The Story
A meta-human named Shawna who can teleport breaks into Central City Prison to release her boyfriend, Clay Parker. While Barry and Joe investigate, Joe has Henry Allen brought by to visit Barry. Henry does some digging and discovers that Clay owes a crime lord called Marcus some big money. Clay and Shawna rob an armored car to get the money and the Flash encounters some problems keeping up with the teleporting Shawna. Shawna and Clay escape and meet up with Marcus to give him the money. Unfortunately, instead of releasing Clay from his obligation, he finds out about Shawna’s ability and tries to entrap them into further service. Joe and the police raid the hideout where they are able to arrest Marcus and his gang, but Shawna and Clay escape once again. At STAR Labs, Wells discovers that Shawna’s ultra-fast cells slow down in the dark, meaning that her ability only works when she can see where she’s going. As Shawna and Clay rob another armored car, the Flash encounters them in a tunnel. He breaks all the lights, leaving Shawna in the dark and unable to teleport. Clay abandons his girlfriend, escaping justice.
Henry Allen
We don’t see much of Henry, considering he’s in prison and the main action takes place across Central City, so it’s nice to get a dedicated B plot where he gets to help further the A plot. Unfortunately, Henry does get punished for nosing around, getting beat up and stabbed by one of Marcus’s gang. Barry is understandably upset, having previously asked his dad to stop digging. Henry explains that he doesn’t often get to be useful in prison, so will take every chance he gets to help Barry if he can. Of course, Barry finds out who beat up his dad and punishes him in a comical manner – zooming him out of the prison and threatening to let the guards think he escaped if he doesn’t give him information about Marcus. This, combined with a sneaky photo snapped by Iris of the Flash and published in the newspaper, makes Henry realize that Barry is the Flash. This automatically makes Henry the second smartest character on this show, because he took less evidence than most people in Central City have and deduced that Barry was the Flash.
Cisco and Hartley
Cisco can’t help but pursue Hartley’s vague promises about Ronnie. He takes a chance and lets Hartley out of his cell – taking all precautions he felt necessary to prevent ultimate escape – in order to have Hartley show him his secrets. It turns out that Ronnie and Dr. Martin Stein were fused into one person the night of the explosion. Hartley takes advantage of Cisco’s momentary shock to escape, despite Cisco’s precautions. Of course, Cisco has to explain himself to his team when he tells them of Hartley’s escape. Not only that, he has to reveal to Caitlin that he was the one who locked Ronnie into the accelerator. Caitlin, characteristically, tells Cisco that if Ronnie were there he would tell him he did the right thing – so she forgives Cisco for doing exactly what Ronnie had told him to do.
Caitlin and Barry
Caitlin and Barry have been getting closer over these last few episodes. While they are certainly just friends at the moment, they also happen to be incredibly deep friends who confide in each other on a very intimate level, and understand each other’s little ticks and tells. Caitlin and Barry end up going out together, on the pretext of checking out Shawna and Clay’s old haunts, and have a crazy drunken night (or drunken for Caitlin, anyway). They sing karaoke – Caitlin very badly, Barry incredibly well – and Barry gets a girl’s number. Barry ends up escorting a sick and drunken Caitlin home, where he helps her into bed and watches over her until she falls asleep. While they have an incredibly easy friendship, when they both decide they have to move on from their respective relationships, there is a slight awkwardness between them, as if being officially available somehow has implications for their relationship. While I love their friendship and the dynamic of their relationship, I sense that things are set to change between them in the future. This new girl of Barry’s – who turns out to be Iris’s co-worker at the newspaper – doesn’t seem to have the same fundamental connection with Barry that he has with the other women in his life. Whatever happens, I sense the writers are gearing up for an eventual romance between Barry and Caitlin.
Grodd
This week’s ending scene has been our second tease related to an upcoming Grodd storyline. If you don’t know who/what Grodd is, the teaser at least told you that he’s an intelligent killer gorilla. What the teaser doesn’t tell you is that he is also telepathic, telekinetic, and can control the minds of others. And, if you’re going by the comics, he’s not the only gorilla of his kind. His entire clan had been imbued with super intelligence and powers by aliens after they landed near his home. Unfortunately, in the case of Grodd, with super intelligence also came super ambition, and he became determined to rule the world.
Of course, the first teaser we saw earlier this season had Grodd in a STAR Labs cage, so it’s likely his super-intelligence wasn’t granted by aliens in this adaptation – rather by Harrison Wells in partnership with General Wade Eiling. Wells tells Grodd that he has plans for him and it looks like those plans will soon be coming to light.