then they begin Guantanamo Bay interrogating him about every detail. Homie didn’t even peep that the clock in said lab read 9:52 when it was only 6PM at the moment! Cisco gets mad hype for his Ms. Cleo glasses and they begin searching for McGee before she gets butchered by Thawne. They’re searching for any sort of tachyon activity, because they know Rev Flash is trying to get back to the future and that’s the only reason he would kidnap the good doctor.

Simultaneously, on CW.com, Caitlin can’t find the Earth-1 version of Jay so Barry tells her to keep it real and straight up ask Jay what’s good with that anomaly. Joe pops up to tell Barry that Patty knows… or thinks she knows that Barry is The Flash, but Barry doesn’t want to put another person in perpetual potential danger. He refuses to reveal his identity to her, despite being ready for the move last week.

3 hours and some change go by and they locate the laboratory with like 7.6 seconds to spare and Barry Flashes over riiiiigggght before Thawne is about to deliver that murder death chop of cruelty. Barry blasts through a wall, throws on his LeBron jersey, drives to the paint, lowers his shoulder, and hits Reverse Flash with the patent-pending MK shoulder charge Flash attack.

Barry rips the tachyon device out of the time travel machine and tells Thawne he’s not going anywhere. They stare each other down and Reverse Flash challenges Flash to a good ol’ fashioned foot race. I’m not gonna lie, that race through the city gave me the ill flashback deja vu remembering all those intense ass battles between them last season. Flash catches his Honey Mustard counterpart and starts venting on some real ass never-gonna-lose-to-you, payback-for-killing-my-mother-that-you-didn’t-actually-kill, pent-up-rage-that-I-have-to-go-through-this-again type hate.

Flash

Flash focuses that hate and energy on the lighting bolt infused fists that Barry begins to UNLOAD on his Honey Mustard ribs. Barry was straight up tenderizing that meat before a BBQ. Barry gave them ribs the Agent Smith vs. Neo midsection treatment. Reverse Flash got that stomach region turned into the most delicious and whipped mashed potatoes North of Atlantis.

Courtesy of Cisco’s damage report.

Barry must have went to the League of Assassins hand-to-hand combat school over the mid-season break because he is beating the life force out of Thawne when Joe has to turn on dad mode and scream at Barry to bring him instead of murdering the man, as he was close to doing. They lock him up and go about their S.T.A.R. Labs lives.

Thennn for some reason, Cisco goes down to the cell to talk to The Reverse Flash. He’s on some crazy “I have powers” trip and kind of reveals way too much about himself for no damn reason. Matter of fact, every single second of Cisco being down there is another second of horrible decision making. Although I will say that he almost redeems himself with a “Bye Felicia” exit.

Side Note: Cisco you’ve been bleeding from your nose on multiple occasions today. You may want to bring that up to your team of super scientists so you don’t like fall into a coma or some wild shit.

Patty continues her assault on Barry’s heartstrings. She tells Barry that she is a detective, but was blinded by his charisma, then asks Barry to reveal that he’s the Flash and everything can go be normal again, but Barry will not place another person he cares for in harm’s way. Too many targets out there. Anddd then the tears fly. Patty was just hoping that they could fight crime together during the day and be with ya boy at night. A real Bonnie and Clyde of the hero world. I respect the denial.

It’s Barry’s turn to go chat with Reverse Flash. Barry asks him why he hates him so and Eobard begins his whole destined to be better, faster, and the arch nemesis speech. He started off wanting to be The Flash. He duplicated the lighting accident and got his powers, but then quickly realized he could travel through time and it dawned on Thawne that one way or another he needed to become the reverse of everything The Flash is, was and stood for.

Juuust as Barry was putting the finishing touches on his celebratory, ‘I captured Honey Mustard Flash dab’, Cisco finds himself laid up on the S.T.A.R. Labs bed convulsing. They give him a diesel sedative and that calms him down… until he gets all ghost-like. Harry tells them that capturing the Reverse Flash is messing with the timeline and that’s why Cisco is all see through Casper-like. Joe is in on the ‘send Reverse Flash back to the future’ plan. Barry takes a while to let his hatred and pride go, but they retrieve the Honey Mustard one and head for the cosmic racetrack in the basement. They stand side by side, then take off and do the cyclone-slingshot-into-time dance. Cisco eventually comes to and Barry tells him that he wasn’t letting The Reverse Flash take another one of his boys down.

So, if you haven’t noticed, Barry has been a bit of a dick this entire episode. Fans don’t really like it when their bright, optimistic hero takes this vengeful, spiteful, blackout approach to crime fighting and bae no-longer problems. Following the craziness, Joe West has to let the fans know that his son is constantly facing tough decisions and comes through with a classic beanie reassurance convo for Barry.

After everything that The Reverse Flash has said about evolving into the ultimate enemy, Joe knows that The Flash will be around for decades to come. He knows that The Flash will have to sacrifice an insane amount of friends and relationships with loved ones, so this was just one of the early losses. Sorry Parry Batty fans of this relationship, but it’s ova.

As the episode draws to a close, Wally stops by Iris’ place to tell her that he’s taking her advice and going to see his mom. He hesitates… then asks Iris to join him, and she gladly does. It was a beautiful little scene in a season where Iris has become less of a focal point and bit more independent. Hopefully we get more of this cool Wally West as the season progresses.

Jay and Caitlin take a stroll through the park and eventually sit down on a bench. Jay points out a guy who looks just like him, only thing is, his name isn’t Jay Garrick, it’s Hunter Zoloman.

Easter eggs galore up in this one folks.

We end this episode with the end of the Barry and Patty romance. And for good reason, too! Patty out here calling Barry with false alarms of armed gunmen on trains. Anybody who cries wolf on that level deserves to be dropped! Nah, but they had a pretty good thing going. R.I.P. to that relationship, it was about time anyway. Iris and Barry rekindling dinner next week anyone?

Flash Facts

That Jay doppelganger, Hunter Zoloman. He’s not just a random orphan that got adopted by the Zolomans. I had to do some research for the Easter egg facts on this guy. Turns out that he was actually the second incarnation of The Reverse Flash. The one that battles Wally West. But in the comics, he’s just called Zoom. Sooo there is a slight chance Jay’s doppleganger could be the Zoom we have terrorizing Earth 2 and there is a chance we may get more of this guy in the future. Not guaranteed. He could simply be a little wink to comic book fans who know the name. Only time will tell.

Last thing I want point out is that little novel that Zoloman is reading in the park. It’s called “Siddhartha” by Hermann Hesse. The glasses and reading in the park should have been the dea give awat that this book is not for the Dr. Suess light reader. The main character’s longing to find his true self, and an understanding of his place in the world isn’t hard to understand when we know that Hunter is an orphan. The novel’s ultimate message is synonymous with everything this show and The Flash as a whole represents… that the past, present, future, good, bad, pain, and joy are all part of one massive force. The showrunners deserve some serious credit for this one. They’ll surely have fans talking.

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  • Ja-Quan is a NYC teacher and artist holding a B.A. in Sociology and History from SUNY New Paltz. On his journey to become Hokage, the Lord of The Speed Force and Protector of the Recaps can be found North of The Wall, chopping it up on Twitter @OGquankinobi

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