DC Comics, Recaps, Television

NOC Recaps The Flash: It’s a Trap!

The episode is called “The Trap,” and refers not to the semi-idiotic plan by Team Flash to lure an anachronistic speedster villain into his own basement, but the counter-trap set up by the Reverse Flash to use their trap as the actual trap to trap them. I know. A lot happens.

We’ve seen this headline many times before, but now there is a new addition: The article was written by Iris West-Allen. Barry is speechless. Westallen fans everywhere are victory-punching the air. Previously, a different, unimportant name held this very important byline, so can we assume that the future Eobard Thawne came from did not have Iris West as a reporter, let alone Mrs. Barry Allen? C’mon y’all. Take a picture! Snapchat! Something! There’s important stuff on there.

Cisco’s ability to explain science through movie references with such alacrity is such a serious turn on. Just saying.

Causal Nexus.

Gideon greets Barry like an old friend. Like an old creator even? Barry made Gideon, which is fortunate because the trio begins to lose their shit when the tracker Cisco placed on Wells’ wheelchair alerts them that the not-so paraplegic scientist is wheeling in their direction.

At Critters Jitters, Eddie buys his girlfriend’s father a cappuccino in hopes that Joe will give Eddie his blessing for marrying Iris. The cappuccino isn’t very good, because Eddie is straight up DENIED. It’s painful to see Eddie’s excited puppy dog face transform into sad puppy dog face.

Meanwhile, Snowbarisco summons Papa Joe from the most awkward coffee date between work partners ever. This is the first time they’ve discussed time travel as a group because Barry mumbles, “Hi guys. Yeah um, I kinda sorta already time-traveled accidentally.” They figure out that Cisco’s visions are alternate memories of that timeline, and that’s when they concoct a plan which I will call Absolute Foolishness. Absolute Foolishness involves Cisco as bait and tricking Wells into confessing that he is responsible for Nora Allen’s murder. SO. MANY. FLAWS.

Joe doesn’t like this new (and alternate) turn of events. Papa Joe flashbacks to a helpless time when Barry was in a coma; we learn how Barry ended up in the care of S.T.A.R. Labs. You can kind of tell that Joe feels guilty for being the person to connect Barry to Wells in the first place, since Wells approached Joe in the hospital and convinced him to be in charge of Barry’s coma recovery.

The Flash trio is working on special Lucid Dreaming sunglasses in an attempt to access Cisco’s Alternate Universe visions. Wells wheels by like, “Hey guys, what’s up?” and inadvertently (or very “advertently”) fixes everything with the tech specs so that Snowbarisco can continue with Absolute Foolishness.

Vibe glasses!

At CCPD, Captain Singh lashes out — a little less than normal — on Barry Allen, but apologizes and credits his irritability to planning a wedding. At the words “wedding” and “married,” Barry’s eyes glaze over. He mentally hums a wedding march and marches/collides right into his future bride, Iris. And then Eddie wedding marches over like a heart-eyes emoji and it’s all awkward. He privately reveals to Barry that he’s gonna pop the question and starts babbling his Iris Thawne dreams to (at this point) Iris’ actual future husband. And the audience is like, “Oh Eddie. Oh honey. No.”

Absolute Foolishness commences with Papa Joe supervising. As cool and advanced this technology is, this plan is the worst. The coolest part about this is seeing Wells murder Cisco from a first-person perspective. Wait, did I say cool? I mean awful.

Wells calls Barry like, “Hey guys what’s up? Where are you? What are you doing?” Oh god, he knows. He totally fucking knows. There’s also a fire in a high rise that happens to be the workplace of Captain Singh’s fiance. Barry freaks because he can’t save all of the people in the building on time, but Wells uses his personal speedster knowledge to advise Barry to rotate his arms so fast that he creates a wind tunnel to vacuum all of the air out of the room and eliminate the flames. It works! Singh and his fiance embrace! Barry smiles!

At the lab, Wells gives Barry a pep talk which would, before, probably make Barry cry. Instead, it gives us all scary goosebumps. We love the duplicity of Wells’ character; it makes him such a fantastically entertaining villain to watch every week. I feel like Barry: I know what he’s done and what he plans to do, but sometimes, in the moment, I really like the guy. Also, Tom Cavanaugh is sexy as hell.

Before the Absolute Foolishness, Barry asks Joe why Eddie was denied his blessing. Joe tells him its because he ships Barry/Iris. Okay, this made me angry. Yes, this comes from a good place, but this is not the best daddy move by Joe West to say “I won’t let her live a life like that.” Oh, Joe. Iris is a force of nature… she’ll do whatever she wants. Speaking of, that force of nature calls a BFF 911 to Barry because she has finally connected all of the metahuman activity to the explosion of the particle accelerator. Barry lies horribly about being the flaw in her theory because he doesn’t have powers, and Iris is all, “I know, right.”

Iris flashbacks to coma!Barry’s bedside. She monologues to the comatose Flash…. people like to talk to people who can’t talk back. When she touches Barry’s hand, a spark of lightning passes between them. Literally.

Absolute Foolishness is a go. In the bunker, Cisco and Wells recreate the old episode. as Joe and Barry crouch in a corner. Foolishness. Wells does not confess to Nora Allen’s murder, but he does walk right through the anti-speedster barrier Cisco thought would protect him from getting Temple-of-Doom’d. It’s terrifying.

Joe gets up from his pathetic hiding spot and shoots three bullets at Wells. Barry is only faster than two speeding bullets; the third bullet penetrates the anti-Flash barrier before Barry can stop it and goes directly into Wells’ chest.

“He didn’t confess!” Barry desperately screams, thinking of his father in prison. I desperately scream because I cannot believe Wells is dead and we’ll get no more Cavanaugh on the show. The bleeding out corpse morphs, and we all think it’ll become a handsome blonde man with a dimple chin. NOPE. It’s Everyman from last week’s episode. You know, the metahuman that Caitlin made out with? He’s dead now. Wells bribed him to carry out his Reverse Trap. Reverse Trapped by the Reverse Flash, BOOM.

In true bad guy fashion, Wells speaks to all of them from an undisclosed rooftop location sans wheelchair. He tells Barry that he has plans for him, that he’s a bad man with a lot of power, and he kinda sorta loves Barry (but is still going to murder the crap out of him). Cisco tracks his wheelchair to the time vault. Barry speeds over to find no Wells but a wall of surveillance videos. A lot of them.

Eddie keeps guard over Iris and thinks it’s an appropriate time to propose. The Reverse Flash intercepts — and I hilariously initially thought it was Barry who swooped the ring, by the way — and kidnaps Eddie mid-proposal. The Flash consoles Iris and promises that he will get him back, paralleling all the times Barry placated Iris in his non-Flash form. Before he flashes off, the two exchange a literal spark of lightning between their hands. Iris recognizes that spark.

IRIS KNOWS BARRY IS THE FLASH!

Super-quick Things:

  1. Cisco Freaking Ramon.

3 thoughts on “NOC Recaps The Flash: It’s a Trap!”

  1. Great recap! Definitely love the “Absolute Foolishness” title that you gave to their trap for Wells. Hahaha. Watched tonight’s episode and now I’m really looking forward to your recap of it as well!

  2. So glad I found this site via Twitter and Black Girl Nerds, and I love this: “Cisco’s ability to explain science through movie references with such alacrity is such a serious turn on.” Because seriously though, when he asked “Is this Inception or Dreamscape?” I was like, Cisco is my main man. Can’t wait to read your other recaps.

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