The Flash Episode Guide: Season 8, Episode 16 - The Curious Case of Bartholomew Allen

 For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.

Plot

An odd energy attack leaves Barry aging prematurely whenever he uses his powers.


Influences

The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button and Star Wars (villain uses a thermal detonator).


Goofs

Why doesn't Dr. Orloff just kill The Flash either of the times he knocks him out?

Why doesn't Team Flash try to call Caitlin to see if she can figure out some kind of way to cure Barry or at least negate the process that is causing him to age when he uses his powers?

It's a minor thing, but Joe dresses up as a wizard when his character is an Orc barbarian. (He even makes Gandalf references.)

There's no good reason for Barry to trash Caitlin's lab with a lightning explosion other than it looks impressive. It's also potentially dangerous given all the chemicals and equipment she has and he could just as easily disassemble everything at super-speed.


Performances

The scenes of Barry discussing dementia with Cecile are a powerful moment for both Grant Gustin and Danielle Nicolet are powerfully played.


Artistry

The old-age make-up for Grant Gustin is good.

The direction for the episode is top-notch, with the comedic elements being perfectly telegraphed.


Flash Facts

The episode title comes from a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald about a man who aged in reverse, being born as a 70 year old man and regressing into infancy. It was famously adapted into a movie starring Brad Pitt in 2008.

This episode was directed by Caity Lotz, who plays Sara Lance in all the Arrowverse series.

Chief Singh makes reference to a Steve Palmer case which gave him and Joe trouble back in the day. Steve Palmer was the name of an actor who played The Flash in a movie in The Flash Vol, 1 #118.

The villain of the episode is a scientist named Dr. Pytor Orloff. In the comics, the Wally West Flash befriended a Russian bio-geneticist named Dr. Pytor Orloff and helped him to defect to the United States. This Dr. Orloff was a heroic man, who tried to help Wally West regain his lost speed powers. 

Technobabble

A Gamma Absorption Array use bursts of gamma radiation to interact with cellular structures. It could be used for almost anything, from growing super crops to taking out an entire army. 

A full body diagnostic scan of Barry's body after the first energy blast detects multiple biological abnormalities, including moderate signs of arthritis, hearing loss, osteoporosis, high cholesterol and heartburn.

Gideon estimates that Barry's metahuman powers became 29% less effective as a result of Dr. Orloff's attack.

Based on the second scan, Chester determines that the gamma radiation in his cells is being activated by the Speed Force energy in his body. In short, the more Barry uses his powers, the faster it wears down his body and makes him age.

A 10-85 is the police code for a delay due to an unspecified event - in this case, a coffee break.

After Barry's third full-body scan, Gideon declares that the connections of Barry's hippocampus are showing gradual decay, although his using his powers seems to be accelerating the decay.

The energy amplifier Dr. Orloff stole from Magnus Labs could allow him to expand the energy wave generated by the Gamma Absorption Array 100 fold. This would allow him to drain all life force from everyone in Central City, making him immortal at the cost of their lives.

Chester tracks Dr. Orloff after finding a radiation spike equal to 3,000 millisieverts. It becomes fully charged at 100,000 millisieverts.

When Chester says the device can't be unplugged due to the cascading degradation cycle in the gamma isotopes, Barry gets the idea to overload the machine with his own energy instead.

Barry's forcing the gamma array's field backwards completely inverted its energy charge. This not only restored Barry to his original age, but actually deaged him to the point that he is 29 years old biologically. (Barry is supposed to be 33.)


Dialogue Triumphs

The Flash: You okay? Don't worry about that guy. I just dropped him off at CCPD.
Old Woman: Saved by Mr. Flashy himself! (reaching into her purse) Oh, I've gotta give you a nice, big reward.
The Flash: Oh, no, that's not necessary. I can't accept your money, I...
Old Woman: But it's butterscotch.
The Flash: Oh. (laughs) Thank you. That's very sweet of you.

(Barry describes the decay of his body to Cecile and his fear of dementia.)
Barry: When I run, my bones ache. Like they're made of glass, and... my hands won't stop shaking. I'm always out of breath, and it's getting harder...  It's getting harder to... remember the people I love.  My friends. Nora, Bart, Joe. Even Iris. What if I forget who she is... before she comes back?  I thought I had plenty of time to get Iris back...And live my live my life with her. Now it's all fading away, like my body. And now, with my mind going, too... it's like losing everyone you love...  All at once. 


Continuity

As the episode opens, Barry stops two robberies (one at CC Jitters) and saves an old woman from being run over by a distracted driver. 

Ironically, the distracted driver is listening to the novelty song Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer while looking at his phone while driving.

The old woman offers Barry a butterscotch for saving her.

Allegra runs a Dungeons and Dragons game for Barry, Joe, Cecile and Chester. Barry is the group' cleric and Joe is playing Karash the Orc.

Joe can't get into D&D.

Barry started playing D&D after Iris made him try it.

Barry still has no idea what happened to Iris, but is confident she'll be okay since she apparently still exists in the future of 2049.

Barry is called into work by Chief Singh, who has been covering for him the whole day, saying that Barry was in his lab.

Chief Singh had no idea that Captain Kramer knew that Barry was The Flash or that she had figured it out on her own. He does take pride, however, that he figured it out first and far more quickly.

Chief Singh called Barry in on a high-profile tech heist at Mercury Labs. Whoever the thief was, they were smart enough to wipe the security footage before stealing a Gamma Absorption Array.

After quickly searching every abandoned warehouse in the docks, Barry finds a van with the same tire treads as the one used in the Mercury Labs robbery. It contains the array, but it's been heavily modified.

Barry is hit by an energy wave which knocks him out, after being confronted by a gloating older man in a lab coat.

Chester determines the energy wave caused Barry's internal organs to age 30 years overnight. This explains why he looks young on the outside, but his joints, bones and organs are weakened.

The blast also caused Barry to lose control of his powers, so he can no longer phase through solid matter or create focused wind blasts with his arms.

Captain Singh checks in on Joe and finds him getting frustrated while trying to program a robotic vacuum. He offers to help him.

Jenna is said to be in pre-school now, giving Joe much more free time at home.

Barry guesses that his top speed is now Mach 10, but thinks that is still fast enough to stop this scientist,

Barry responds to reports of a break-in at Magnus Labs. This time, the scientist does not bother to wipe the security footage.

Barry can no longer throw lightning and is once again knocked out by the evil scientist.

Upon returning from the Magnus Labs break-in, Chester determines that Barry is now near-sighted and his hair is now going gray.

A second scan determines that Barry has aged another ten years.

The team identify the scientist as Dr. Pytor Orloff - a former technician at Corbin Taft Industries, who was fired for using company resources on unsanctioned research.

Barry mistakenly calls Dr. Orloff Dr. Olsen. as he decides to go to Corbin Taft Industries to see what they can learn about him and his work.

Cecile insists on going with Barry, staying her powers will warn her if he tries anything.

Joe and Singh can't get the vacuum to work and Joe becomes very frustrrated.

Singh recalls how he hadn't seen Joe that upset since the Steve Palmer case.

Barry finds Orloff's old laptop in storage, but accidentally triggers a facial ID scan. This triggers an automatic erasure of the hard drive.

Barry becomes confused again, saying he needs to run the laptop to Chester at the CCPD instead of STAR Labs. 

Barry tries to run himself and Cecile to STAR Labs and they wind up in China instead.

Chester determines that Barry using his speed again could kill him at this point.

Chester was able to stop the countdown on Orloff's laptop, but says it will take more time for him to hack it.

Barry checks the Starchives for something to contain the Gamma Absorption Array while the rest of the team monitor STAR Labs satellite feeds looking for gamma radiation spikes.

Singh reminds Joe that the reason why the Steve Palmer case took them so long to crack was that Joe refused to learn how to use the new computer system the police had adopted. He suggests that Joe has always been slow to react to change.

Singh also points out that all the best things in Joe's life came from his embracing the unexpected... like his raising Barry Allen.

Cecile finds Barry wandering the halls of STAR Labs, having forgotten where the Starchives are.

Barry tells Cecile he's scared that he might die before finding Iris, but he's even more scared that he keeps forgetting the people he loves as his mind deteriorates. 

Cecile tells Barry about her grandmother's battle with dementia but how it didn't stop her from trying to make every moment count for as long as she lived.

Chester breaks the encryption on Dr. Orloff's computer and discovers he was trying to find a way to reserve the aging process. He concludes that the device Orloff stole from Magnus Labs, coupled with the Gamma Absorption Array, could make him immortal at the cost of killing millions.

Barry has a heart-attack while running around Orloff and Chester determines he just aged past 100.

Barry is able to match the energy output of Dr. Orloff's devide, containing the energy wave and then overloading it.

The second inverted energy wave restores both Barry and Orloff to their original ages.

One week later, Allegra is running another RPG. This time, Chief Singh has been invited to join in.

Chief Singh asks Allegra if she ever considered taking on a code name. Allegra says she prefers to be more low-key about her powers.

Allegra planned to run a police-themed game Joe would be able to get into more. Joe surprises everyone by dressing up as a fantasy character and suggesting that he use barbarian rage and his vorpal sword to kill a monster.

Dr. Tannhauser calls Barry and asks if he's seen Caitlin. Barry says he thought she was with her.

Barry goes to Caitlin's apartment and discovers her secret lab.

Caitlin tells Barry about her plan to bring Frost back, but Barry says this is wrong.

Caitlin asks Barry if he can honestly say he wouldn't do the same to save his parents.

Barry destroys the lab with a focused lightning blast and leaves Caitlin in the wreckage, crying.


Location

Somewhere in China, along the Great Wall.


The Bottom Line

A solid filler episode which manages a surprisingly sensitive and accurate portrayal of the problems of dementia amid the science-fiction scenario. Shame it's ruined by Barry's uncharacteristic lack of compassion for Caitlin in the final scene.

The Flash Episode Guide: Season 8, Episode 8 - The Fire Next Time

 For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.

Plot

When an paroled metahuman criminal is accused of murder in a seemingly open-and-shut case, Barry goes all-out in both his personas to see justice done. Meanwhile, Iris tries to give Allegra an opportunity to mentor a new writer.

Influences

Law and Order (the episode is more concerned with legal proceedings than usual.)


Goofs

Cecile's new rule against using her powers to read if people are guilty or innocent seems to have been introduced only to prolong the drama of the episode and the question of whether or not Jaco Birch has become a killer. (It's also somewhat nonsensical given the whole reason Cecile became a defense attorney in the first place was so that her work as a lawyer wouldn't harm innocent people, after almost sending Allegra Garcia to prison.)

Iris' behavior as editor-in-chief is completely unprofessional. No serious head editor would allow a staff writer to go behind the back of a lower ranked editor after having a pitch rejected. (This is not to say this sort of thing does not happen at less than reputable publishers, but it's hard to make Iris look at all competent when she does this sort of thing, especially after the revelation at the end that Taylor is scheming to take Allegra's job.) It nothing else, Iris should have made it clear that she was trying to get Allegra to mentor Taylor instead of trusting Allegra to automatically work to help the newer writer to develop a weak idea.

Jaco's confrontation with Donna Winters doesn't make a lot of sense unless he is guilty.

Jaco's being treated like a hero for stopping a volcano from destroying Central City falls flat considering it was his powers that accidentally created he eruption in the first place.


Performances

The scene of Joe and Barry discussing Barry's father and Jaco's case is a great moment for Jesse L. Martin and Grant Gustin.


Flash Facts

The title of the episode comes from an essay by James Baldwin about racism in America.

The social media influencer Taylor wants to interview is a woman named Rose Levin. In the comics, Rose Levin was an ancestor of Booster Gold, who wrote a popular blog devoted to proving that Booster Gold was also the hero Supernova.

Technobabble

Barry notes that Stan Mullen's body is burned all the way through, but there's no fire damage to the ground underneath his corpse or any signs of fire damage elsewhere in the bar. This suggests a metahuman attack, as nothing else could create a fire that violates the laws of physics in that way.

Chester confirms the local dark matter readings are consistent with a metahuman attack.

Barry's tomography reports regarding Donna Winter's body confirm the thermal lesions on her body match the marks on Stan Mullen's body exactly. Barry says there is no pyrokinetic meta who could replicate burns like that even if they tried.

Jaco Birch's powers are tied to his emotional state, with his fire becoming hotter the more angry he is.

Chester cross-references the heat signature from both murder victims and determines the signatures produced an anomalous heat effect created by non-composites reacting to hydrogen isotopes, i.e. cold fusion. This proves that Jaco Birch can't be the killer since his powers come from absorbing heat and redirecting it as fire.

Jaco's powers are tied to the earth beneath wherever he's standing. When he became upset at the thought of losing his son, he absorbed so much heat from the planet's core that he opened up a lava channel under Central City.

The Flash phases into the water table under the city releases it directly into the lava channel. This stops the eruption but not the massive heat exchange that would have cooked the city if Jaco hadn't used his powers to absorb the heat.


Dialogue Triumphs

Barry: Joe, the look in my dad's eyes that night... It was the same look in Birch's eyes when they arrested him. Look of an innocent man... desperate not to lose his son... Begging someone to believe him.
Joe: And you do.
Barry: Yeah, I do. I just keep thinking about all the time my dad lost. (sighs) All the birthdays we spent, separated by plexiglass. I can't let Birch and his son go through that if he's innocent. (inhales deeply) I don't know. Maybe the team's right. Maybe I'm making something out of nothing. You think maybe I've had blinders up this whole time?
Joe: Maybe. Or... You can see something they can't. Look, what you went through, I wouldn't wish on anyone. But what it did, was it gave you the ability to believe in the underdog when no one else is willing to. So... If your gut tells you... To not give up on Birch... Then for Henry's sake, don't. Not yet.


Dialogue Disasters

Barry: The fact that Birch ran away doesn't change the evidence. There's still nothing directly tying him to Mullen's death.
Cecile: Sure, Barry, sure, but fleeing custody is not exactly exculpatory, and I am saying that as his lawyer.


Continuity

The episode opens at O'Shaughnessy's, where bartender Donna Winters leaves manager Stan Mullen alone.

Smoke fills the bar just before Stan is burned to death.

A calendar reveals that it is February 1st.

Iris suggests going out to dinner until she sees the calendar, at which point she suggest that she and Barry have a night in or that they both call in sick. Barry dismisses this, however, saying there's too much going on at work and that it is "just another day." It is later revealed that it is Dr. Henry Allen's birthday.

Chester is revealed to have a fear of fire.

After looking at the crime scene and hearing from Donna that Stan had gotten into an argument with a patron the night before, he recalls something and shows her a photo asking if she recognizes the man in it. She confirms that she does. 

The man in question is Jaco "The Hotness" Birch.

Jaco first appeared in 416, where he accidentally gained the powers of Eric Frye because of Melting Pot. It is unclear if he never lost the powers afterward or if he regained fire-generation powers following Crisis on Infinite Earths. In any case, he apparently served time for arson at Iron Heights and was recently paroled due to his good behavior.

Chester notes that Jaco was a thief, not a killer, from what he knew of his record.

Barry notes that Jaco never had the fine control needed to kill someone without burning a building down.

The CC Citizen is starting a new "citizen of the week" profile feature. 

Taylor Downs requested she be allowed to write about social influencer Rosie Levin for the first feature.

Allegra rejected the pitch, believing Rosie Levin to be the sort of pseudo-celebrity CC Media shouldn't give a platform.

Iris reveals that Taylor went to her after Allegra rejected the pitch and she approved it, saying that they need the clicks Rose Levin's 500,000 social media followers might bring in.

Allegra is not happy that her authority is being ignored. Iris says that it's her privilege as Editor In Chief to make decisions Allegra disagrees with.

To add insult to injury, Iris assigns Allegra to interview Rosie Levins with Taylor.

The CCPD approach Jaco Birch as he's showing his son Harold around his new job as an arena security guard. Harold is less than impressed.

The Flash steps in and knocks Jaco into a fountain before he can use his powers.

As Jaco is being taken away by the police in front of his son, he proclaims his innocence in a way that causes Barry to start having flashbacks of his father's arrest.

Barry approaches Cecile and asks for her advice regarding Jaco' case. Cecile agrees to represent Jaco, but refuses to use her powers to read if he is guilty or innocent.

Cecile says the case against Jaco is open-and-shut, due to his having means, motive and opportunity, in addition to the witness who saw him threatening Stan Mullen before his death.

Allegra zones out of the interview with Rose Levin, after she talks about quitting college because she found the university environment to be like a prison.

Allegra recognizes a janitor at CC Jitters as Lydia, a woman she served time with in Iron Heights.

Lydia recognizes Allegra and reads her the riot act for forgetting where she came from and not using her position to help people who are struggling.

Allegra says Lydia is right and she's going to write about her.

Jaco is concerned about his son, who was neglected by his mother while Jaco was in prison.

Jaco says his love for his son was what made him work so hard to get paroled, having his four year sentence commuted somewhat.

According to Jaco, his argument with Stan Mullen was regarding a guitar she was trying to sell. Stan only wanted to pay half what he had previously agreed.

Barry says he believes Jaco is innocent, but nobody else is convinces after Jaco escapes from the truck transporting him to holding.

Jaco confronts Donna Winters and threatens her if she doesn't recant her testimony.

Barry makes reference to Frost going on the run after Chillblaine framed her in 707 as proof Jaco could be innocent.

Donna Winters' body is found, burned in the same way as Stan Mullen's, behind O'Shaughnessy's.

Chester agrees to take a look at the data, but he's convinced Jaco is guilty too.

Barry sets up a murder board in his lab at CCPD.

Joe checks on Barry and says it's been eight years since he saw one of those, in reference to the one Barry made for his father's case.

Joe recalls that Henry Allen missed his 45th birthday party due to an emergency call. Henry was disappointed, but Joe comforted him saying there would be other birthday parties. Unfortunately, it was the last one he enjoyed as a free man.

Allegra writes about Lydia what what ex-cons like here are going through to make ends meet.

Iris agrees its a much better piece than Taylor's fluff piece, but says it isn't what she wanted her to write. She also wanted Allegra to mentor Taylor and help her develop her idea to be more in depth.

Despite this, Iris decides to run Allegra's piece as the first CC Citizen of the Week profile.

Chester finds proof that Jaco can't be the killer. Unfortunately, it comes as he attacks the social services worker transporting his son.

An earthquake begins shaking the city as Jaco is holding up the convoy.

With the Flash advising him, Jaco is able to stop the eruption and save the city.

Jaco is found innocent and given custody of his son.

Allegra tries to apologize to Taylor, but she swears to destroy Allegra.

Henry Allen was bad at softball and liked lite beer.

Henry Allen never made Barry clean his plate as a child and read him the same bedtime story whenever he wanted it - a story about a hippo trying to make friends by making cookies.

Barry asks Chester to look for more victims who died from cold fusion heat.


The Boomerang Factor

Iris is made to look utterly incompetent as an editor-in-chief, allowing Taylor to ignore the chain of command while giving Allegra a hard time for demanding her authority be respected. She also doesn't make it clear that she was trying to give Allegra some managerial experience mentoring Taylor.

Granting that Jaco Birch is presented as a hot-tempered idiot, his efforts to escape prison, confront the woman who accused him or murder and kidnap his son from social services are idiotic even by the standards of a Flash villain.


The Bottom Line

There's a good idea here and some great acting from Grant Gustin. Unfortunately, all the scenes of Joe and Barry bonding can't make up for how contrived the plot with The Hotness is and how idiotic Iris' storyline is, in how it twists reality to try and make Iris out to be this brilliant boss while she's undermining Allegra and failing to communicate her expectations beyond "because I said so."

The Flash Episode Guide: Season 7, Episode 2 - The Speed of Thought

 For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.

Plot

The Artificial Speed Force gives Barry a new power in the form of speed-thinking, which he feels may hold the key to saving the captives of the Mirrorverse. Cisco, however, is skeptical, and fears there may be a downside to Barry's new power. Meanwhile, Eva must face a harsh truth about herself.


Influences

JLA: Tower of Babel (mention of Babel Protocols and explanation they are plans to disable various superheroes.)


Goofs

Why didn't Cisco destroy the Artificial Speed Force while Barry and the rest of the team were away during their fight? He was all alone in the Speed Lab and had enough time to do it.


Performances

Grant Gustin is unnerving as the completely logical "Spock" Flash.

Carlos Valdes gets some great silent acting moments throughout the episode, as he is seen to be thinking of things and reacting to Gustin's increasingly unstable unemotional state.


Artistry

The special effects for the Frost vs. Flash high-speed fight are phenomenal. 


Flash Facts

Despite Nash and the Council of Wells dying one episode earlier, they are still included in the title card sequence for this episode.

Cisco makes mention of having expanded the Babel Protocols so they are no longer entirely tech-based. This is a nod to the JLA: Tower of Babel storyline in the comics, which was written by longtime Flash writer Mark Waid. In it, Ra's Al Ghul enacted a plan to cause wide-spread chaos using towers that broadcast a signal which hindered humanity's ability to understand spoken or written language. To ensure the Justice League did not stop him, he utilized a series of plans, formulated by Batman, to disable Earth's greatest heroes. The same storyline was adapted to make the animated movie: Justice League: Doom, but in the movie it was a newly formed Legion of Doom led by Vandal Savage that attacked the Justice League with plans stolen from Batman rather than Ra's Al Ghul and the League of Assassins.


Technobabble

Cisco says he thought he could use Atlantean technology to tackle the problem of perpetual motion and open a portal to the Mirrorverse.

According to Chester, there are two big problems that need to be solved to fix Cisco's Mirrorverse portal. First, they have to find the method to reconfigure the molecular stability of the dimensional barrier that damages organic matter. Next, quantum entanglement from reversed Higgs boson particles disrupts the geospatial algorithm, preventing them from being able to locate people inside the Mirrorverse. This means they have to know precisely where their friends are in order to retrieve them.

Barry determines that Iris' neural pathways have likely achieved an equilibrium with the harmonic frequency of contained within the fractalized dimensional plane and this is why she was able to use the computers in the Mirrorverse to send messages.

According to Cisco, Barry's neurons are now constantly firing at super-speed ever since he became bonded to the Artificial Speed Force, with synaptic connections that are off the charts. Barry is now capable of thinking faster than a quantum computer, resulting in enhanced cognition by way of a Speed Force booster shot. In short, Barry can think faster than ever, in addition to running fast.

Cisco invents a Quantum Ball - a ball which amplified kinetic energy, firing in directions that can only be described as unpredictable. Unpredictable, that is, except to Barry with his new speed-thinking powers.
 
Bloodwork's unique cells created a polar covalent bond with the molocules in Eva's mirror portal. This is why she needed his blood; to create a bio-friendly skin on the interdimensional barrier.

Barry says they do not need Bloodwork's blood, because it would have bonded with the electro-negative particles and become dark matter photons. These particles would not just stay on the mirror portal - they would have attached themselves to Eva as she passed from the Mirrorverse into the real world.

Cisco says if they could collect those particles from Eva, they could use those to open their Mirrorverse portal, but it would take them years to build a prototype to do it. Barry is able to fast-track the process, by integrating the neural net in the Thinker's chair to synch to a nanite bridge, fed into the Tachyon enhancer's non-reductive loop. 

Factoring in geographic analytics and concealment probability, Barry is able to locate the remaining Black Hole safe-houses in Central City and estimates with a 97.6% certainty which one Mirror Mistress will attack. 

Barry creates a cure for the light attack that injured Frost; a cryogenically fortified paracetamol cocktail that fortified her cellular walls. 

When asked why he allowed Frost to get shot, Barry says there was a .0002% chance that the Tachyon Enhancer would be damaged by his attempting to save Frost, while the odds that he would fail to find a way to heal her injuries were much smaller. Logically, the best thing to do was allow her to be injured and then trust that he would be able to heal her.

Barry says Frost should recuperate from her injuries for 14.2 minutes. 

McCulloch Technologies' black box servers run a hybrid theorem-proving system with model checking. 

Gideon says it will take 18.4 hours to run the quantum computations needed to analyze all the temporal-spatial data behind the Mirrorverse portal. Barry suggests the data can be processed more quickly by inverting the Feynman shortcut and applying it to one-half mass times velocity squared, compensating for tachyon decay. This allows the numbers to be processed in seconds.

According to Barry, the longer someone is in the Mirrorverse, the more dark matter photons are rquired to pull them back to reality. Unfortunately, the quantity that they have limits them to being able to retrieve Kamilla and Singh or Iris.

People brought into the Mirrorverse using the mirror gun develop a condition similar to neural dissonance, which causes them to feel intense physical pain. Iris somehow knows this, for no apparent reason.

Eobard Thawne used negative emotions to stabilize his Negative Speed Force machine. To avoid the same mistakes he made, Cisco used an inert substance - an argon-xenon hybrid - that would generate no emotional fallout in constructing their Artificial Speed Force. Unfortunately, in doing this, Cisco accidentally wound up making it so that the ASF increased Barry Allen's cognitive function by a factor of 1000, but his emotional responses have decreased by the same factor.

The anti-speedster gun Cisco built releases a charge of what he calls Velocity-Zero, which temporarily dampens a speedster's speed.


Dialogue Triumphs

Barry: (voice-over) He was the most brilliant mind I ever met. They all were. Whatever the problem, you could count on a Wells - a council of them - to have the answers. Now, they're all gone. And we've got to find the answers ourselves.

Cisco: Why does it always feel like for us to win some of us have to lose?

(Barry has explained his plan to build a jerry-rigged device to absorb the particles they need from Mirror Mistress herself, using two blackboards worth of formulas.)
Allegra: But isn't Eva still holed up behind McCulloch Tech's forcefield? We'll never get close to her!
(Barry's jaw drops and he gestures with his marker.)
Allegra: (sighs) You're going to bring out another board?
(There is a woosh as Barry runs off to get another blackboard.)

(Cisco explains that the Artificial Speed Force has enhanced Barry's intelligence, but is repressing his emotions by an equal factor.)
Barry: I am better this way. The team is safer this way.
Cisco: (putting a hand on Barry's shoulder) Look, man. I know you think your heart has been used against you. But's not a weakness. It's makes you human. I mean, without it...
(Cisco glances to one side and sees the targeting screen for the Mirrorverse portal. There is a long pause as the significance of it hits him. Still, he hesitates to ask what he already knows.)
Cisco: Why is the portal target set to Iris?
(Barry does not respond.)
Cisco: What about saving the others?!
Barry: We do not have enough dark matter photons to save all three of them.
(There s another long pause as Cisco mulls this other, blinking.)
Cisco: So... instead of consulting your team, you just decided on your own?
Barry: I've already seen the outcome of this debate. You eventually vote to save Kamilla and Singh.
Cisco: Like hell! I would never vote on something like that! If you had come to me,  would've told you we'll find another way. That's what we always do!
Barry: Your emotions are making you irrational. 
Cisco: And your lack of them are making you wrong! 

(Frost has just landed on a car after being sent flying several blocks by a super speed punch.)
The Flash: Your defeat is inevitable. The Velocity-X in your system is nearly depleted. Your time as a Speedster is coming to an end.
Frost: (panting) Maybe. But I'm not only a Speedster.
(Frost suddenly spins around in imitation of Barry preparing to throw lightning. As she does so, a ice blue bolt mixed with lightning jumps from her fingers, racing toward Barry. He is unable to dodge as the thunder shower blows him back off his feet. As he goes flying, Allegra runs out from behind a car and hits him with a smoke bomb. Suddenly he is on the floor in the Speed Lab, where Cisco Ramon is waiting and shoots him again with the Zelocity-Zero gun.)


Continuity

Team Flash have created a memorial space in STAR Labs, which has displays for every friend they've lost in the fight against evil. 

Cisco says the memorial room is nano-engraved with the names of the fallen, so that even if reality is rewritten and the timeline changes they will not be forgotten. 

The displays in the Team Flash memorial room include Captain Cold's goggles, Ronnie Raymond's jacket from his Firestorm costume, XS' costume jacket, Jesse Quick's jacket, and a large display holding Harry Wells' glasses, HR Wells' drum sticks, Sherloque Wells' magnifying glass, and (after Cisco adds it to the mannequin in the center) Nash Wells' bandoleer satchel. 

Allegra still has the picture of her alternate self and Nash, which she took in 701.

Allegra gets the message which Iris sent to Jamilla and Singh, telling them to meet her ni the Speed Lab at STAR Labs at 19:00.

The technology Cisco retrieved from Atlantis (which he left to get in 618) doesn't work like he'd hoped.

Chester is apparently visiting his grandmother, but is continuing to do some science work in between rounds of bingo.

According to Cisco, Eva used Bloodwork's blood to tackle the first problem they have with creating a Mirrorverse gate when opening her portal in 617; they need something to recofigure the portal's natural tendency to destroy organic matter.

Barry begins to have visions of the complicated concepts Cisco is about to explain before he can explain them.

Allegra tells Cisco and Barry about Iris' message.

Sunshine says she thinks Eva looks like she hasn't slept in some time and that she has a look in her eyes similar to the one that her husband had when she was hiding something from his followers. Eva denies that she is hiding anyuthing.

Sunshine refers to herself, Ultraviolet and Dr. Light as The Assassins Three.

Eva elects to go after the next Black Hole safehouse herself.

Cisco invents a quantum ball to test Barry's newfound ability to think quickly. Barry is successfully able to predict exactly where an allegedly unpredictable ball will bounce.

Using his new speed-thinking powers, Barry is able to figure out that the particles they need to open their portal can be taken directly from Mirror Mistress, builds the advanced technology they need to do that and predicts the next Black Hole safehouse she's likely to attack, which can be the setting of an ambush instead.

Iris finds Kamilla outside STAR Labs, spray-painting a message for her on the wall outside the building.

Iris thinks she's been in the Mirrorverse long enough that she's gained the ability to manipulate the realm. 

Kamilla says she wasn't able to find Singh at the hospital.

Kamilla and Iris go off to look for Singh together.

Barry called Frost back earlier, to have her act as a distraction while he absorbed the particles they needed from Mirror Mistress.

Barry's plan works, but he hesitates as Mirror Mistress attacks Frost with another focused light blast. Cisco sees Barry not move as Frost is shot.

Barry creates a cure for Frost's injuries after running 2,371 tests in his head in a span of seconds.

Barry describes superspeed thinking as experiencing a barrage of images flying at him or having a scene play out in his head.

Based on Iris' message and the warning that Eva is watching, Barry says the next step is thinking of a solution to that problem and making sure Eva doesn't try to stop them from rescuing the Mirrorverse captives.

Allegra tells Cecile that she's always rejected father figures in her life, since her dad abandoned her before she could walk. This was why she resisted Nash trying to get close to her.

Cecile's grandfather was the first Black paralegal in Oklahoma. Her mother was the first female independent counsel in the state of Texas. She keeps her grandfather's filling cabinet and mother's briefcase as mementos of them. 

Barry figures out that Eva is a fractal clone of the real Eva McCulloch and how to hack her computers to find the video file Joseph Carver left behind. He did this after overhearing her refer to herself as a phantom, thinking back to Carver's dying words in 619 about Mirror Mistress no really being his wife, and going on to analyze her behavior patterns, body language and graphological handwriting.

Eva appears on a local talks how, The Arielle Atkins show, to talk about her plans to develop fresh water, healthier crops and clean renewable energy.

Barry elects to broadcast the hacked security footage of Eva McCulloch's death. This leads Mirror Mistress to have an emotional breakdown on live television, destroying a glass which cuts the face of Arielle Atkins and Eva fleeing the show set, disappearing into a reflection.

Sunshine abandons Mirror Mistress. 

Barry says there were 141 ways to distract Mirror Mistress. Exposing her to the world was the most effective way to ensure she'd be unable to stop them from opening their portal. Barry says making their enemies emotionally upset makes them prone to making mistakes, despite Frost and Cisco saying getting Mirror Mistress upset doesn't seem like a good idea.

Barry determines, and confirms with Gideon, that there are only enough dark photos to safely retrieve either Iris or both Kamilla and Singh. He then runs a simulation to see how the rest of the team would react to this news. Unsurprisingly, they all vote to save the larger number of people and leave Iris in the Mirrorverse. As such, Barry elects not to tell them and tries to open the portal and retrieve Iris on his own.

Cisco determines that the protocols he put into the Artificial Speed Force to prevent Barry's emotions from influencing the device have instead repressed his emotions while enhancing the logic centers of his brain.

Cisco notices, as he is explaining his mistake to Barry, that the portal is set to target Iris and no one else.

Barry denies that his decision to save Iris is based on emotion - it's because Iris has knowledge of Eva they need to fight her. As such, Singh and Kamilla are expendable.  When he uses that word, Cisco pulls a gun from one of the cabinets in the speed lab and calls in Frost and Allegra.

Allegra enters the fight wearing a white bandoleer satchel, similar to Nash's.

Frost injects herself with Velocity-X, temporarily giving her super-speed to combat Barry in a running battle across Central City.

Allegra is able to ambush Barry with one of Nssh's teleporting smoke bombs. This sends him back to STAR Labs, where he falls on the ground and has the wind knocked out of him, giving Cisco time to shoot him with another blast of Velocity-Zero.

Cisco makes mention of the Babel Protocols, which were first mentioned in 402. Originally limited to a self-destruct mode built into The Flash suit, they now consist of multiple plans to take down Barry Allen (and, presumably, other superheroes) in case of an emergency.

The Quantum Ball Barry threw at the start of the fight hits Cisco, knocking him out and causing him to accidentally blast the crystal Allegra is holding - the same one Nash gave her in 619 that causes a person to relieve their worst memories, when Allegra uses her powers on it. This causes Allegra to blast herself, which causes her to blast Frost and knock her out before she passes out from shock.

As Barry opens the portal, Iris is in the middle of trying to get Kamilla and Singh to the medical bay.

Iris refuses to go and leave the injured Singh and Kamilla behind. Shockingly, Barry did not predict this happening. 

Barry forces Iris to come through the portal, but seems to injure her in the process as she passes out once the portal is closed.

The realization of what he's done thanks to his hyper-logic leads Barry do throw lightning into the Artificial Speed Force, destroying it. This also seems to cause a feedback loop, which causes Barry to experience a debilitating electric shock of blue lightning. 

In her office, Mirror Mistress begins muttering to herself that this isn't her world anymore, but it can be.

At CCPD HQ, one of the cops is grabbed by Mirror Mistress, through her reflection, while in an elevator.

The final scene, labeled "Once Upon A Time..." replays the flashback scene from 117 where Eobard Thawne replaced the original Harrison Wells of Earth-1. This time, we also see Thawne burying Wells' remains in a shallow grave. The scene ends with a focus on the grave as green specks of energy appear around the grave, rebuilding the body of the original Harrison Wells, before fading to black and giving us a "To Be Continued..." notice.


The Bottom Line

A step-up over the last few episodes, thanks to a smart script and some solid performances. The opening scene gives the Wells the send-off they should have gotten last week and the last scene suggests Tom Cavanagh isn't quite done with the show yet. Between that, we get some great CGI fights and a reminder of how smart these characters are meant to be... ignoring that Cisco probably could have shut down the ASF while Frost was running around with Barry. 

The Flash Episode Guide: Season 6, Episode 7 - The Last Temptation of Barry Allen, Pt. 1

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.



Plot

Iris uncovers a vast conspiracy, as Barry is infected with a hallucinogen by the increasingly monstrous Ramsey Rosso.


Influences

The Last Tempation of Christ (title, some of the dream-driven imagery), the Venom movie (special effects for Bloodwork's powers) and The Flash comics of Joshua Williamson.


Goofs

How did Frost know Ralph was in danger?

As effective as this episode is as a psychodrama, it's still somewhat muted because we know that Barry has to survive to see Crisis.


Performances

Grant Gustin gives a startling performance here, as Barry becomes trapped inside his own head and confronts increasingly disturbed images.


Artistry

Props to the chefs who made the food in the nightmare dinner scene so horrific.

The general dreamlike direction of the episode is incredibly effective.


Flash Facts

The mobile of the infant Nora West-Allen holds many tiny XS symbols.


Technobabble

Bloodwork says that his powers, like Elongated Man's, operate on a cellular level.

Caitlin determines that Ramsey's powers are getting stronger, since Ralph's elastic cells are not healing at the accelerated rate they normal do.

Caitlin theorizes that Barry can temporarily loan someone his speed-healing powers with a blood transfusion. This is ultimately borne out by her experimental surgery to save Ralph's life.

Barry's blood has a small spike in cortisol following the transfusion that allows Bloodwork to infect him.

The fever generated by Bloodwork's powers taking a person over does not respond to ice.

Caitlin administers 10ccs of naproxen sodium to control Barry's fever.


Dialogue Triumphs

(Barry has just tried to punch an intangible Ramsey Rosso.)
Barry: I don't know how you're doing this. Real or not, I'm coming for you.
Ramsey: And yet I'm not your foremost concern, am I? Not as much as your inevitable demise in a coming... Crisis? Goodness, you really are full of surprises, aren't you? So tell me...when you saw all those permutations, billions of possible futures all ending in your death...What role did I play?
Barry: You didn't. You weren't there.
Ramsey: (disappointed) Really? Not even in one? Huh. Then again, you never saw this coming did you? Frankly, neither did I. (smiling) Makes one believe in the impossible, doesn't it?

(Barry looks up and sees his mother.)
Barry: Mom? Is this another nightmare?
Speed Force: No, Barry. This is much, much worse.

Speed Force: You've answered our call before. It's always been difficult. What's changed?
Barry: I've lived more. I've gotten married, seen a future where I'll have a daughter who's the best of me and Iris combined. Most of my life has been driven by my past, but... but now, I... It finally feels like I'm living for myself. I don't wanna leave my family or my friends. I don't want to die. I know that's selfish. (sobbing) I'm sorry I let you down.
Speed Force: Barry. No person is immune to fear and doubt. No matter how brave. That's what makes you human, Barry. But the courage to move forward, even in the face of overwhelming odds... that's what makes you a hero. That's what makes you The Flash.
Barry: Thank you. I needed to hear that.
Speed Force: Don't blame yourself.
Barry: His lies.. They were so convincing.
Speed Force: That's because he never lied.
(There is a long pause as Barry ponders that and realizes what it means.) 
Barry: (quietly) What do you mean?
Speed Force: That's what makes Ramsey so dangerous. He manipulates the truth to spread his disease.
Barry: What, so... so the part about his cells allowing me to save the world from Crisis and still survive is true?
Speed Force: Yes. But that path's not for you.
Barry: Why not?!
Speed Force: Barry, you must understand-
Barry: - that you want me to leave behind everyone I love when there's a way to save me?!

Iris: (writing) My name is Iris West-Allen and I once met a young man, a superhero who I called the Streak. The world has come to know him as the Fastest Man Alive, the Scarlet Speedster, the Flash. But no matter what title you choose for him, he'll always be remembered as the protector of our amazing city and its citizens, as a beacon of hope for us all, and as the man who sacrificed himself again and again so we could live. Today we say good-bye to him, not because he was taken but because he gave himself willingly. And in the end, that's what makes him deserving of the greatest title of all - Hero.

Bloodwork: I am the world's salvation come to save it from all that ails it. Soon, the entire world will embrace... Bloodwork


Continuity

Elongated Man and Bloodwork fight, with Bloodwork wounding Ralph and infecting him with his blood.

Barry has Type O-negative blood. This makes him a universal donor who can donate to anyone.

Ralph's elastic skin is too strong to be penetrated by a standard needle. This requires Barry phase Ralph's body through the needle at super-speed to set up an IV.

ARGUS moves Ralph to a secure location while he recovers.

This episode takes place on December 8, 2019. Two days until the day Barry is destined to disappear.

Bloodwork learns that Barry Allen is The Flash through the connection he forms through their blood. He can apparently learn all about a person's memories when his blood is absorbed into another person's body, in addition to taking control of them.

Allegra discovers Iris' unwritten article about Barry's upcoming disappearance.

Iris determines that the man that recruited Esperanza Garcia and saw her transformed into Ultraviolet was wearing a pin with a spiral emblem and was also at Remington Meister's party in 606.

Iris found another picture of the man getting into a car, whose plates were tracked to a rented parking space in Central City.

The man claims to be a transporter for Maelstrom Couriers - a company catering to the ultra rich. He says he was hired to transport Esperanza Garcia for the government and that he was acting as a designated driver at the Meister party. Today, he's transporting a literal set of family jewels.

The Speed Force appears to Barry in the form of his mother, Nora Allen.

The Speed Force explains that Ramsey was able to get himself into Ralph's blood and because of the blood transfusion he is now in Barry.

Allegra reveals to Iris that she knows Barry's secret identity and that she was told by Nash Wells.

Allegra says she wanted to become a reporter because she was inspired by Iris's early blog reports about The Streak.

Ramsey tries to convince Barry to surrender to him, claiming that he he shared his power with him Barry would be a greater hero than ever, able to save the lives of those he was too slow to save.

The courier Iris and Allegra questioned is later found in what appears to be a bombed-out car, in the paid parking space they confronted him at earlier.

No cameras showed anyone going into or out of the car park that day to plant a bomb.

Allegra finds the spiral pin and says that it is glowing with ultraviolet energy.

Kamilla reveals that she already knew Barry was The Flash and that Cisco is Vibe to Allegra.

The Speed Force says Ramsey's powers could allow Barry to survive Crisis and heal people the way he described, but that there are universal forces that will be imperiled if Barry Allen does not die during the Crisis.

Barry begins to stop fighting the infection as Ramsey and The Speed Force fight for him.

The Speed Force admits that it does not feel pain in the same way that humans do.

As the episode closes, it is 36 hours to the Crisis.

Iris starts writing the article about Barry's death.

Nash Wells returns to the tunnel, ready to try and break through to the portal to the Monitor.

At first, it seems that Barry has beaten the infection. Iris realizes, however, that Ramsey is controlling Barry and trying to pretend to be him.

Barry knocks out Iris, Caitlin and Frost.

When The Flash is under Bloodwork's control, his eyes and mouth are stained with black blood and black blood oozes from The Flash symbol on his chest.

Ramsey officially gives himself the name Bloodwork.


The Bottom Line

A surprisingly effective episode with some strong imagery and a powerhouse performance from Grant Gustin. The only real problem with it is that, knowing that Crisis is coming up, the actual danger of the episode (and, by extension, its villain) is ineffective. Worse yet, there's really no way to separate this story from Crisis and consider it as its own entity. Still, it's enjoyable despite that.

The Flash Episode Guide: Season 4, Episode 16 - Run, Iris, Run

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here. 



Plot

The tenth Bus Meta - whom Cisco dubs Melting Point - has the power to change the DNA of other people. When his encounter with Team Flash leaves Iris with Barry's super-speed, they will have to switch roles in order to save Central City.


Influences

The Flash #22 (New 52 Series), where Iris West temporarily acquires a connection to The Speed Force.


Goofs

Cisco's speculation at the start of the episode does bring up an interesting point - why not hide Ralph on Earth Two or someplace else?!

Ralph's complaints about Iris not knowing what it's like to risk your life as a hero seem to be meant to make Ralph sound whinny and ungrateful. The thing is, fear-driven as his responses might be, Ralph has a point about how keeping him safe should be a priority when it comes to stopping DeVoe's plan but everyone on the team except Caitlin seems to view keeping Ralph alive as a necessary evil, at best.

Also, Ralph's cowardice has come out of nowhere given Ralph was chomping at the bit to go after DeVoe to avenge Izzy two episodes ago, to the point where he made Barry a partner in his detective business.

Joe and Barry are stumped on how to get Ralph to impersonate DeVoe again to talk to The Mayor about Barry getting his job back while keeping Ralph safe. What about that hologram projector Cisco made in Season 2 that could project an image anywhere in Central City?

Eric Fry was smart enough to leave Central City after The Flash first appeared three years ago and started taking down metahuman criminals. Why then did he come back to Central City now?!

While it's a good idea not to have Barry go with Joe to question a person of interest in regard to a bank robbery given that Barry is persona non grata with the CCPD, that has nothing to do with why Iris tells Barry to stay at STAR Labs - it's so that she can go out in the field and prove to Ralph that she doesn't just hide in STAR Labs bossing everyone around!

On that note, how the heck does Joe justify bringing his daughter along to question a suspect in an official capacity?

Apart from being a funny sight gag, what is the point of Iris changing clothes with Caitlin at super-speed?  Couldn't she just run home and find something else to wear rather than forcibly stripping her friend against her will? Especially since Caitlin was about to change into her Killer Frost clothes anyway?

For that matter, why DOESN'T Caitlin wind up going along to help put out the fire after Iris tells her to get ready to go and do that?

The spare mask Jesse Quick left behind on Earth One doesn't match her red costume.

Iris reveals that she did quit her job as a reporter. So how the heck are she and Barry affording their fancy loft since they're both unemployed. (Yes, I know Barry is supposed to be somewhat independently wealth after inheriting STAR Labs from Wells/Thawne, but they've never bothered to explain this point...)

Pretty much everything involving the stand off with The Hotness. First, this guy decides to become a criminal after two days. Next, the fact that he's able to master his new powers enough to be a threat in that much time when Iris can barely use her own powers with a team of experienced metahuman scientists training her. Third, the fact that his brilliant scheme is to go into a park and start demanding money rather than robbing a bank or a business. Fourth, the fact that he allows the police to surround him. Fifth, the fact that the police let a civilian like Matthew Kim into the area to try and talk to the metahuman terrorist. Sixth, why in the name of little green apples doesn't Iris just run in and punch the guy at super-speed like she did with Matthew Kim?  Seventh, why not send in the metahuman with ice powers to control the fire, apart from Iris needing to do this to prove that she could be a superhero if she had powers?

Cisco says the fire being generated by the man with the fire powers is 800 degrees, which is as hot as lava. This is just barely true in the Celsius scale, where lava ranges from 700-1200 degrees C. In the Fahrenheit measure, lava ranges from 1300-2200 degrees F. Either way, the heat should be enough that convection should bake Iris alive as close as she is to the fire.

Iris' speech to Ralph about not giving in to fear doesn't really ring true given that the only thing that saved Iris from the consequences of living her life was HR Wells switching places with her without telling anyone he'd done so.


Flash Facts

The episode title is an nod to the repeated line, "Run, Barry, Run."

There have been a few stories where Iris West temporarily acquired The Flash's powers. The most recent one was during The New 52 The Flash series, where Iris West developed her own connection to The Speed Force in The Flash #22.

Eric Frye - the fire-starting British bank robber in this episode - is a new character unique to The DCTVU.

Melting Point -a.k.a. Matthew Kim - is a character unique to The DCTVU. His power set, however, resembles that of Ragtag - a villain from the Static Shock animated series. Ragtag was a homeless man who developed the power to give ordinary humans temporary super powers. He could also drain the powers from other metahumans. He used these abilities to get ordinary teenagers addicted to the power that he gave them and then used them as his pawns to commit crimes.

Melting Point uses his powers in a benevolent fashion - not surprising given his status as an EMT.

The advance press for this episode called Melting Point by the name "Melting Pot".

The name of Melting Point has been used before in another DC Comic book. Strangely enough, it was in The Flash: Year Zero comic book, which has largely been declared non-canon since its original release. This comic saw the creation of a villain named Doctor Melting Point, who was Dr. Wangari Hollowell - a former teacher of Caitlin Snow's.  Half of Dr. Hollowell's body had been transformed into Quantum Energy, giving her the ability to melt down organic materials and absorb them into herself.

In the comics, The Hotness was a fire-controlling female villain who made her first appearance in Forever Evil: A.R.G.U.S. #2 (January, 2014). She died in that same issue, at the hands of Killer Frost.

The Arrowverse version of the Hotness is a man named Jaco Birch, but has the same power.

Cisco makes reference to the movie Spider-Man 2 in explaining to Caitlin why he thinks Harry building his own Thinking Cap is a bad idea. In that movie, Doctor Otto Octavius was driven crazy after the artificially-intelligent robotic arms he built to assist in his more dangerous lab work took over his brain.

Cisco also makes reference to The Borg from Star Trek, when laying down the conditions under which he will help Harry with The Intelligence Booster/Thinking Cap. Namely that he will vibe Harry elsewhere the minute he starts trying to assimilate everyone.

The date of Iris' first blog post on Saved By The Flash is March 13. 2018 - the original air date of this episode.


Technobabble

Harry suggests altering each Bus Meta's DNA using inter-cellular surgery and turning them into chickens.

Harry determines that DeVoe boosted his intelligence using neurochemical engineering powered by the dark matter released by the STAR Labs Particle Accelerator. Using that knowledge and the security footage from STAR Labs showing DeVoe on the night of the particle accelerator explosion, Harry builds his own intelligence booster (a.k.a. Thinking Cap) to enhance his mind to match that of DeVoe.

Barry says that what Harry is proposing would 10 billion joules through his brain.

According to Cisco, it would take a temperature of 6000 degrees Fahrenheit (3315.556 degrees Celsius) to melt through 10 inches of reinforced steel. This is reportedly 10 times the thermal out of of Mick Rory's Heat Gun.

When pondering how a metahuman could just lose their powers, Caitlin theorizes that Eric Frye's powers, if based around metastasizing solar radiation to create hat, locking him in a dark room should neutralize his powers. As Joe points out, however, Eric Frye lost his powers in the middle of the day when it was sunny.

Caitlin then suggests that Eric Frye's internal bio-chemistry had been altered to develop its own internal thermal combustion and ran out of fuel.

Without the edition of dark matter, The Intelligence Booster causes Harry's neurons to fire 20 times faster.

With the Thinking Cap, Harry is able to analyze Ralph's eating habits and extrapolate them at a predictive behavior model. determining there is a 67% chance that Ralph will spill mustard on himself while eating his veggie dog in four seconds. He is also able to deduce that Ralph is not wearing any underwear based on the movement of the fabric of his pants as Ralph is wiping his hands clan.

Caitlin runs a series of tests - EKG, cellular regression synthesis, dark matter and brain chemistry - to confirm that Irish has become a metahuman with speed powers.

Matthew Kim's powers work by melting down the highly concentrated bonds between DNA, making them pliable so he can extract them and infuses somebody else with the exact same metahuman DNA sequence.

Harry needs a micro-filament compression wrench with a cobalt retrieving clamp to finish his work on The Thinking Cap.

Caitlin considers dark matter splicing, pattern DNA cloning and regrowing meta-enhanced stem-material on a cellular level as a way to replicate Melting Points powers but concludes that nothing else will work.

The fire generated by the new fire-powered metahuman is described as being 800 degrees and "as hot as lava."  Presumably Cisco is using the Celsius scale, where lava ranges from 700-1200 degrees.

The new fire metahuman is able to generate a thermo-cyclone - a cyclone made of fire.

Cisco disengages the photo flow to The Thinking Cap once Harry goes 20% over his own recommended safety standards.


Dialogue Triumphs

Cisco: I'm sorry - don't you have like, six PhDs?
Harry: Seven.
Cisco: Yeah, which one of them is in mad science?
Harry: Mad science is just an area of study. It's not a degree.

Matthew Kim: Stealing is a sin. You shouldn't be using the powers you've been given in this way.
Eric Frye: I'll use them any way I see fit. Including frying you to a crisp, if you move any closer!
Matthew Kim: (calmly) Oh, I don't think you will. You don't want to hurt me. Or anyone in this bank. You can still walk away from this. But the moment you touch that money, your life changes forever. You don't really want that, do you?
Eric Frye: Maybe you're right.
(Matthew Kim reaches out and touches the man's shoulder. There is a quick flash of red light on his hand as the bank-robbing meta punches him to the ground.  Matthew Kim touches another man and there's a quick flash of red into his hand.)
Eric Frye: Or... maybe you've got a death wish!
(Eric Frye raises his hands to throw a fireball... and nothing happens.)
Eric Frye: What the hell?  My powers.... they're gone
(Eric Frye is tackled by a security guard.)
Guard: Hey, buddy!  You're a real....
(The guard looks to where Matthew Kim was as the rest of the hostages look up. He is gone.)
Guard: ... hero?

(Harry has just used his enhanced intelligence to deduce that Ralph is not wearing any underwear.)
Ralph: You got all that from your fancy metal cap?
Harry: Yes I did.
Ralph: It's impressive, Harry. Except for one very small thing.
Harry: Which is?
Ralph: Your head is on fire.
Harry: (laughs) No it's...
(Harry rolls his eyes upward and realizes that the thinking cap just burst into flame.)

Caitlin: Cisco, why can't you just help him?
Cisco: Why am I the only one who thinks putting a rageaholic and dark matter together is a bad idea?
Caitlin: He's trying to stop DeVoe. That's not a bad idea.
Cisco: He's trying to match his intellect with a mad man whose innovations are warping his brain. Have you not seen Spider-Man 2?
Caitlin: No.
Cisco: ... how can you live with yourself?

(Cisco holds up a garment bag, holding a new costume for Iris.)
Iris: Thanks Cisco.
(There is a flash of violet lighting as Iris runs off. Her street clothes falling to the ground as Cisco is left clutching an empty garment bag.)
Cisco: I've got hangers!


Dialogue Disasters

(The line in which Iris pretty much sums up every problem most of the the fandom have had with her  in Season 4.)

Iris: Barry, when I was a reporter, I was always in the field putting myself in danger for a story. And after last year, for some reason, that just stopped. Maybe it was because of Savitar. Maybe because you were gone into The Speed Force. I don't know, but... I quit my job. I joined this team. And now, for the most part, I just stay here while all of you are out there putting your lives on the line.


Continuity

Cisco contemplates breaching the last three Bus Metas and relocating them to Earth Two.  Harry suggests altering each Bus Meta's DNA using inter-cellular surgery.

Harry Wells has seven PhDs.

On Earth Two, Mad Science is an area of study but not one with a degree plan.

Ralph, Caitlin and Iris agree to try Harry's "intelligence booster" idea. Cisco refuses to help.

Cecile is now in her third trimester. She and Joe have picked out names for the baby, but they aren't telling anyone what they are.

The mayor of Central City refuses to let Barry have his job back until she meets with The DeVoes personally.

According to Cisco, the energy output of Heatwave's fire gun is 600 degrees Fahrenheit.

Eric Frye got his powers at the same time as the first wave of metahumans. He left Central City after The Flash appeared and has been roaming around robbing banks ever since.

Matthew Kim has apparently been using his powers in secret to take away the powers of other criminals for some time.

Iris generates violet lightning whens he runs.

The movie Spider-Man 2 exists in The DCTVU. Caitlin has not seen it.

The man who got Eric Frye's powers by accident is named Jaco Birch. He calls himself The Hottness during his short-lived "reign of terror."

Cisco finally agrees to help Harry with The Intelligence Booster on two conditions - that they will now power it with dark matter and that the minute Harry begins to act like Locutus of Borg and starts trying to assimilate everyone, Cisco has permission to send him to another Earth.

Harry calculates 4,827 ways the fight with The Hotness could go but only one that will result in no loss of life. This involves Iris creating a 100-foot tall tidal wave to combat the fire cyclone.

It is revealed that Matthew Kim thought that his power was to remove the powers of other metahumans. He had no idea he was capable of transferring them to other people. He believed that he had been chosen by God to punish those who abused the power they were given.

Matthew Kim agrees to join Team Flash in the fight against The Thinker.

Ralph agrees to see the mayor, disguised as DeVoe in a bid to get Barry his job back.

Cecile recommends a good pizza place in Keystone to Barry.

Iris starts a new blog, Saved By The Flash, detailing stories of people... saved by The Flash.

The last two Bus Metas are named Janet Petty and Edwin Goss.


The Boomerang Factor

Pretty much all of Team Flash is nerfed this week so that Iris can prove that she could be just as good at being The Flash as Barry.


The Bottom Line

Everything insufferable about the fourth season of The Flash in one episode. No DeVoes. Virtually nothing except Iris and Barry being cute together. All of Ralph's character development being forgotten so that he can be the gross cowardly pervert nobody likes again. All of Harry's character development is forgotten so that he can go back to being shoutty jerkass again. And the writers finally confirm that Iris literally subverted her entire life for the sake of the man she loved, as everyone else is nerfed this week so that Iris can prove that she's just as much of a hero as Barry... if she has super powers.  At this point, it''s a neck and neck race for what show disgusts me more  - this or Arrow.

The Flash Episode Guide: Season 4, Episode 15 - Enter Flashtime

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.




Plot

When a nuclear bomb threatens Central City, Barry, Jay Garrick and Jesse Quick will have to enter into the otherworldly state known as Flashtime in order to slow things down enough to deal with the crisis.


Influences

The Flash comics of John Broome, Mark Waid and Geoff Johns (multiple speedsters teaming up to face a crisis together.) and Green Arrow #100 (the inclusion of Veronica Dale and The Eden Corps, the plot of the hero needing to figure out how to stop an active bomb).


Goofs

Granting that fanatics are not always logical, the idea of an environmental terrorist group damaging the environment by setting off a nuclear bomb to show the dangers of nuclear power doesn't make a lot of sense. The Eden Corps in the original comics acted in ways that would destroy cities without harming The Earth as a whole.


Performances

The chemistry between Violett Beane and Tom Cavanagh is as fantastic as ever.  Their non-verbal acting in the final sequence as Harry and Jesse "talk" is particularly fantastic.

Grant Gustin does a fantastic job of selling Barry's exhaustion and frustration through the episode.


Artistry

The effects work for depicting Flashtime is rather impressive.

The energy effects as Barry attempts to draw The Speed Force out into negating the fission engine with a fusion reaction may be the single greatest action sequence in the show's history and the history of superhero shows ever, looking just like a panel from a Flash comic come to life.


Flash Facts

The formula the camera focuses on after the title stinger - 3x2(9yz)4A - is "The Speed Formula" in DC Comics. This was the formula said by the speedster Johnny Quick and, later, his daughter Jesse Quick, in order to use their super-speed powers.

The shoot-out between The CCPD and the Terrorists occurs at Waid Airfield. This is a tribute to Mark Waid - The Flash writer responsible for coming up with the idea of The Speed Force.

While never given an official name in the comics, the idea of "Flashtime" (i.e. speedsters being able to operate in a state of super-speed while the rest of the world around them seems to be frozen solid) has been explored in multiple comics and cartoons.

At the time this episode originally aired, there was a storyline in The Flash comic based around a similar plot, with Barry Allen, both versions of Wally West and Avery Ho (The Flash of The Justice League of China) having to work to save Central City from a device that was draining all the molecular motion from it in a bid to give Gorilla Grodd super-speed. Only Grodd, his minions in the criminal scientist cabal known as The Black Hole and the speedsters were unaffected.

The terrorist group who set off the fission engine is revealed at the end of the episode to be a group called The Eden Corps who are lead by a woman named Veronica Dale. Their goal was to show the dangers of nuclear energy. 

In the classic DC Comics Universe, The Eden Corps was a radical environmentalist group whom Oliver Queen tried to infiltrate in an effort to bring them down from the inside. He would wind up sacrificing his life in order to destroy a bomb The Eden Corps was going to use that would release a virus that would eat all the plastic in Metropolis. As in the DCTVU, it was run by a woman named Veronica Dale, who went by the codename Hyrax.


Technobabble

The bridges between Earths formed by Cisco's powers close after three picoseconds. A picosecond is one-one-trillionth of a second. Iris says that DeVoe's teleportals may close even faster than that.

Cisco develops a complex and eloquent algorithm to track the warping signatures of DeVoe's teleporting.

Barry says that he can't run the nuclear bomb out of town as the energy involved will speed up the reaction and it would blow up before he could get out of Central City. He also says that he and Jesse Quick don't have enough time to evacuate the city and get all the people out of harm's way.

The ARGUS device that the terrorists were trying to get to is revealed to be an experimental fission engine containing deuterium isotopes. It is contained within an inertial confinement cage to stop the radiation. With enough pressure, however, the isotopes will split and produce heat and light. The light will start out blue, shift yellow and then go purple before the engine explodes.

A breach is a controlled folding of space-time. As such, when a breacher like Vibe is moving at super-speeds and in a state of Flashtime, there is a lack of sufficient time for them to open a breach.

Without a connection to The Speed Force, a body cannot withstand the stress of Flashtime for more than a few minutes. This is discovered when Cisco begins to hyperventilate after about two relative minutes examining the fission engine with Barry. Even a speedsters enhanced physiology will eventually begin to wear down after an excessive amount of time spent in Flashtime.

A person's age and physical fitness seem to be a factor in how long they can withstand Flashtime. This is why the younger and more physically fit Vibe is not effected as quickly as Harry Wells. Jay Garrick, the oldest speedster, is also the first to start showing signs of physical exhaustion the longer he, Jesse Quick and The Flash spend in Flashtime.

Space-time breaches and portals to The Speed Force operate according to different laws of physics. This means that Barry can use a Speed Force portal to dispose of the fission engine when a breach cannot be established.

In nuclear fission, enormous energy is created by a chain reaction of atoms splitting and releasing neutrons. It is nearly impossible to reverse this process, but theoretically you can restore stability through one of two methods. One is to offset the loss of mass through nuclear fusion. The other, more promising method given the situation our speedsters are in, is to cool the engine down.

The 3 million tons of energy (or 3 megatons) generated by the fission engine is equal to 3 billion joules.

A lightning bolt contains roughly 1 billion joules of energy. This leads to Jesse Quick suggesting that she, Barry and Jay each throw a lightning bolt at the fission engine in the hope that it will generate enough fusion energy to balance the equation.

The Quark Sphere is a device which is filled with Barry Allen's unique genetic marker, programmed to track his DNA using the electrical current of The Speed Force. Used in tandem with The Speed Force Bazooka, The Quark Sphere was able to trick The Speed Force into thinking Barry is still there once The Speed Force Bazooka pulled Barry out of it. Barry is able to make use of The Quark Sphere here to act as a lightning rod which lets him draw the Speed Force energy needed to send fusion energy at the fission engine.

Caitlin notes that Jay Garrick's blood glucose levels are low following his time spent in Flash Time.

Harry reworks the Cerebral Inhibitor into a device that does the opposite of its intended purpose, allowing a person to hear the thoughts of other people. Using this, he is able to convey to Jesse the emotions he cannot articulate regarding his wife's death.


Dialogue Triumphs

Barry: Has anyone seen Ralph today?
Caitlin: No. He's downstairs moving in. He's very nervous.
Harry: I don't know why.
Cisco: I don't know why, either. He's a superhero! People with powers are ready for anything,
(Cisco turns around, nearly running into Jesse Quick.)
Cisco: Ahhhhhhh! Son of a Breach!

(Jesse looks at an odd helmet on Harry's desk.)
Jesse: What's this?
Harry: That is a mental activity dampener. It's for DA Cecile Horton. Keeps her from hearing other people's thoughts.
Jesse: It's kinda clunky.
Harry: (laughs) That's what she said. (goes serious) Literally, that's what she said. The second version's more streamlined.

Harry: I came here to stop DeVoe!
Jesse: No. You stayed because of DeVoe.
Harry: A distinction without a difference.

(Barry looks around the frozen crime scene as if searching for inspiration. His gaze finally falls on Cisco.)
Barry: I need right now you, man.
(Barry places a hand on Cisco. There is a shock of electricity as Cisco begins moving.)
Cisco: (looking around in confusion) Wha- what is going on?
Barry: You're moving with me at super-speed.
Cisco: What?! Is this what it looks like when you run?
Barry: More or less.
Cisco: (looking at the still unmoving Killer Frost) I'd say it's a little uneventful.

(Jay Garrick and Jesse Quick run in on Barry talking to the sped-up Harry Wells.)
Jay: What the heck?!
(Harry grabs at Barry.)
Harry: Get her out of here.
Barry: I'm gonna - I'll try.
Harry: (gasping) Allen... Allen.
Barry: All right.
(Harry nods as Barry lets go and Harry freezes back in place.)
Jay: How do you do that?
Barry: Uh - I'm not sure. I've been able to do it ever since I came out of The Speed Force.
Jay: That's a hell of a new trick!
Barry: Look, right now...
Jay: I know. Jesse showed me the nuke.(sighs) We're in trouble, kid.
Barry: Well, I don't know. Wells has an idea that he think might work.
Jesse: Yeah? What is it?
Barry: We send the bomb into The Speed Force. Let it detonate in there.
Jay: Like hell you will!
Barry: What do you mean? Why not?
Jay: Because, Flash, if you do that, we may lose The Speed Force forever!

Killer Frost: Barry? Don't let Caity die.

Jesse: Okay. What if... I don't know... what if we run back in time and stop this bomb from ever going off?
Barry: No. Jesse. We can't do that.
Jesse: Yeah, well, it's kind of our only option.
Barry: It's not an option.
Jesse: Even if it saves the city and everyone in it?!
Barry: It's not saving them, okay? The second you alter the timeline, everything changes. Especially the people you love. Trust me. I learned that the hard way.
Jesse: Yeah, well maybe a new version of my dad isn't the worst thing in the world.

(Barry and Iris kiss as Barry starts to let go of her.)
Iris: Come back to me.
Barry: As fast as I can.

(Joe runs over to Barry.)
Joe: Flash?!
(Joe puts his hand on Barry's chest as if feeling for a heart beat. Slowly, Barry's eyes flutter and he moans.)
Barry: (his voice dry and crackly) Are we dead?
Joe:  ... no?
Barry: (sighs) That's good.
(Barry pants and closes his eyes, clearly exhausted.)


Continuity

Barry was first shown as being able to lend his speed to other people in 410

After the opening scene, the first scene after the title stinger starts "8 Minutes, 48 Seconds Ago."

Barry is attempting to push himself to become fast enough to follow through one of The Thinker's teleportals.

Cisco is able to map every time The Thinker teleported over the past three years. These include when The Mechanic grabbed him after absorbing Izzy Bowin's powers in 414, the attack on Iron Heights Prison in 413, the alley where he abducted Barry in 409 and The DeVoes' house.

Ralph is moving into a basement room in STAR Labs, due to being nervous about being grabbed off the street by The Thinker.

Jesse Quick was last seen in 316, though a hologram of her appeared in 403.

Apology Cubes are a technology used on Earth Two, similar to Break-Up Cubes, which were first referred to in 403.

The first version of the Mental Activity Dampener from 414 is seen.

The death of Harry Wells' wife is mentioned, though the circumstances are not specified. Harry was unable to save her.

Jesse accuses Harry of never dealing with his wife's death. Harry denies this.

Jesse says that she found peace by talking about her mother's death.

Waid Airfield is one of the airports in Central City.

Cisco is unable to form breaches while operating in Flashtime. This means he cannot do what he did in 410 to send the excess radiation generated by Fallout to a dead Earth.

Jay Garrick was last seen in 323.

Jay Garrick has never seen another speedster temporarily lend their speed to a non-speedster.

Barry has been able to lend speed to other people since leaving The Speed Force.

Jay says that a nuclear explosion in the heart of The Speed Force could potentially destroy it.

Killer Frost has no frame of reference for what heat feels like until she begins to exhaust herself trying to cool the fission engine while in Flashtime.

Jay Garrick tires out before he can add his lightning to that of Barry and Jesse.

Jesse runs out of energy after trying to talk to speed up her father and, failing that, talking to him.

Iris refers to the events of 401 and how Cisco and Caitlin used The Speed Force Bazooka to extract Barry from The Speed Force.

Jay announces his intention to retire as The Flash of Earth Three as soon as he finishes training his replacement - an unnamed woman - to become the new Flash.

Barry is told to not use his powers and rest for a few days following his time in Flashtime.

The words that Jesse hears her mother saying - "Because in the vast night sky, you are the only star I see." - are the same words that the Earth One version of Tess Morgan said to Harrison Wells that inspired the name STAR Labs in 117. This seems to confirm that the Tess Morgan of Earth Two was Harry Wells' wife on Earth Two as well.

A sign on the counter at C.C. Jitters promotes a spring special on their Killer Frost iced coffee drink.

For the first time ever, Caitlin has a memory of something that Killer Frost did while in control of her body. In this case, she remembers Killer Frost being taken into Flashtime by Barry, trying to freeze the fission reactor and then Killer Frost feeling worried about her.

The mystery waiter from Barry and Iris' wedding in S308 who later made an appearance in 411 when Ralph and Cisco were getting coffee makes another appearance. This time she bumps into Harry and Caitlin, literally spilling a Killer Frost drink on their table. She makes reference to being there to meet some people for the first time and being kind of nervous - an act that fades as Harry gets annoyed and leaves while a sympathetic Caitlin says she hopes that her meeting goes well. The waiter ominiously says that "It did."


Location

The Speed Force.


The Bottom Line

A definite improvement over the last run of episodes and a strong contender for one of the top-five best Flash episodes of all time. Rather than feeling like a piece of filler given the absence of any major plot elements from Season Four (no Ralph, no DeVoes), this episode feels like a return to basics. Even the romantic scenes between Iris and Barry don't feel as forced somehow, though that's largely down to Gustin's performance and how effectively he portrays a Barry Allen who has been working for days without sleep, from his perspective and is looking on the woman he loves as if it really will be the last time he ever sees her.

The Flash Episode Guide: Season 4, Episode 2 - Mixed Signals

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.



Plot

Barry has his hands full when confronted with a new metahuman who has the power to control technology and relationship trauma, as Iris insists on the two of them entering couples' therapy. Cisco is in similarly dire straits, having to deal with an angry Gypsy after he ditches their date night to tend to his duties at STAR Labs.


Influences

The film Risky Business (Barry's dance scene while fixing breakfast is a tribute to the movie), The Flash comics of Mike Baron (character of Kilg%re), Geoff Johns (character of Warden Wolfe) and Mark Waid (Barry's watching TV at super-speed, exploration of relationship problems caused by moving faster than significant other) and the Green Arrow/Black Canary comics of Andrew Kreisberg (couple with a secret identity who work together have to talk in code during a couples' therapy session)


Goofs

The opening sequence in which Kilgoree kills a man by repeatedly stopping an elevator just looks goofy as all get out, even before we see the scowling Kilgore trying to look menacing in his hoodie.

Given Gypsy's workaholic personality when she was introduced, it doesn't ring true that she'd be angry about Cisco having to put life-saving work ahead of their date. Indeed, it seems she'd be more angry about him blowing off work to be with her, regardless of the holiday.

Great play is made of the fact that Ramsey Deacon wasn't in Central City at the time of The Particle Accelerator Explosion so some outside source must have given him super-powers. This is not the first time Joe and Barry have encountered this, as Deathbolt - the villain Team Arrow confronted in A319 - somehow acquired super-powers despite being in Opal City on the night of The Particle Accelerator Explosion.


Performances

Grant Gustin does a fantastic job of playing the hyper-happy to be alive again Barry Allen with just the right note of Type-A personality to make his sudden change seem natural and not just a forced character note to create drama.


Artistry

The sequence in which The Flash takes an out-of-control car apart at super-speed is well executed.

Even more impressive is the sequence where Barry catches the pieces of a fragmentation grenade in mid-explosion and disposes of them safely.


Flash Facts

Much like Supergirl, this season of The Flash has apparently abandoned the classic introduction setting up the show, with the lines "My name is Barry Allen and I am The Fastest Man Alive..."

Ramsey "Kilgore" Deacon is an original character, unique to the DCTVU. His ability to psychically manipulate electronics, however, is a fairly common power-set in DC Comics. Perhaps the most famous technopath in the comics is Victor "Cyborg" Stone - a member of The New Teen Titans and founding member of The Justice League in the New 52 reality. Other prominent technopaths include Brainiac, Gizmo, the Cyborg Superman Hank Henshaw, Metallo and Kilg%re.

The original Kilg%re first appeared in The Flash #3 (Vol. 2) (August 1987) and was created by Mike Baron and Jackson Guice. The original Kilg%re was an electro-mechano-organic lifeform who required energy to live. Effectively, Kilg%re was a sentient computer virus who could control any machine it passed through and even take over human bodies. Originally only perceivable by beings moving at super-speed, The Flash fought it with the help of Cyborg. It would later reemerge to menace The Justice League

More recently, Kilg%re has appeared in the DC Rebirth Cyborg series, where it has formed an alliance with Gizmo and The Calculator against Victor Stone and built a giant robot body for itself.

The DCTVU version of Kilg%re is an piece of malware developed by Ramsey Deacon which was stolen by three other programmers. Deacon later takes the name Kilgore after developing the power to sense the presence of nearby technology and control it mentally.

The sequence in which The Flash saves one of Deacon's victims by taking a car apart while it is in motion is a classic stunt from The Flash comics.

Barry makes reference to the HBO series Silicon Valley.

At one point, when Kilgore is controlling the new Flash suit, Barry's armor inflates, causing him to appear incredibly round and overweight. This is a visual nod to The Flash #115, where a special gun caused The Flash to absorb moisture and gain weight, swelling up like a balloon.

This episode marks the first appearance of Warden Wolfe - the man in charge of Iron Heights prison. The penultimate scene of the episode show Wolfe menacingly staring at Ramsey Deacon in his cell - a hint at his true sinister nature.

First appearing in The Flash: Iron Heights (August 2001) and created by Geoff Johns and Ethan Van Sciver, Warden Geoffrey Wolfe is a no-nonsense lawman who hates criminals and vigilantes with a passion, particularly metahumans. Ruling the Iron Heights prison with an iron fist, Wolfe adopts extreme measures to keep his charges in-line. This made him unpopular with idealistic cops and The Flash but they reluctantly were forced to accept Wolfe's rule as he was effective in keeping The Rogues locked up. A metahuman himself, Wolfe has the power to cause the muscles of people close to him to seize up, rendering them unable to move.

Warden Wolfe was reintroduced into The DC Comics Rebirth Universe in The Flash #32 - a comic which came out the week before this episode originally aired.


Technobabble

Barry notes that the impact marks on the ceiling and the repeated lateral stress fissures on the frame of the elevator indicate that Kurt Weaver didn't just drop to his death in the elevator - he was shaken to death.

Cisco says the quantum algorithm of The Cortex at STAR Labs should be able to decrypt the hacker code he discovered in the elevator.

Cisco builds Barry a new suit. In addition to being a brighter shade of red, the suit is equipped with self-repairing armor, nano-liquid circuitry, full-spectrum scanning and a custom HUD (Head-Up Display) filled with maps, building schematics and menus for Barry's favorite restaurants. It also contains energy weapons that shoot from Barry's palms, a built-in defibrillator (like the original costume), a dead-lock feature that prevents the costume from being removed (so a villain can't find out his secret identity), a self-destruct sequence (The Babel Protocol) and an inflatable raft to prevent Barry from drowning if he loses his speed while running on water.

One thing that Cisco did not build into the suit? An oxygen tank.

Caitlin determines that the virus code used by the hacker looks like an organic virus with a digital sub-based.. This leads the team to conclude that their hacker is a metahuman whose powers let him control machines.

Most organic viruses mutate in order to avoid being killed by antibodies.

An injection of glucose can be used to treat insulin shock.

Cisco determines that Deacon's powers are derived from the binary code in his DNA. He and Caitlin develop a compound encoded with a numerical string pattern of ones and zeroes to invert the order of the code.

The Thinker is able to extrapolate the ending of Schubert's Unfinished Symphony after one morning's study of his 600 other works.


Dialogue Triumphs

(Caitlin, Iris and Wally are facing the opening breach. Caitlin and Iris have guns raised. Suddenly Cisco runs into the room and waves his hands, standing between them and the breach.)
Cisco: Hold your fire!
(Gypsy jumps from the breach and smiles at the crowd.)
Gypsy: Hey.
(Iris lowers her gun but looks somewhat annoyed.)
Cisco: (To Gypsy) Hey. You want to give me a little more notice next time? You know people who want to kill us come through here, right?
Gypsy: Oh. My bad, guys.
Wally: Cisco, that was.... very heroic of you to just jump in, protecting Gypsy like that. It's pretty impressive.
Cisco: Dude, I'm protecting you from her! She would have vaporized you guys.
(Wally and Caitlin both scoff.)
Gypsy: He's not lying.
(Gypsy makes a gun-shooting gesture at them.)
Cisco: As you were.

Dr. Finkel: So what would you say your goals are for this session?
Iris: Uh, well... I just want to know that Barry hears my concerns about our issues with miscommunication.
(As Iris is talking, Barry's phone starts to vibrate. He pulls it from his pocket and looks at it.)
Barry: I've go to go!
Iris: You've got to go?!
(Barry shows her his phone. Joe's Panic Alarm app has gone off.)
Iris: He's got to go.
Barry: Yeah. 
(Barry starts to get up.)
Iris: Umm...
Barry: Sorry. Ah...
Dr. Finkel: (stunned) This was...
Barry: Sorry.
(Barry leaves the room. Dr. Finkel begins taking notes again.)
Iris: You're going to write down that he ran out of here, aren't you?
Dr. Finkel: ... yes!

(Shelia is going out of her way to antagonize Ramsey.)
Shelia: No! I'm not going to apologize because after four years you finally found some balls!
Ramsey: I found something else. Something I never had with my family. Or at MIT. Or with any of you. 
Shelia: Really? And what was that?
Ramsey: Power.
(Shelia suddenly has a pained expression as Ramsey looks at the insulin pump strapped to her side.)
Ramsey: (with mock sympathy) Oh, you're not still diabetic are you?
(Shelia looks to her side in horror as she begins to gasp for breath.)

Cisco: You're mad at me!
Gypsy: I said it was fine.
Cisco: No, no, no! Rule Number One: When a girl says "it's fine", it is not fine!
Caitlin: Amen!
(Cisco and Gypsy just stare at her.)
Caitlin: I'm going to go.


Continuity

Cisco sets up a 1,000x sped-up loop of all his favorite shows so he could catch up on what he missed after six months in The Speed Force. This suggests that Barry was not aware of what was happening in the world outside of The Speed Force.

Barry is a Game of Thrones fan.

Cisco is still a CCPD Tech Consultant a.k.a. "The Weird Tech Guy", according to Joe.

Caitlin says that she and Ronnie went through couples' therapy together after they started working together.

Caitlin has to struggle to keep herself from changing to Killer Frost in moments of stress, such as an alarm going off.

When Barry and Iris are in the waiting room, Barry sees a newspaper whose front-page headline reads "Mayor Queen Is The Green Arrow". He looks to Iris questioningly about this and she hisses they will talk about it later. This is a nod to the events of A601, where Oliver Queen's secret identity is revealed in the press.

Cisco discovers the common link between the victims - they were all the programmers behind a malware package called Kilg%re. Ramsey Deacon was screwed out of a fortune by his three business partners and is now out for revenge.

Wally West likes punk music.

One-One-One Day is an Earth-19 holiday that seems to be equivalent to Valentine's Day on Earth One. It is meant to be spent with a person you feel that your soul unites with to form one soul. Hence the name, because One Soul + One Soul = One Soul. Gypsy wanted to spend One-One-One Day with Cisco.

Earth 19 also has a holiday called St. Shaquille O'Neal's Day. It apparently does not have Christmas or, at least, does not feature Santa Claus as part of the Christmas celebration, as Gypsy mocks the idea of a man breaking into your home and eating your cookies.

Barry is now fast enough to throw a lighting bolt at himself.

Ramsey Deacon is imprisoned in a special cell at Iron Heights behind three layers of signal-dampening walls. He is not allowed any contact with any kind of electronics - not even electrical lighting. He is only allowed to read paper books by candlelight and laments the loss of his Kindle.

Joe and Barry determine that Ramsey Deacon wasn't in Central City at the time of The Particle Accelerator Explosion four years earlier. Deacon admits that he was given his superpowers from another source but says nothing else, save that the police are about to have their hands full.

Schubert's Unfinished Eighth Symphony was a childhood favorite of The Mechanic.

The Thinker and The Mechanic refer to Ramsey Deacon as "Subject One". He is apparently the first of a dozen metahumans they need to locate.


The Bottom Line

Largely entertaining, despite a weak script dependent on far too much forced drama. Kilgore fails to be a menacing villain and most of the sequences - from the opening elevator scene to Barry's fighting his own suit - are directed in a goofy fashion that reminds one of the bad parts of Richard Lester's Superman 2. Still, the cast manages to carry on and it's nice to see Joe and Wally being given something to do for a change and I like the new, more confident Caitlin Snow.