Photo: Cate Cameron/The CW Network
Warning: Spoiler Alert
This week’s chapter of The CW Network series “The Flash,” revolved around picking up the pieces, recovering from traumatic injuries and regaining confidence. The pummeling the Scarlet Speedster received in his first encounter with Zoom left Barry Allen a broken man, physically and mentally. The monster from Earth-Two broke Allen’s back and humiliated him in front of the people he swore to protect. The Flash’s super-metabolism healed his physical wounds within a week, but it took a heart-to-heart talk with Barry’s hero before he regained confidence in his abilities and himself.
We join Team-Flash at STAR Labs a week after Barry’s spine got shattered, he’s slowly walking with the aid of a cane and Detective Joe West. He runs out of steam and says that it for that session. Caitlin tells him that the MRI results from earlier that afternoon show that he’s almost completely healed and he should be donning his suit shortly.
Harrison Wells tells Team-Flash he’s heading back to Earth-Two but Caitlin attempts to convince him to stay with them until they defeat Zoom. He walks off saying he’s going back to his dimension with or without their assistance. Cisco and Joe ask Snow why she’s so adamant about wanting Wells to stay and she says with Jay Garrick in the wind he’s their only source of knowledge on Zoom.
Cisco has his first date with Kendra Saunders and they’re going to see The Princess Bride in a cinema. They touch and Ramon goes Vibe and sees a vision of Kendra in her Hawkgirl uniform but he can’t process what he sees and it freaks him out. He tells her he hates to do this but he needs to leave and she stands there after he leaves confused and clueless.
Ramon’s not the only one with romantic problems as Barry has avoided seeing Patty since he got hurt and she knows he’s hiding something. She calls him and offers to bring over soup and take care of him but he tells her he’d hate for her to get sick. She hangs up confused and unhappy.
We jump to some scientific facility and we watch scientists and techs interacting when suddenly one of the top scientists Dr. Jeffrey Shore starts getting visions. One of his subordinates tries talking to Shore but he’s unresponsive then smashes open a plate-glass storage container and grabs a large canister inside it. The other guy tries to stop him, but Shore hits him in the head with the canister and flees the facility.
He gets down to the street and suddenly he becomes coherent as if he’d been sleeping. He asks himself what he’s done and then sees the creature that controlled his mind Grodd, the super-ape that gained his powers when the particle-accelerator exploded. Shore asks the ape who he is and the giant simian growls back stupid human I’m Grodd.
Barry gets on the treadmill as Iris and Joe watch and West keeps throwing out words of encouragement. Barry finally starts to let loose when he flashes back mentally to getting beaten by Zoom he freaks out trips and gets thrown from the treadmill. Iris tries to connect with Barry but soon walks off and lets Joe talk to him. Allen tells the detective that Zoom destroyed him, he beat him to a pulp and showed all of Central City how he mastered the Flash. All those people he pledged to keep safe saw that he couldn’t back up his words.
West talks to Iris and says that Barry’s healed physically but nobody can get through to him. She says then it’s time to get the one person that can get through to him. Joe smiles and says they’ll discuss that at home, Patty just called him about a new case.
Caitlin tracks down Wells at a diner as he’s in the process of making a map. She says he has to stay and help Team-Flash and he says he made a big mistake coming to Earth-Prime. He says he hoped that with the help of the Flash he’d defeat Zoom, now he’s going back to his world to accomplish that. Snow says he’ll just get himself killed and how will that help his daughter? She says they should have concentrated on closing the breaches to Wells’ world and the light goes on in his eyes. They’ll close all the breaches except for the largest in STAR Labs and trap Zoom.
Patty and Joe work the death of Dr. Jeffrey Shore and they believe their suspect’s a Meta-Human. Spivot says there was a similar case at another science facility a couple of weeks before and she’s going to check out the other case for similarities. She also comments they found lots of hair at the scene and she’s getting that identified.
Cisco and Caitlin are talking when she becomes unresponsive and we see she’s having the same visions that Shore experienced. She slugs Ramon in the jaw and runs out, Barry and Cisco watch Snow leaving the building as if in a trance and Grodd’s following her.
Joe arrives at the lab with news that Grodd’s returned and Wells says that his dimension’s also got a version of the super-ape. Just then the man Iris summoned to get through to Barry arrives, Henry Allen embraces his son as Team-Flash attempts to come up with a solution to save Caitlin. Cisco comes up and says they’ve got a solution to save Snow and Allen asks him how. Barry hears a voice behind say with me and he turns around to see the Reverse-Flash sneering at him. Allen’s about to start beating him when Ramon explains it’s Harry and they found this suit in the vault. Wells will attempt to convince the simian that he’s the man that raised him.
Caitlin wakes up on the floor and starts calling for Grodd, the ape hears her and jumps down from the rafters to greet her. Grodd tells her that she’d always been kind to him and he needs her help. He asks her how he acquired his abilities and she says it’s a long and complicated story, but the actual cause was Dark Matter. Grodd says to her repeat, she wants her to create more of his kind. She says she doesn’t know how and Grodd says learn.
Dr. Henry Allen gives his son a complete physical and says he’s completely healed physically, then Barry tells him what he told Joe. Henry tells his son that his life got destroyed and his reputation ruined when he got charged with killing his wife and Barry’s mother. He said he could see it in people’s faces in the courtroom during the trial, how they stopped trusting him and he eventually lost them all. His son asks him how he survived and Henry says by embracing it, if he could survive the experience he could withstand anything. He says he believes in his son and he’ll win back the people’s trust.
Wells and Cisco track down Caitlin in Grodd in a church bell-tower and Wells walks in and says hey buddy to Grodd. The giant ape says that his father’s dead but Harrison says no buddy I’ve just been gone for a while. He says now that he’s back Grodd doesn’t need Snow so he’s going to take her out of there and then says please. Grodd growls and throws Wells against a wall saying father take not ask and asks who he is?
Ramon and Snow can escapee and Barry tells them to take off but Cisco says that Harry’s still in there. Allen tells Wells to inject the ape with large quantities of the drugs he stole from the facilities and that will knock him out. Wells grabs the implements to inject the ape with and then he says he is Grodd’s father and Grodd just struck his father. As he’s telling him he didn’t abandon him he injects the gorilla with the drugs and he passes out allowing all to escape.
Caitlin stitches up the gash in Wells’ abdomen when they return to STAR Labs and West says they’ve got to do something about Grodd. Snow asks if he means killing the great best Joe says yes and she says it’s not his fault and he’s lonely and he’s looking for others of his kind. Harrison says that one of the breaches in Central City contains a jungle-habitat on Earth-Two with other intelligent creatures. When someone asks how they’ll lure him there, Henry says my son will lead him right Flash?
Caitlin lures Grodd out to the street then Flash takes her away and tells the ape if he wants Caitlin he needs to catch him. Grodd leaps from rooftop to rooftop and surprises Flash who once again has a flashback of Zoom and freaks, Grodd’s stepping on him and asking where Caitlin’s at? She lures Grodd into the circle that the breach covers and then Flash pulls her out of there. The breach starts sucking in the giant simian but he’s fighting to break free.
Henry contacts Flash through the com-device and tells his son he can’t let Grodd get free. He needs to summon up his strength and courage and knock him through the breach. Flash does it and the portal closes.
Cisco has another date with Kendra and when they kiss he realizes she’s Hawkgirl and he says you’re awesome. She asks him why and he says because she’s such a great kisser.
