Time is a finicky thing on The Flash. In “The Man in the Yellow Tie,” Barry (Grant Gustin) comes face to face with an old enemy who’s not quite the baddie he once was. And Iris (Candice Patton) is still missing. 

RELATED: The Flash Recap (S08E17): Keep It Dark

MORE POWERS, MORE TROUBLES

The Flash trains Dr. Meena Dhawan (Kausar Mohammed) to control her artificial speed. She narrates that in every atom there’s a perfect balance of proton and electrons. But it’s the negative particles that let an atom grow. Remember this kids.

While the two speedsters run in the woods, Meena accidentally hits Flash with her lightning, causing the Flash to fall. The Flash also loses some of his power. He wants to go over Meena’s biometrics but she has to return to her lab. Her speed is running out. 

Cecile (Danielle Nicolet) goes to the bank to make a deposit at the same time a trio of robbers show up. Everyone cowers down, except Cecile. Her eyes light up and she uses her empathic abilities to throw the fear in the room onto the robbers. The CCPD shows up to arrest the trio. This is new. 

Chester (Brandon McKnight) examines Cecile at the med bay, transferring the data to Gideon. Cecile’s empathic capacity rose a thousand percent, giving her the ability to move emotions. Allegra (Kayla Compton) thinks its badass but she’s concerned as to why it happened. Barry is concerned too, but not about Cecile. He’s worried about Meena and her artificial lightning. The artificial speed force doesn’t affect Meena biologically, so Chester suggests they take a peek at the generator at her lab. 

THE MAN IN THE YELLOW TIE

Barry goes to Fast Track labs, on behalf of The Flash. He tells Meena the Flash asked for a second set of eyes on the generator to make sure everything is safe. Meena agrees and takes Barry to the lab, where he meets her assistant, Eobard Thawne (Matt Letscher), the OG version. The face who killed Barry’s mother.

Eobard helped Meena create the generator that is far more advanced than anything in that time. Barry is taken back meeting the man in the yellow tie, only to find out that he lost his memory. While Meena takes a call, Barry tells Eobard who they are to each other. Eobard denies knowing Barry or having any knowledge of murdering anyone. As Barry leaves the lab, he calls Chester to make sure there are no reports of Thawne escaping ARGUS. Chester is shocked to hear that another Eobard Thawne is walking around. 

Flashback … Eobard showed up at Meena’s lab for a job interview. He did not have the credentials she was looking for. He did solve a hard equation that Meena was working on for months. That’s how the OG Eobard came to work for Meena.  

SAME MAN, DIFFERENT FACE

Barry races to ARGUS to make sure the villainous Thawne (Tom Cavanagh) is still in a cage and he is. Barry asks all kinds of questions, wondering how Thawne can be in two places at once. This Thawne doesn’t know anything. He says there are no other versions of him out there. He tells Barry to leave him alone. 

Barry remembers that Thawne’s existence was almost erased during Armageddon. His past must have been erased, meaning the OG Thawne is from another timeline. In fact, Barry knows there’s another version out there. He encountered this other version once before in Flashpoint. He caught that Thawne, but had to let him go to correct the timeline. That Thawne encountered the Legends and was killed by Black Flash. 

Barry draws a picture of the generator and says the other Thawne built it. This Thawne says the picture is of his biometric lightning oscillation chamber that he will build two centuries from now. That’s how Thawne tapped into the negative speed force. Which is probably why Meena’s powers are so erratic. Her powers are not artifical, they’re negative. If she keeps using the generator, the negative speed force will take over and destory Meena. This Thawne reminds Barry that no matter when or where they are, Thawnes always look out for number one. He says that Thawne will sacrifice Meena to get what he wants. 

THE CUBE

Barry offers to help Meena with her special project on The Flash

The Flash — “The Man in the Yellow Tie” — Image Number: FLA818a_0r.jpg — Pictured (L-R): Kausar Mohammed as Dr. Meena Dewan and Grant Gustin as Barry Allen — Photo: Colin Bentley/The CW — 2022 The CW Network, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

After Barry leaves, John Diggle (David Ramsey) walks out of the shadows to have a conversation with Mr. Thawne. Diggle needs Thawne’s help to open up the cube he found at the end of Crisis on Infinite Earths. No one else can open it either. The cube’s knowledge is beyond any current human understanding and it can transport matter. Diggle thinks since Thawne is from the future, he might know how to open it. 

Diggle is obsessed with the cube. In his quest to try to re-open it, he spent a lot of time away from his family. The cube calls to him. The further away he is from the cube, the louder the voices are. He needs to know what the voices want so he can put it all to rest. Thawne has seen transmatter technology before. He agrees to help Diggle but only if he gets to see what’s inside. 

Flash runs back to Fast Track labs to stop Eobard from hurting anyone. Meena is getting ready to run again, but she upped the voltage to make her speed last longer. They power up the generator, but the Flash show sup before Meena can charge up. He tells her that her speed is connected to the negative speed force and will change her. He also tells Meena who Eobard Thawne really is.

Flash’s attack on Eobard makes Meena angry. She yells at Flash to leave Eobard alone and charges up. There’s too much power in the generator, altering Meena’s brainwaves. Flash tries to pull her out but the negative charge throws him back, knocking him and Eobard out. When Meena is charged up, her eyes glow red and she wants more speed. Meena runs around town, looking for power sources to increase her speed. 

DIGGLE’S CHOICE

Caged Thawne tells Diggle that the cubes appear to people at a crossroads in their lives. When it came to Diggle, he just buried Oliver Queen. He was on his way to Metropolis with his family. Thawne says the cube chose Diggle because he was in charge of his destiny for the first time. He has to be ready to accept its power for the cube to open. Thawne tells him to put himself back in the headspace he was in the night he found the cube. The cube opens.

Diggle sees many things and hears many voices. The cube shows him what he could become, but Diggle refuses the offer. He throws the cube and it disappears. Diggle refused because taking the offer would mean he would never return to his family. Thawne is angry that he didn’t get to see inside of the cube. He thought it would be a way out. 

Thawne says this was Diggle last chance to be someone powerful. Diggle says he is special. The cube wanted to make him something else. It tried to convince him that he wanted it too, but he doesn’t. There’s no power in the universe more power than what he has with his family. John leaves and calls Lyla (Audrey Marie Anderson) to let her know he’s coming home. 

ALL FOR LOVE

Back at Fast Track, the Flash’s power is canceled out. He can’t even contact Chester. Flash accuses Eobard of trying to corrupt Meena with the negative speed force. Turns out Eobard and Meena are in love. He tells the Flash that he wanted to be a speedster so he could save the world. That’s why he helped her build the generator, but only one person could use it. One night in the lab, Meena suffered a heart attack. The only way to save her was to put her in the generator so she could become the speedster. Eobard gave up his dream to save her.

Eobard asks Flash not to hold his sins against Meena. He begs the Flash to save Meena. The Flash says the Eobard he knows is a monster who killed his mother. He deserves to rot. That Eobard would never put someone else’s needs before his. That’s how Flash knows this Eobard is better than the man he once knew. 

Flash gets his speed back. Chester calls him on the comms to let him know that Meena is attacking power junctions all over the city. She needs the speed because it’s only supposed to be temporary. The negative speed force will lose its grip on her, forcing her to absorb electricity to get more speed and maintain control. They assume she’s headed the largest power source she can find. The Keystone Cleveland Dam. 

Flash finds Meena at the Dam and stops her from absorbing more electricity. He gets her to chase him, hoping to burn off the charge from the generator. Flash leads her to meet up with Chester, Eobard and Allegra. Meena throws lightning bolts at Flash, trying to stop him. Flash uses the water to create a lightning bubble that throws Meena back to the dam. 

LIGHTNING ROD

Flash checks on Meena and a bolt of lighting strikes Flash from the sky. Meena actually summoned power from the negative speed force to cancel out the Flash’s power. The others arrive an Eobard runs out of the van to pleading with Meena to come back to him. She says his Meena is lost in the generator. This is who she is now. And her purpose is to kill the Flash. Eobard steps between Meena and the Flash to stop her. 

Eobard says he would rather die than to lose her. He knows the real Meena. He reminds her of their relationship, making her see flashes of their time together. Eobard tells her that he loves her. She remembers that they wanted to save the world. And  the night he saved her life. The memories force the negative speed force out of Meena. Flash stands up and says everything will be fine. 

The team returns to Fast Track Labs with Meena and Eobard. Chester is excited to be in such an awesome lab. The speed wears off in Meena. She apologizes for attacking the Flash and not listing to him. They built the generator so they could help people. But if they can’t use it without Meena turning into a super villain, then it’s risk isn’t worth it. They don’t even know how they tapped into the negative speed force to begin with.

Flash says there may be a way around it. He tells them about his lightning rod who helps bring him home. Kind of the same way Eobard brought Meena back. They would have to tinker with the generator a bit to ensure Eobard can bring her back if the negative speed force takes over again. Eobard and Meena leave to look at their manual to see if it’s possible. 

NEED MORE HEROES

Chester is excited about a new speedster on The Flash

The Flash — “The Man in the Yellow Tie” — Image Number: FLA818a_0144r.jpg — Pictured: Brandon McKnight as Chester P. Runk — Photo: Colin Bentley/The CW — 2022 The CW Network, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Chester tells Flash that he reached out to a friend to see if there was any chatter about another Thawne. That friend is Ray Palmer (Brandon Routh). Ray sent a message, telling the team about the Legends’ latest encounter with Thawne. Turns out, Thawne was saved from Black Flash by Time Wraiths. His powers were stripped, he was reeducated and assigned to a fixed point in history to protect the timeline. He spent years protecting that timeline until he died helping the Legends. 

Flash thinks that after Flashpoint Thawne became a hero and died, he was saved once again by the Time Wraiths. This time they put him the Flash’s current timeline. Flash thinks they are lucky that it happened that way. Allegra agrees, saying they could always use another hero.

Speaking of heroes, Cecile saves a woman from being robbed the same way she stopped the robbers. She transferred the woman’s fear to her attacker, allowing the woman to escape. What Cecile doesn’t know is that a woman with long, light hair is watching her. 

Mark Blaine (Jon Cor) video calls Caitlin (Danielle Panabaker), from her apartment, saying he’s figured out a way to bring Frost back. Caitlin says they can’t do it because Barry took the mirror gun. Mark shows her a picture of some kind of device. He says they don’t need the gun … he just needs Caitlin.

Meanwhile, Evil Thawne starts hearing a voice. The voice says they’ve been looking for Thawne. He’s a man with no past … an anomaly. He was invisible to them until the light from the cube showed them where to find him. Thawne is curious. But first he wants to know who he’s talking to and what they want. The voice says he’s an old friend and a new one. Thawne turns around to see Deon (Christian Magby) in the cage with him. Deon says it’s time for Thawne to fulfill his destiny.

Maybe now we’ll get back to saving Iris.

RELATED: Catch up on all of The Flash recaps here

 

 

 

Noetta Harjo
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