There Is a Flash Project Now Too I Guess: Episode 1.09, “The Man in the Yellow Suit”
| February 24, 2015 | Posted by Jess under Comics, Television, There Is a Flash Project Now Too I Guess |
We’re back! Sorry about that.
It’s Christmas, and some guy is hanging lights – when two streaks of lightning rush past him, causing all the lights to go out. Whaaat? It’s Barry, of course, angrily chasing…the man in the yellow suit who killed his mother! Dun dun dun!
One day earlier, Barry and Joe are decorating the West home, with Joe scolding Barry for using his powers. Aw. Iris comes in with “Grandma Esther’s” eggnog recipe, heavily spiked with bourbon. This scene is adorable.
Joe gets a work call and exits, giving Iris a chance to demand her present from Barry early. She bounces and squeaks as she opens it. Is she three? It’s a replica of her mother’s wedding band, which she apparently lost when they were ten. THIS IS INAPPROPRIATE AND CREEPY. Barry drapes it around her neck like a creepy weirdo. Ugh ugh UGH. It’s just, the family scene is SO cute, and you can’t have both. Either she’s his sister, or they’re going to bone. BOTH IS NOT ACCEPTABLE.
Anyway, she gives him a microscope, which for some reason is not in a box, and also, honey, his job will pay for that.
Eddie shows up and notices the ring. Iris says it’s from Barry and Eddie, THANK GOD, is like “…Whut.” Barry’s all “Boo, cockblocked.” SHE IS YOUR FOSTER SISTER.
S.T.A.R. Labs. Barry gives Team Science their presents and I am SO MAD we don’t get to see what they are. Wells mopes off and the kids exposit that the accident happened around Christmas so it’s tough for him now. Caitlin decides to go get him a present to cheer him up. Yes, who doesn’t like a last-minute pity present?
Jitters. Eddie and Iris are…on a date? Who doesn’t love dating at their place of employment? Anyway, he asks if Barry might be interested in her, she scoffs, and he gives her a ring box…which has a spare key to his apartment in it, PSYCHE! She’s pleased instead of annoyed with the weird bait-and-switch. Iris, girl, you are way too easy-going. (Not that I think she should’ve demanded a ring, but way to set her up, dude.)
Mall parking lot. Caitlin’s on the phone telling Cisco, who she saw five minutes ago and will see five minutes from now, what she got Wells. I love their codependency.
A noise startles her, and she follows it until she sees…Ronnie, looking extra hobo! He bursts into flames and stares at her. She stares back, then trots slowly around the corner and gapes at nothing. There’s no dialogue. It’s an incredibly strange scene.
Mercury Labs. A couple of security guards cheerfully ask a labcoated scientist what the doohickey he’s looking at is. “The future,” the scientist says.
Suddenly an alarm goes off. The scientist locks himself into a vault thingy with the doohickey. The man in the yellow suit – I’m just gonna call him the Reverse Flash from now on, okay? – zips in, kills both guards, glowers at the scientist, then zips away.
Later, Joe joins Barry at the crime scene. Eddie gleefully tells them the scientist only saw a blur, clearly thinking it’s the Flash, and the scientist confirms that he saw a blur…in a yellow suit. Barry freaks out, of course, and Joe confesses to him that the RF took the files from Nora’s murder and threatened Iris.
S.T.A.R. Barry and Joe fill Team Science in, and Cisco announces that “we need to get cracking and stop this speed psycho. That…I wasn’t trying to give him a name.” ILU Cisco. Wells tells them that Mercury Labs is run by “Dr. Christina McGee, brilliant but egocentric physicist.” Takes one to know one, I guess.
They pull up an article which reveals that McGee’s working with tachyons, and Wells says that if Mercury can harness the power of tachyons, they could move faster than light. Barry suggests they use whatever Mercury’s working on as bait, and Team Science gets to work on a trap while Barry broods.
Jitters. Caitlin comes in and asks Iris about something on her blog: a man who can burst into flame. Iris offers to send over some extra info she has. Iris awkwardly asks if Caitlin knows of any secrets Barry’s keeping from her, and Caitlin equally awkwardly suggests she ask Barry directly. More scenes with the girls, please!
Police station. McGee is there. Barry and Wells ask her for the tachyon prototype as bait for the RF, but she doesn’t trust Wells, and refuses.
S.T.A.R. Caitlin tells Cisco that Ronnie’s alive and she wants Cisco to help her find him. Cisco’s like “…Uh?”
Police lab. Barry broods and flashes back to Nora tucking him in on the night of her murder. He tells her not to turn the light off because he’s afraid of the dark. I think maybe the writers forgot Barry is 11 here? Nora tells him he’s not afraid of the dark, he’s afraid of being alone in the dark (???), but he’s never alone. YEAH, BECAUSE OF ALL THE SCARY THINGS IN THE DARK, DUH.
His parents kiss him goodnight and leave. Cut to the by-now-familiar murder scene, spliced with adult Barry sadly staring at the articles on Nora’s death (one written by “Ron Troupes”)…until Iris interrupts him.
She tells him she’s moving in with Eddie and Barry says it’s happening fast. Iris points out that it’s been a year (though not that Barry was asleep for ¾ of that) and that Eddie “thought you might feel weird about it.” Candice does a great job with Iris’s awkwardness as she asks if Eddie’s right about Barry’s feelings for her, which of course Barry hastily denies. She leaves; he sadfaces towards the window…
…And the RF is standing on the roof of a building across the street!
Barry takes off after him. “You killed my mother! Why?” he demands. “If you want to know that, you’re going to have to catch me,” the RF says in an unrecognizably vibrate-y voice. They tear through Central City and into the football stadium, where the RF proceeds to kick the crap out of Barry. “You know who I am,” he says. “We’ve been at this a long time, you and I. It is your destiny to lose to me, just as it was your mother’s destiny to die that night.” He knocks Barry around a bit more, then runs off.
S.T.A.R. Labs, day. Barry asks Wells and Joe how he’s supposed to catch someone faster than him and Wells assures him that the force field will work, as soon as Joe gets the bait.
Police station. McGee still doesn’t want to give Joe and Barry the tachyon device, but Barry says he majored in science and if she doesn’t hand it over he’ll tell some science magazine everything he saw touring her lab. That…seems like a really silly threat, but it works.
Barry walks off, and Eddie insists that Joe let his anti-Flash task force be involved with whatever it is he’s doing.
Mall basement. Cisco and Caitlin are looking for Ronnie using some kind of hairdryer-looking device Cisco built. Sure enough, there he is, skulking in the shadows in his terrible wig. “Ronnie? Ronnie, it’s me, Cait,” Caitlin says. He tells her he’s not Ronnie and to get away from him. She touches his hand – and he grabs her face, hisses “Firestorm,” and his head and hands burst into flames. As the science kids cower, he runs off.
S.T.A.R. Labs. The trap is set. Joe and Wells tell Barry they don’t think he should be there when they try to catch the RF, which Barry doesn’t like AT ALL. He insists that it’s his fight. “Not today, son,” Joe says. Aw. Barry storms out.
In the Pipeline, Caitlin stares at her engagement ring. Cisco comes in and tells her that they’ll find Ronnie. “Why?” she asks. “So we can throw him in there with all the other metahuman psychos?” She tearfully confesses that she wishes he had just died rather than become what he is, and Cisco holds her while she cries. Danielle is very good in this scene, but man, Carlos just steals it, and he doesn’t even really have any lines. HIS SAD LITTLE FACE.
Prison. Barry tells his dad that he found the man who killed Nora, but failed to catch him. He starts crying as he says his dad’s only in jail because he couldn’t catch the RF. Henry tells him that he knows Barry’s dedicated his life to clearing his name, and then there’s a super-weird segue where he says he knows Barry loves Iris and never pursued her because he was too obsessed with his family tragedy. “Let it go,” Henry says. “The man in the yellow suit has taken enough from us already. Don’t let him take any more.” The dialogue is kind of weird but good lord, Grant Gustin is a BEAST. Just sitting there crying he’s outrageously talented. Dear God, please let this show run forever and also let Grant do Broadway in the off-seasons so I can see him every day and also make him be best friends with me.
Casa West. Iris is finishing up the tree when Barry comes in. She asks if he’s okay and he hugs her, then says, “I love you, Iris.” That actually made my skin crawl. DON’T INVADE HER PERSONAL SPACE ON FALSE PRETENSES AND THEN DROP THAT BOMBSHELL, BARRY!
Iris, who you’ll recall is HUGGING HER FOSTER BROTHER, says, “Aw, I love you too.” He pulls back: “When we were kids I loved you before I even knew what the word love meant. And then my mom died, and I had to go live with the girl I had a crush on.” He goes on about all the times he wanted to tell her, but he was afraid he’d lose her, and now he has. YEP, ALL THOSE YEARS OF HER BEING YOUR BEST FRIEND AND SISTER WERE GARBAGE, I GUESS.
She shakes her head at him, tears streaming down her face, and he leaves. Candice did a great job with this scene considering IRIS DIDN’T GET ANY FUCKING LINES. God, could the writers please make it MORE obvious that Barry’s love for Iris has absolutely nothing to do with Iris as the awesome person she is and that where the romance is concerned, the writers see Iris as nothing more than a beautiful void?
S.T.A.R. Labs. Team Science, Joe, Eddie, and a bunch of random cops watch the trap Cisco set up through video feeds…and the RF zips into the force field and is trapped. Wells smiles, lightning reflecting on his glasses: “Let’s see what we caught.”
The cops and Wells head off to confront the RF. “Detective Thawne, would you like to read him his rights?” Wells asks.
Joe approaches the force field and demands to know why the RF murdered Nora. The RF ignores him: “Dr. Wells. We meet at last.” Wells asks why he wanted the tachyon thingy and science-talks at him for a while, while upstairs Cisco realizes that the science isn’t science-ing right and things are about to turn very bad.
The RF declares he’s nothing like the Flash: “Some would say I’m the reverse.” Rim shot. He zips out of the force field, grabs Wells, and starts beating the crap out of him. Joe yells for Cisco to turn off the force field, grabs a comically large wrench, and starts whacking the generator with it. The force field vanishes and the RF grabs the tachyon thingy.
Caitlin sends Barry an SOS text.
All the cops draw on him and Eddie tells him not to move. He mows down all the no-name cops and stares at Eddie. Joe shoots at him, he grabs Joe – and Barry tears through the lab, yanking the RF away.
Caitlin and Cisco come out of the building (why?) just in time to see Barry and the RF explode into the parking lot. The RF proceeds to absolutely clobber Barry, but just when he’s about to deliver the killing blow, WHOOSH! Ronnie appears out of nowhere and blasts him with fire!
“Our race is not yet done. See you soon, Flash,” the RF says, and runs off.
Cisco helps Barry up. Caitlin runs to Ronnie. “Don’t look for me again,” he says, flames on, and FLIES AWAY!!! FLYING!!!!!!! ON A CW SUPERHERO SHOW!!!!!!!!!! TAKE THAT, WELLING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Police station. Eddie says Joe knows more than he’s been telling. Joe tells Eddie about metahumans and that he can’t tell the rest of the force, “so nobody else gets hurt.” WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU. WHY WOULDN’T YOU TELL THE POLICE ABOUT THE SUPERPOWERED BAD GUYS SO THEY COULD PREPARE FOR THEM.
S.T.A.R. Labs. As Caitlin patches Wells up, Cisco apologizes for the containment field’s failure. Wells says it’s not his fault, but they should’ve told him Ronnie was alive. Caitlin apologizes: “I know you’re mad.” Bless your little teacher’s pet heart, Caitlin. Wells promises her that they’ll fix Ronnie somehow.
Barry’s lab. Joe comes in to find Barry staring at a snowglobe of London. Barry says his mom loved to travel, but he himself has never left Central City: “Fear has kept me in that living room for fourteen years.”
Joe tells Barry that when he first took Barry in he thought it would be tough, “But man was I wrong. In two weeks you’d changed the whole dynamic of the house. Suddenly the house was filled with this…light, this energy. You brightened up everything…So there I was thinking that I’m changing your life by taking you in, but the truth is, you changed mine. So don’t lose that light now, Barry. The world may need the Flash, but I need my Barry Allen.” THEY’RE BOTH CRYING AND SO AM I.
They return home to find Iris…and Eddie, Caitlin, and Cisco, invited by Joe as a surprise for Barry. It’s adorable.
Barry tells Eddie and Iris he’s happy for them re: moving in together, and Iris lets out a faint “Thanks,” her ONLY LINE in the entire second half of the episode. #bullshit
On the other side of the room, Cisco tells Joe that he noticed that when Barry and the RF were fighting, they created both yellow and red lightning – just as Barry described on the night of his mother’s murder, meaning “there was another speedster there.” Is this the first use of the word “speedster” on this show?
Iris calls Joe over, he puts the angel on the tree, and Iris and Barry smile awkwardly at each other. Merry Christmas!
Secret time room. Wells puts on a Flash ring (!!!) and touches it to the wall, opening up an even secreter room containing a mannequin. He touches the ring to the front of the mannequin’s display case, and the Reverse Flash’s costume appears on it. Dun dun dun! Okay, but seriously, there has to be a bigger twist than this, right? Involving Eddie maybe?
Wells put the tachyon thingy on the costume and smiles. “Merry Christmas,” he says in the RF’s vibrate-y voice. Dun dun dun! Again!
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I just binge watched the whole first season of ‘The Flash’ after attending the women in superhero tv panel at Wiscon. I love these reviews, please write more of them!