Photo: Jeff Weddell/The CW
Warning: Spoiler Alert
After coming out of the gate in its sophomore campaign with back-to-back chapters jam-packed with action and revelations the CW series “The Flash,” slowed the pace in episode three presenting what could best be described as a transitional episode. Don’t take that as a knock, in a TV season that consists of 23-episodes a series needs chapters that set things up for down the line and this one accomplished that quite well. The hour also ended with two incidents that could affect Team-Flash over the next few weeks.
Our first few moments in Central City find Iris West in an unusual situation, getting shot at by two guys trying to prevent her from publishing a story exposing a real-estate scam they head-up. Iris calls Barry on her cellphone and tells him she needs his help badly. Even though she’s on one of the upper floors of a high-rise Barry tells her to jump and shows up in plenty of time to catch her and deposit her safely on the ground below. The Flash then knocks out the gunmen and take their weapons, leaving them in a neat package for the CCPD to lockup.
Back at STAR Labs Barry tries to enter the portal that’s now part of the facility, but he bounces off it as if he hit a wall. Jay Garrick explains that the portal’s one of two doors that connect his earth to ours and in between those two doors lies a hallway. The problem’s that all three parts keep fluctuating so until they can stabilize it they can’t enter it, he tells Team-Flash that’s his new project.
After meeting a mysterious woman only identified as Mrs. West last week, I’d assumed that she came from Earth-Two as Garrick did. However tonight we found out that Francine West hails from our planet and she’d abandoned her husband and young daughter 20-years before. Turns out Francine was a junkie and had overdosed, Iris saved her mother by calling 911 but Francine left the little girl in a dangerous situation with the stove burning. Joe had lied all these years that Iris’ mother died, to protect his daughter from the sordid truth.
Joe hands his ex-wife an envelope filled with money for her to leave Central City and never return. Francine refuses the envelope and tells him it’s time for her to meet her daughter, Joe infers she gave up that right when she left decades earlier. He gives her back the envelope and says please leave she says she’s staying in Central City as he leaves the lunch counter.
Patty Spivot nearly runs into Barry at CC Jitters and then she looks at him and says the Flash. Concerned at first that she’s figured out his secret, she explains that the shop’s running a promotion serving a brew they’ve labeled the Flash. He asks her if she wants to join his table and she tells him she’s got to get to work. He goes to his table joining Caitlin, Cisco and Iris. Cisco accidentally bumps into a young woman and apologizes, the woman turns around revealing she’s Lisa Snart and tells Cisco he can bump into her anytime.
The tech-expert automatically assumes the worst and threatens to get Flash to show up and the criminal tells him to please do it. Cisco’s puzzled by her response and she tells him her brother Leonard, aka Captain Cold got kidnapped the night before. She says that the pair and Heat-Wave robbed a place and when they left the building Snart got grabbed and shoved into a van and someone hit her on the head from behind and knocked her cold. When she came to the van and Heat-Wave had gone.
Cisco and Caitlin take Lisa to STAR Labs where the Flash joins them and she tells her story to him. Turns out that Cisco can track Captain Cold’s Cold-Gun and he gives Flash the location. When Flash arrives he sees Snart’s robbing the place and the Scarlet Speedster tells him that Lisa thinks he got kidnapped. Captain Cold zaps Flash with his Cold-Gun setting him in ice from his chest down. Just then Snart’s father Lewis walks through the door and congratulates his son and the two leave. Cisco’s able to save Flash by heating up his suit via remote-control and the ice melts off in seconds.
When Flash returns to STAR Labs he accuses Lisa of lying, but when she hears Leonard’s with their father she realizes something’s amiss. She says they both despise their father and her brother wouldn’t be with him willingly and says he’s a really bad guy. Caitlin’s shocked at the statement telling Lisa her whole family are criminals and asks what makes him so evil? Lisa lowers the neckline of her shirt revealing a scar and tells Caitlin she didn’t get that scar being a criminal, she got it being a daughter and walks off. Cisco tells the other two he’s got this and goes after her.
Lisa opens up to Cisco and tells him her father started beating her when she was seven. She says that Leonard raised her and if it wasn’t for him she would have turned out far worse than she did. She then smiles and tells Cisco she realizes he can’t picture her any worse, but she infers their father’s pure evil.
Joe shows up at Iris’ newspaper and he’s about to pull the boneheaded move and tell his daughter the truth about her mother at work when her co-worker Linda Park walks over and tells her they need her story as soon as possible as it’s going to be featured on the front-page. Iris and Joe get very excited and he tells his daughter they’ll speak later as she’s got to finish her story.
Barry tracks down Snart at a restaurant and he tells him that his sister says they both hate their father and asks why he’s working with him. Leonard replies it’s complicated it’s family and says Barry should relate given his situation with his parents and tells him not to worry. He says they’ve got a deal that Flash leaves Captain Cold alone as long he doesn’t kill anybody and he refrains from telling the world Flash’s secret identity. Barry says that Leonard lives by a code that the old man doesn’t follow and if anyone dies he’ll come after them hard. Snart leaves the restaurant and Barry with the tab.
Joe calls Barry and asks him to come to the house and he tells Barry about lying all these years about Francine and he’s freaking out about telling Iris as she’ll hate him for lying all these years. Barry comforts his surrogate-dad by telling him his daughter’s a grown woman and will handle the truth well. He tells Joe how fearless she was in tracking her story and tells West that his daughter’s going to understand.
Turns out there’s a third member of Lewis’ team a tech-guy. The old man’s not too happy with him as he failed to succeed in an assignment Lewis gave him. The old man starts going over the plan for the heist and he’s not worried about collateral damage but Leonard tries to persuade him to commit the robbery without killing anybody. The old man says that in their business killing somebody often is part of the job.
He starts going further into the plan and says that’s when Leonard kills the guards with his Cold-Gun and Snart once again says they can do things without hurting anybody. The tech-guy then loses it and starts screaming at Snart telling him the only reason he’s on the job’s because of that gun and starts insulting him. Lewis pulls a sonic device out of his pocket and the tech-guy starts holding his ears and screaming in pain until his head literally explodes. The old man says nobody talks to his son like that.
Joe and Barry arrive at a crime scene that Patty’s been at for a while. There’s a body under a sheet and she lifts it to reveal the man’s headless. She asks Barry what kind of a tool could the murder used to leave the jagged scar on what’s left of his neck. Barry responds it almost seems like his head blew off and he says he’ll get the results to the lab so they can get something to work from.
Later that afternoon Joe tells Barry the victim’s name was David Rubenberg and he was a close associate of Lewis Snart. The lab showed Thermite in what remained of his skull and traces on his neck and they realize the old man injected him with it and wonder if he injected Leonard.
Jay’s working on trying to stabilize the portal and Caitlin walks in to check out his progress. He then opens up about the loss he feels in regards to losing his super-speed. He spent the previous two-years trying to save his world and now he’s just another guy. Caitlin tells him he’s far from that, he’s a brilliant scientist and physicist and she thinks he might help the world more using those skills. Suddenly Cisco calls her and says he needs her up front immediately.
We see Caitlin examining Lisa with a look of shock on her face and confirms Cisco finding traces of Thermite in her head. Cisco tells her that when she got knocked out her father injected her with the explosives planting a bomb in her brain. But he assures her that he’s going to get it out of her and she’ll be fine.
Iris comes to her father’s home and says his message was cryptic even for him. Joe wastes no time or pulls any punches in telling Iris about her mother and the reasons he lied and said she died. He tells her she was a junkie who endangered her when she was a little girl. He says he didn’t want Iris growing up feeling her mother rejected her, so he invented this perfect mother that died when Francine left. He breaks down crying and begs her to forgive him. Iris says she understands exactly why he did what he did.
Flash and Caitlin try manipulating the bomb in Lisa’s head with a magnet when Cisco realizes what they’re doing and screams for them to stop as the magnet will cause it to explode. He says he’ll figure out a solution all he needs is time to clear his head and think the situation through. Just then Barry says he’s going to infiltrate the old man’s game as the tech-guy.
Barry head’s to the old man’s hideout and speaks with Leonard telling him they’re aware of the bomb Lewis injected into Lisa’s head and Cisco’s working on a safe way to extract it. Lewis walks into the room and asks his son who Barry is and Allen introduces himself as Sam saying he helped Leonard bypass alarms in a couple of robberies. The old man asks his son if he’ll vouch for him and when Leonard says yes Lewis says let’s go pull the job.
The trio enter a facility wearing maintenance uniforms and give their id badges to the security guards at the front desk. One of the guys tries scanning the tags and the computer fails to authorize them, so Lewis starts to grab his guns to kill the two guards. Thinking quickly Barry says they can call for verification but do they really want to get chewed out by angry executives about the overflowing toilets? They wave them through.
When they teach the floor they want they see two security guards nearby and again the old man reaches for his gun, but Barry gets them both off the floor at super-speed and then tells Lewis let’s go the guards are gone. He tells the two of them to keep lookout and he punches in four number codes until he’s granted access and the door opens. Lewis says good job kid it’s good to go out on top and shoots Barry in the chest and he falls to the ground. The old man charges forward but Leonard stays behind for a second and says sorry Barry. When we return from a commercial we see what really happened, Barry grabbed the bullet in his hand at super-speed and slumped to the floor.
Cisco’s come up with a plan he’s going to place a high pressure weapon to Lisa’s temple and suck the bomb into the weapon. He says there’s a risk involved as it involves a blast of air, which could set off the Thermite, but Lisa tells Cisco she trusts him.
Lewis and Leonard head into a vault that’s protected by laser alarm system, but a blast from the Cold-Gun freezes the beams and Leonard walks through them shattering them. He tells the old man he’s got 125 seconds before the lasers defrost sounding the alarm. Lewis puts a stethoscope up against the wall of the safe and soon has it opened and steals it’s contents, some large size diamonds.
The alarm sounds and Leonard says they’ve got to split and the old man says let’s go, but they’re stopped as Flash enters the vault. Cisco has him stall for time as he lines up the weapon against Lisa’s head and he successfully extracts the bomb. Flash tells Leonard Lisa’s safe and he blasts Lewis in the heart with the Cold-Gun. The old man looks shocked and says your working with the Flash I thought you hate him. Leonard responds he hates the old man more and Lewis dies. Barry asks why he killed him as Lisa was safe and he responds the old man broke his sister’s heart, it’s only fair he broke his.
Their pact broken, Flash takes Snart into custody and comes to visit him at Iron Heights Prison, where his father was held for 20-years. Leonard says Barry best hope Snart doesn’t talk in his sleep and Barry laughs. He says you won’t you confirmed something today that I always believed, there’s good in you. You don’t have to admit it, but we both know it’s true. Leonard asks sarcastically should I become a hero Barry, what does that pay? Barry smiles and says you never know, perhaps setting up the transition for Snart’s upcoming role in Legends Of Tomorrow which premieres early in 2016.
Garrick’s stabilized the portal and Stein throws a book through it proving Jay was successful. He asks Garrick what he’s waiting for and Jay says that’s right I can go home now. However Caitlin whose crushing big time on Earth-Two’s Flash convinces him to stay until they defeat Zoom. He then says he needs a shower a meal and some sunshine and says he’ll see them all later.
Caitlin asks Professor Stein how he’s feeling and he says rest seemed to make him better. Suddenly his speech becomes halted, his eyes turn white and flames start emanating from the top of his head and through his hands and then he passes out. Barry says he started to heat up like Firestorm and Caitlin says they need to examine him.
Our last scene shows us one of the portals open in Central City and we watch a figure walk through. The camera pans up to the person’s face revealing it to be Harrison Wells.
The Story Continues Next Tuesday Night at 8:00 pm on The CW.
