'The Flash' Recap: Barry Gets a Hand From Arrow, Firestorm… and Captain Cold?
Warning: This recap contains storyline and character spoilers for this week’s episode of The Flash.
This week’s The Flash features pretty much every meta-human that’s ever appeared on the show — the ones who are still alive, anyway. Stephen and Robbie Amell (the Arrow and Firestorm, respectively) teaming up to stop Wentworth Miller (Captain Cold) and all the villains held prisoner in the Pipeline make for a tough-to-beat episode as the season finale looms.
The Plot
Barry, Cisco, and Caitlin see that Wells is powering up the accelerator, which is where they store all the supervillains. If it goes online with them inside, the criminals will be vaporized, so Barry tries to find a way to relocate them.
A.R.G.U.S. offers them Lian Yu — an island prison familiar to fans of Arrow — but they need to transport them to the airfield for pick-up. Barry makes a deal with Captain Cold, who promptly double-crosses them, and all the villains escape — except for Deathbolt (one of the only meta-humans to make an appearance in Arrow’s Starling City), who Cold kills because “he owed me money.”
With the reactor fully operational, Reverse Flash returns to S.T.A.R. Labs, only to be met by Flash, Arrow, and Firestorm. They stop him, and Barry is left with an unconscious Eobard Thawne.
“You’re Not the Arrow, Barry”
Barry is constantly trying to live up to the ideal that he sees Oliver Queen setting, but Joe points out that they are vastly different. Different enough that, despite them coming from exactly the same writers and producers, you can love Arrow and hate The Flash or vice versa.
Even if you love both, you’ll prefer one over the other depending on why you love superheroes. Some people love the empowerment fantasy of it: fighting for what’s right with your fists. Others love the idealism: that if you believe strongly enough, justice will assert itself in the world. Between the two shows, they represent all the best parts of the superhero genre.
Related: Get Up to Speed With Our Recaps of ‘The Flash’
Tearing Off the Band-Aid
Eddie is avoiding Iris because of his future knowledge that she will marry Barry. She confronts him, and he tells her what he told her earlier in the season, that there have always been three people in the relationship — only this time, he’s giving up the fight for her.
In some respects, that’s good for Eddie: If he were to try to marry her, maybe it’s his death that sends her into Barry’s arms. On the other hand, Reverse Flash is a bad guy, and he may have been lying to inflame Eddie’s jealousy, and who knows? Maybe become a supervillain in his own right? It’s basically the arc they used for The Riddler over on Gotham. Any way you look at it, it’s hard not to feel bad for him. How does a normal guy compete romantically with a superhero?
Orange Soda
Only Cisco could have thought to bring an orange soda to use as a Reverse Flash detector. It probably comes from multiple viewings of Jurassic Park. Ripples in a glass of water means there’s a T-Rex nearby, right?
What Was on That Paper?
That was a strange thing to bring up and then never mention again, right? Considering that what Barry immediately acquiesced to was erasing all mention of Leonard Snart locally, nationally, and internationally. What could he have asked for that was a dealbreaker for him? Also, is Foreigner’s “Cold as Ice” always playing on the jukebox when Snart is around? Maybe he asked him to put the band together for a reunion show in Central City.
The Fight
It took four heroes — Barry’s speed, Ronnie’s fire, Oliver’s arrows, and Atom’s nanites — to beat Reverse Flash. Or did they? Eobard Thawne has been beating them this entire season; he’s probably got one more trick up his sleeve, right? I mean, where are they going to hold him? In the accelerator that he just spent two episodes revving up?
Inside Comics Moment
Wait, wait, wait: Barry, did you just say that Ferris Airfield was shut down because “one of their test pilots disappeared”? That’s crazy, because Hal Jordan was a test pilot working for Ferris Air when he was yanked from a simulator by Abin Sur… which means that the Green Lantern exists in the Arrow/Flash universe. It looks like Season 2 is shaping up to be one heck of a barn burner!
The Flash airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. on The CW.
