The Flash looks to the future for answers in “A Flash of Lightning.” The Monitor (LaMonica Garrett) told Barry (Grant Gustin) and Iris (Candice Patton), in order to save billions of people, the Flash must die. Barry wants to see into the future to find another way to save billions of people.
Caitlin (Danielle Panabaker) agreed to let Killer Frost out into the world to build a life of her own. Is Frostie ready for the world? A better question, is the world ready for Killer Frost?
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Barry doesn’t like bad news. And Iris won’t accept it. They have always looked at impending doom in a positive way. There has to be a way to stop the crisis without losing the Flash. They’ve always known the Flash would disappear in the Crisis…in 2024. Barry used the newspaper headline as motivation and now it’s a reminder of the little time he has left.Iris refuses to give up. She is certain they can find a way to change Barry’s fate.
TEAR DOWN THE WALLS
Barry gets the idea to time travel to December 11, 2019 to find out what the Crisis does to the Earth. There’s only one problem. Barry runs into a wall of antimatter that keeps him from running to the future. It also injures his leg. The antimatter is working against Barry’s positive charge, meaning, he can’t run through the antimatter wall.
Barry made a portable Gideon to take with him to the future. She informs him that the only person who can get past the antimatter wall is Earth-3’s Flash, Jay Garrick (John Wesley Shipp). Jay is walking with a cane these days. He says the antimatter could have wipe Barry out of existence.
Jay says he detected antimatter signatures across the multiverse for the past year. If he’s algorithm is correct, all Earths are in danger. Barry says he needs to find a way to break through the wall, but Jay says his body can’t do it. But his mind might be able to.
He built a neuro-hyper collider, it can protect someone’s consciousness across the space time and maybe past the antimatter wall. He asks Barry to test it for him and Barry agrees. Jay’s wife Dr. Joan Willams (Michelle Harrison) walks in and she looks just like Nora Allen, Barry’s mom.
MEANWHILE…
Dr. Ramsey Rosso (Sendhil Ramamurthy) meets another dealer, Mitch Romero (Shawn Stewart) to purchase another dark matter gun. Romero tries to swindle Rosso out of more money. He throws Rosso to the ground and pulls a gun on him. Rosso reaches out to Romero and something emerges from Rosso’s arm, hitting Romero in the chest.
Cisco (Carlos Valdes) and Ralph (Hartley Sawyer) take Killer Frost out on the town. First they inject her with a nanite camouflage serum courtesy of Ray Palmer. It turns off her meta voice and changes her eyes from ice to regular brown. They go to Kamilla’s (Victoria Park) art show and Frostie makes quite an impression on the artists. She thinks the whole place is lame and the so called art is garbage. Talk about judgmental. She insults Kamilla’s work so Kamilla asks Cisco not to bring her to the next show.
Cecile (Danielle Nicolet) is prosecuting a murder case against a young metahuman, Allegra Garcia (Kayla Compton). Allegra is accused of killing a man that she was carjacking. There is an eye witness who pointed out Allegra at the scene. Even though Allegra is accepting her sentence and trying to bargain, there’s something telling Cecile that she’s innocent. Cecile asks the judge to let Allegra out on bail with power dampening cuffs until they can process the new evidence that she made up on the spot.
LOST CAUSE?
Joe (Jesse L. Martin) knows all about Allegra. Allegra was in a juvenile detention center when the particle accelerator exploded. After that, she could control radio waves. Cecile asks Iris and Kamilla to investigate. She is sure her powers are telling her that the girl is innocent. And Ralph agrees.
Ralph looked at the case file and says the burn marks on the victim don’t match injuries from radio waves. He was burned before the crash happened. It looks like she didn’t do it. Iris and Ralph decide to pay her a visit.
It’s not long before Ralph and Iris find her standing over the body of the only eye witness to the alleged murder. The Elongated Man tries to stop her, but she blasts Ralph with her radio waves and burns him. Allegra runs again but Joe is waiting for her, throwing a power dampening cuff on her. He arrests her for parole violation.
OUCH!
They take Ralph back to STAR Labs and Cisco examines him. He was hit with ultraviolet radiation, not radio waves. Since Ralph is a meta too, the radiation only caused a sunburn. Ralph asks for Caitlin, but it’s Frostie’s time in the sun, ha!
Cisco says the UV rays and radio waves are part of the same electromagnetic spectrum. Allegra can control the different types of wavelengths. So she really could have killed those men and Cecile set her free.
TRUST YOUR GUT
Joe interviews Allegra, asking her why she went to see the eye witness. Allegra wanted to prove that she’s innocent. She approached the situation like a reporter trying to find facts for a story. She wants to be a reporter some day. Allegra doesn’t think Joe will ever see her as anything but a criminal. Joe lines out the evidence for her, and asks how she sees it as a reporter. She swears she didn’t kill anyone. She was trying to find out who did.
Cecile comes in, angry and upset that she took a chance on the girl. She demands to know who killed the driver and the eyewitness. Allegra says Cecile would never believe her and asks for her lawyer.
After Cecile and Joe leave the room, Cecile can’t get over the feeling that Allegra knows who really killed those men. Joe says the evidence isn’t fallible, like feelings are. Cecile believes she is the only one who can prove Allegra’s innocence. Joe doesn’t say it, but Cecile has choose between doing her job and trusting her powers.
EARTH-3
When Barry met Joan, he couldn’t help the way he looked at her. She assumes there was someone on his Earth that looks just like her. All Barry says is that she is special. It turns out that Jay needed some help with his decreasing speed and Joan helped him. They fell in love and got married.
The collider is ready. To channel the tachyons into Barry’s frontal cortex, he has to wear Jay’s Flash helmet. Barry can’t help but smile when he puts it on. Jay warns him that beaming his mind past an antimatter wall is risky. This is a life or death situation, so Barry is okay with taking that risk.
They turn on the machine and Barry sees a billion outcomes of the crisis. He sees the antimatter destroy everyone he loves. He sees himself running so fast that he disintegrates. Joan is watching his vital signs and says it’s time to stop. They disconnect Barry, but he’s out cold!
WAKEY-WAKEY
Barry wakes up to the sound of Joan reading poetry to him. I thought Lady Gaga is always the go to. Barry is in a lot of pain. The device overloaded his synapses. He says it feels like his nerves are on fire and they are…sort of. Since Barry is a speedster, he feels ten times the amount of pain than a non-metahuman.
Jay asks Barry what he saw. Barry starts crying, saying he saw billions of possible futures and billions of deaths. He felt all of their pain, suffering and death. The Monitor was right. He has to die. Barry wants to go home to be with Iris.
Iris meets Joan and gives her the same look that Barry did when he saw her. Joan asks about it and Iris admits that she looks like Nora Allen. Even Jay didn’t know that. He bypasses the issue by telling iris that his physical pain will go away, but his mental pain will take some work. They leave the young couple alone.
ALL HOPE IS LOST
Iris tells Barry that Jay and Joan are going to scan Earth-1 for any more antimatter and figure out a way to stop the crisis. Barry is distraught. He knows there is no way to stop the crisis without him dying. Iris says they will get Kara (Melissa Benoist) and Oliver (Stephen Amell) and find a way to stop it.
Barry is still sad about what he saw. Nothing Iris says makes him feel better. She reminds him that he said he wouldn’t give up. Barry says they both have to accept that he will die. Iris is not having it. She can’t just do nothing and wait for Barry to die. The Barry she knows would never stop running or fighting.
RESILIENCE
Joe stops by to talk to Iris about Allegra’s case. Barry offers to take a look in her stead. Joe can sense there’s something wrong and all Barry says is that something is coming and he will have to make a sacrifice to keep everyone safe. Joe tells him a story about almost getting shot. The incident scared Joe pretty bad. His police badge was the only thing that kept him going. It’s a symbol of strength that charges him to get back on the street. They don’t choose to die, but when they hear the call of duty, they are willing to make that sacrifice. It’s not giving up, it’s resilience.
Chester (Brandon McKnight) almost opened another black hole and an alert went off. But Frostie didn’t know that because she was too busy listening to loud music and doodling. Cisco took care of it though. He looks at the doodle and comes to teh conclusion that Frostie wants to be an artist. That’s why she was so mean to the artists at the art show. He thinks it’s cute, but Frostie is not happy with her work.
Frost wanted to recreate a piece of art that she really likes, but it looks like an 8 year old drew the picture. Cisco encourages her to go out and create art, but know that others are doing it too. And she shouldn’t be so judgmental about their work. Frost feels guilty about the mean things she said. Cisco says guilt hurts but it can also help us correct our behavior.
MY DOPPELGANGER DID IT
Cecile tries talking to Allegra, trying to get her to trust her. Allegra thinks Cecile will never understand her because she is a metahuman. Cecile admits that she is a metahuman too and she knows exactly how Allegra is feeling. Allegra opens up about what really happened.
The night of the particle explosion, there was another girl in the room, Allegra’s cousin Esperanza (Alexa Barajas). The two girls were fighting when the explosion happened. Allegra thought Esperanza died in the explosion. The two girls also have the same tattoo on their neck. So it’s possible if Esperanza is alive, it was her who killed these men, but Allegra is sure her cousin is dead.
Cecile calls Ralph and Iris. They were able to get the juvenile detention’s record, but it’s a lot to go through. She tells them to look for Esperanza Garcia. They find her file and find that the guards found her alive, but catatonic. She was put into the custody of a redacted secret organization, confirming that Esperanza is alive.
ULTRA VIOLET RAYS
A masked woman walks into CCPD and starts beating up cops. She says she wants Allegra Garcia. Cecile tries her best to get Allegra to safety, without removing Allegra’s power dampening cuffs. Joe jumps out, shooting at Esperanza, telling her to get out of his precinct. Cecile use the distraction to move Allegra downstairs.
Iris calls Barry to let him know what’s going on. Barry picks up on everything, surmising that Esperanza can’t let anyone know she’s alive. Allegra is innocent. Iris is sending Ralph to the CCPD, but Barry is already out the door, despite the fact that he’s still recovering.
Cecile goes to the elevators, instead of the stairs! Esperanza stops them. Allegra tries to appeal to her cousin’s softer side, but she informs them that Esperanza died in the explosion. She is UltraViolet. She tries to blast them, but Flash moves them out of the way. He tries to run at UltraViolet, but turns away from her UV rays. Gideon tells Flash to retreat. UltraViolet’s UV rays move faster than his top speed.
Flash looks up and sees the CCPD Mural about Truth, Liberty, and Justice. He hears Joe’s words about resilience. He stands up to face UltraViolet. She blasts him with her rays, but he runs towards her. He gets close enough to knock her out and then collapses.
SOMETHING TO FIGHT FOR
They take Barry to STAR Labs where Ralph informs them that Esperanza did kill the two men. She tried to kill Allegra so no one would find out that she’s alive. It looks like UltraViolet was trained as an assassin by this super secret organization. The team needs to find out who they are and help any exploited metas.
Frostie took Caitlin’s credit cards and purchases some art for the lab. Cisco adds her drawing to the wall of art. Ralph is ready to teach her some financial tips. Barry sits back and enjoys the banter amongst his friends. But then he gets sad, knowing what they are in store for.
Cecile decides she doesn’t want to prosecute people anymore. Instead she is going to defend metahumans. Joe loves the idea.
Cecile asked Iris to give Allegra an internship at the Citizen. Allegra shows up for her first day and is warmly greeted by Iris and Kamilla.
A FLASH OF LIGHTNING
Jay and Joan continue to scan for antimatter in the multiverse. They update Barry on their work and go bakc to Earth 2. iris arrives just in time to say goodbye. Barry is still a little thrown off by Joan’s resemblence to his mother.
Barry apologizes for his behavior. He promises that no matter what the crisis brings, he will fight with everything he’s got. He could never chose to die or ever leave Iris. But if his death is the only way to save her, he will do it. Iris knows that whatever they do next, they have to make it count. And they have to tell the rest of the team about what’s coming. And the possibility of life without Flash.
Elsewhere, Rosso takes Romero back to his lab to do a biopsy. He’s hopes the procedure will illuminate the effects of his cure when exposed to another subject. He takes a sample of Romero’s blood. It has coagulated, but there is an unknown substance in it. While he runs his test, Romero gets up off the table and hits Rosso.
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News Editor, Senior Contributor, and Press Editor. Coordinate breaking news, trailers and press releases. I also contribute reviews, recaps and interviews. Creator of the Indigenerd Wire, a column dedicated to the Indigenous creatives in pop culture.
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