The Flash is up and running after powering up the artificial speed force, but it came at high cost. In “The Speed of Thought,” Barry (Grant Gustin) discovers he is more powerful than he thought. He uses this new found power to try and save Iris (Candice Patton) and company from the mirrorverse, but Cisco (Carlos Valdes) has reservations about this new ability.
Last week, Nash Wells (Tom Cavanagh) sacrificed his life to power up the artificial speed force (ASF) so the Flash could save Central City once again. Unfortunately, this means no more versions of Harrison Wells are available to join Team Flash. It truly is the end of an era.
Eva (Efrat Dor) made the shocking discovery that she’s not the real Eva McCulloch, but a mirror version of a dead woman. And Iris continues her search for Kamilla (Victoria Park), Captain Singh (Patrick Sabongui) and a way out of the mirrorverse.
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FAREWELL WELLS
Cisco comes home, but under very sad circumstances. Team Flash holds a memorial for Harrison “Nash” Wells and pays tribute to all of the Wells that have helped them in the past. Cisco asks the question, “why does it feel like for Team Flash to win, someone has to lose?”
Joe (Jesse L. Martin) ends the memorial with a deep and profound message. He says the Wells taught them that their greatest weapon against darkness isn’t their superpowers; it’s their humanity and their love for each other. After everyone leaves, Barry reflects on Joe’s words. Joe tells him not to blame himself for Wells’ death. But Barry thinks his heart is his enemies’ greatest weapon. Joe promises they will get Iris back.
At the Central City Chronicle, Allegra (Kayla Compton) stares at a picture of Nash and his daughter, her doppelganger. She’s very sad now that he’s gone. When she puts the picture on the desk a message pops up on her computer screen. It’s the message Iris sent to Kamilla and Singh. She tells them to meet her at the Speed Lab later that night.
BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD
Cisco brought back an Atlantean door that was supposed to open a portal to the mirrorverse, but it doesn’t work. He tells Barry that it’s time to refocus on getting everyone back. Cisco and Chester (Brandon McKnight) came up with two problems they have to solve first. When Cisco starts his presentation, Barry sees it all happened before Cisco starts talking. He interrupts Cisco, telling him everything Cisco is about to say. Time for some Science.
One- they need to find a method to reconfigure the molecular stability of the dimensional barrier between our world and the mirrorverse. Right now that barrier can damage organic matter, making it impossible to pull anyone from the other side.
And two – they need to find a way to locate Iris, Kamilla and Singh. Right now there is a “quantum entanglement from the Higgs boson particles that is disrupting the geospatial algorithm” that is preventing them from seeing their location.
Barry says all of this so fast, Cisco’s head is spinning. How did Barry know all of this before Cisco could tell him? All Cisco can do is call Barry “freaky.” Allegra heard the past part of that conversation and walked in with her computer. She shows Barry the message from Iris. Barry says Iris’ neural pathways probably achieved equilibrium with the harmonic frequency contained within the mirrorverse. Now Allegra is freaked out too.
SECRETS AND LIES
Last week, Eva found a video of herself dying in the real world. She knows she’s the mirror version of the real Eva McCulloch, but no one else knows that. Sunshine (Natalie Sharp), one of The Three, reports that they successfully raided one of Eva’s late husband’s stash houses, retrieving Eva’s mirror tech.
Eva asks if Sunshine notices anything different about her. The only thing Sunshines says is familiar is the strange look in Eva’s eyes. Carver used to give her the same look when he was keeping secrets. Eva promises she won’t ever lie to Sunshine. For now they are going to continue their raids. Eva wants to take care of the next stash house personally.
Cisco runs some tests on Barry and determines that the artificial speed force enhanced Barry’s cognition, allowing him to think faster. To test his hypothesis, Cisco takes out a quantum ball … like a baseball, but it glows. The quantum ball amplifies kinetic energy firing in unpredictable directions. Barry should not be able to predict where the ball will go unless he can think faster than the ball. He turns around and Cisco throws the ball. Barry tells them what the ball is going to bounce off of as it travels through the room all the while holding up his right hand to catch the ball. To say Cisco is excited is an understatement. Barry has superspeed thinking. And he knows how to open the portal to the mirrorverse.
THE SPEED OF THOUGHT
Barry comes up with a plan to open the portal. When Eva was doing the same thing, she needed Dr. Ramsey Rosso’s (Sendhil Ramamurthy) blood to create a bio-friendly skin on the barrier. Barry says the blood would have bonded with the electronegative particles and become dark matter photons. Those photons should have attached themselves to Eva when she stepped through the barrier.
Cisco agrees with Barry’s assessment but it would take years to create a device to collect the photons. Barry has a board for that too. He says they could “integrate the neural net of the Thinker’s chair, sync it to a nanite bridge, and feed into the Tachyon Enhancer’s non-reductive loop.” Ok … Thank goodness for closed captions.
Next problem … How do they get close enough to Eva to collect the particles. Barry brings out another board. He knows where Carver’s stash houses are and which one Eva will probably hit next.
Cisco is amazed but regretful that he didn’t see it sooner. Barry takes the blame for everything, saying he should have realized who Iris’ mirrorverse doppelganger was sooner. Eva is the latest villain to use Barry’s emotions against him and he wants to make sure she’s the last.
LONG LIVE THE SNOW QUEEN
Iris finds Kamilla spray painting a message on the Star Labs walls. There’s no sign of Singh. Kamilla gets anxious about the what ifs. Iris reassures her that they’ve been through worse. There’s nothing they can’t get through as long as they stick together.
Eva arrives at the next stash house to retrieve her property. Flash and Cisco are waiting for her, hiding in cargo boxes around the warehouse. Cisco says it’s not a good day for them to be short staffed. But Barry thought of that and called in back up.
Eva starts shooting her light lasers around the warehouse and Frost (Danielle Panabaker) shows up to stop her. The two blast each other while Cisco happily watches. Barry’s plan was to have Frost distract Eva while he collects the particles they need with the Tachyon Enhancer strapped to his chest. Frost throws ice at Eva. When Eva moves to avoid being hit, Flash runs circles around her, collecting the photons. Eva has no clue that Flash is there.
Frost runs to hide from Eva. Eva blasts Frost’s hiding place, causing her to fall back. Flash runs to help Frost but stops. Eva gets a close and direct hit on Frost with her light gun. Cisco jumps out and starts shooting at Eva with his blaster. Eva runs away, but Frost is hurt. Cisco is shocked because Flash let Frost get hit.
TAKE THE SHOT
They take Frost back to the med lab and her frostie healing powers won’t work. Barry quickly whips up a cure, but Cisco doesn’t exactly trust it. Barry injects a cryogenically-fortified paracetamol cocktail into Frost anyway. It fortifies her cellular walls and she sits up pretty quickly.
Cisco is upset that Barry let Frost get hit with Eva’s gun. Barry explains that there was a possibility that he could have gotten shot with Eva’s light gun and damaged the Tachyon Enhancer. He chose not to risk it. Frost says she’s fine and now they have what they need to save their friends. She says she would take that shot any day for that reason.
Barry gets really weird at this point. He sounds like a robot when he talks to everyone. He says their next move is to find a way to distract Eva. She will be watching iris and will know when they open a portal. Barry tells Frost to rest for14.2 minutes and then help Cisco gather intel on Eva. Barry is going to aggregate. Huh?
Cecile (Danielle Nicolet) visits with Allegra and can feel her sadness about Nash. Allegra says her dad left them when she was a baby, so she’s never had a father figure. She says she should just let it go, but Cecile says their lost loved ones are never really gone. They carry them with them everyday. And how Allegra decides to carry Nash is up to her.
REVEALING EVA
Barry discovers that this isn’t Eva’s world. He turns on the television and Eva is on a talk show. She says she is going to continue her work to improve the world. Barry says when Joseph Carver (Eric Nenniger) died, he said this wasn’t Eva. Barry analyzed her behavior, body language and handwriting to determine that this is not the real Eva McCulloch.
Barry hacks into the McCulloch database and finds the video of the real Eva dying. Then, Barry hacks into the television broadcast and plays the video. Everyone is shocked and Eva loses it. The TV host starts yelling at Eva, asking if she’s a meta. If she’s not Eva McCulloch, who or what is she? Eva runs away through a reflective surface.
Cisco and Frost are shocked that Barry would expose Eva like that, but he says it was the most efficient way to distract her. He adds that, historically, when their enemies are upset, they make mistakes. He tells Cisco to prep the portal machine and get their “targets” while she’s not paying attention. Cisco corrects Barry, saying their “friends” not targets. Cisco and Frost agree that something is seriously wrong with Barry.
A SECOND OPINION
Barry asks Gideon for a second opinion on the probability of their success. She confirms what he already knew. They can’t save them all. The team has to chose. Barry ran the scenarios in his head and came up with a problem. They don’t have enough particles to save all three of their friends. The longer they are in the mirrorverse, the more dark matter photons it takes to pull them out. It would take all of the photons energy to pull out Iris, but the same amount to pull out Kamilla and Singh together.
Cisco and Frost are upset, but they don’t have any way to decide except to vote. Barry votes for Iris. Frost, Allegra and Cisco vote to save Kamilla and Singh. And this is a simulation in Barry’s head. Gideon asks if she should inform the rest of the team of this development and Barry says no. He says he will take care of it alone. Barry goes as far as to turn Gideon off.
Iris and Kamilla arrive in the speed lab and realizes there is a lot of stuff in the lab. Singh shows up and immediately collapses. Iris says it’s an effect of being shot by the mirror gun instead of being pulled through a mirror. And guess what happens. Kamilla collapses too for the same reason.
FLASH VS THE WORLD
Barry puts on his super suit and prepares to open the portal when Cisco asks to talk to him. Cisco thinks there’s something wrong with the artificial speed force. When they built the ASF, they used an inert substance that would generate no emotional fallout. The ASF gave Barry super speed thinking, but it also turned off his emotions. Barry says he’s better this way and the team is safer.
Cisco starts to reason with Barry and notices the screen has three figures. The portal target is set to Iris. Barry admits that they don’t have enough dark matter photons to save everyone. Cisco gets upset that Barry decided alone to save only Iris. Barry justifies his decision by saying Iris has knowledge of Eva and that would give them an advantage. Singh and Kamilla are expendable.
This angers Cisco. He pulls out a blaster and points it at Barry. Frost and Allegra walk in, ready to face off against Barry. Cisco says they are going to give Barry his heart back. It will be by Barry’s choice or their force. Barry puts on his hood and says iris would agree with him, but Cisco disagrees.
LOOK AT FROSTIE GO!
Flash starts to run and Cisco shoots him with Velocity X. The drug will dampen Flash’s speed. Flash grabs the quantum ball and throws it. he runs between Allegra and Cisco, knocking them over. When he turns to Frost, she has just injected herself with Velocity X. Barry runs and Frost runs after him through Central City. The chase ends when Flash throws Frost off a building and she lands on top of a parking garage. He says the Velocity X is wearing off. Frost isn’t only a speedster though.
Frost throws ice at Barry. Allegra runs up and throws a special rock at the top of the building that transports Flash back to Star Labs. They enacted the Babel Protocol before confronting Barry. But Barry did something else. He threw the quantum ball. The ball comes back and knocks out Cisco, Allegra and Frost quicker than you can say artificial speed force. With his team down, Flash can continue with his plan to save Iris.
Barry opens the portal and Iris sees him. She wants him to take Kamilla and Singh first, but Barry nly wants Iris. This isn’t the outcome he predicted. He turns up the portal’s magnetic field, pulling Iris through the portal. Iris tries to stop him so he turns up the portal again. Iris comes through and collapses. Barry is concerned and tries to talk to her, but Iris is convulsing. Barry looks around and sees Cisco, Frost and Allegra on the floor. He gets upset with himself and throws a lightning bolt at the ASF. The ASF shoots a lightning bolt back. Barry falls to the floor and watches Iris shaking on the ground.
THE WORLD IS WHAT YOU MAKE OF IT
Eva is in shock, hiding in her office, and repeating that this isn’t her world. She stops talking, looks at herself in the mirror and smiles. It’s not her world but it could be.
At the CCPD station, an officer leaves for the night. She get in the elevator and pulls our her keys, but drops them. when she picks them up, she looks in the mirror and sees herself smiling back. Two hands reach out and grab the officer, pulling her into the mirror. The officer screams …
ONCE UPON A TIME…
A man screams for help as he hears police sirens. Flashback to the night that Eobard Thawne stole Dr. Harrison Wells’ identity. After he sucked the life out of Wells, Thawne buried the body by the side of the road. After many years, dark matter photons rise from the gravesite and reform Wells.
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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.
GGA's resident Indigenerd, a little bit rez, a little bit classy...with a love for all things Star Wars, zombies, science fiction, and Indigenous. My ultimate goal is to start my own podcast.
