The Story

The man in the yellow suit is back in town and in the market for a tachyon generator. He attempts to infiltrate Mercury Labs, where the researchers have developed this technology, and kills two security guards in the process. However, the generator is sealed in a secure room with a scientist before he can get to it. When Joe and Barry investigate the next morning, the scientist describes a streak of lightening and a man in a yellow suit who seemed to be looking for something.

Joe, of course, has known for a few weeks that the man in the yellow suit has been back, but his appearance is news to Barry, who gets very excited by the possibility of finally catching his mother’s killer. With the help of STAR Labs, they borrow the tachyon generator as bait and set a trap for the man in the yellow suit. The man in the yellow suit taunts Barry from a rooftop across from his lab and they proceed to chase and fight each other. The man in the yellow suit says that they’ve been playing this game together for a long time, that it’s Barry’s destiny to lose to him, just as it was his mother’s fate to die that night.

Meanwhile, Caitlin is approached by Ronnie who has forsaken his name and is now called Firestorm. Cisco helps Caitlin track him down, where they witness his new powers and have trouble communicating with him.

STAR Labs prepares to set the trap for the man in the yellow suit. Barry, who is too close to the case, is sent home for his own safety, while Eddie insists on sitting in on the scheme with his Flash task force. They lure and catch the man in the yellow suit in a force field, where he ominously says he is the “reverse” of the Flash and then confronts Dr. Wells. He escapes from the force field long enough to grab Dr. Wells and starts beating him up.

Caitlin calls Barry, who rushes in and saves Wells, but is unable to keep up with Reverse Flash in a fight. Just as Reverse Flash is about to defeat Barry, Firestorm shows up and saves him at the last minute. He then tells Caitlin not to look for him anymore and flies off in a ball of fire. Reverse Flash gets away with the tachyon generator. As Barry, family, and friends celebrate Christmas, Dr. Wells takes some time alone at STAR Labs to access his secret panel where he keeps a yellow Flash suit. He attaches the tachyon generator to the suit, then says “Merry Christmas, Barry” in his Reverse Flash voice.

Dr. Wells/Reverse Flash

We were always pretty sure Dr. Wells was up to something sinister – or at the very least we all felt kind of uneasy about his general manner and weird about keeping his ability to walk a secret. Now it turns out that he’s one of the Reverse Flashes (which is a general group term for any villainous, anti-Flash speedster). So now the question is, which one and why? Wells could still be anyone, and if you know the comics (or even just read the wiki page on Reverse Flash), he stills seems like an amalgam of several speedster villains. Professor Zoom seems a close match, but the fact that Zoom’s real name is Eobard Thawne makes me think Eddie will eventually be involved somehow as another Reverse Flash. This eventuality would, of course, pave the way for Barry and Iris to get together – but that’s another story all together. The point is, Wells is still a crazy, weird, cool mystery.

Barry and Iris

So this is the episode where Barry finally tells Iris how he feels. And because Barry is a good guy, he doesn’t expect anything in return and doesn’t want to jeopardize Iris’s relationship with Eddie – he just can’t lie to her anymore. And while the timing is pretty awkward – since Iris and Eddie have recently decided to move in together – Iris takes it extremely well. Things are clearly a little strained afterwards, but there seems to be a new, deeper understanding between them and a feeling of the air having been cleared. But Iris does look at Barry in a new way, and one can help but think that knowing how Barry feels opens her mind to the possibilities of their relationship. If Eddie becomes a Reverse Flash, or if Iris finds out that Barry is the Flash, things could really change around.

Firestorm

While Ronnie is clearly psychologically troubled and conflicted between his feeling for Caitlin and his confusing new superpowers, he’s obviously still a good guy at heart. He’s on his way to being a powerful ally, and goes out of his way to help Barry – which in all likelihood was to protect Caitlin – even though he’s currently disoriented. Even though he’s told Caitlin to stop looking for him, there’s a huge chance that we’ll see him again sooner rather than later.

The Trickster

Okay, so this wasn’t even in the episode, but the newest news to hit The Flash is that Mark Hamill will be reprising his role as the Trickster from the short lived live-action series The Flash (1990). This will see Hamill reunite with The Flash co-star John Wesley Shipp – who not only plays current Flash’s father, but the original Barry Allen from the 1990 series. It’s kind of a big deal. Casual geeks probably only know Hamill from his legendary role as Luke Skywalker in the original Star Wars trilogy and think that he dropped off the Earth after that. Of course, the truth is that Hamill has had a long, varied, and successful career in character and voice acting ever since, giving Batman’s Joker his most iconic voice in Batman: The Animated Series and other related productions. I can only imagine how epic it will be. It looks like scene stealers Jesse L. Martin and Tom Cavanagh will have some competition.