DC Comics, Recaps, Television

NOC Recaps The Flash: Escape Velocity

Team Flash is dealing with their Post-Traumatic Zoom Disorder in a healthy way. Motivated by avenging Jay’s death and defeating Zoom, they take a team field trip to a cliffside-waterfall–river-canyon to test out Barry’s ability to run at escape velocity. It’s a lot like the first “test runs” with the Core Four pre-supersuit, but there’s a level of familiarity and kinship that can only happen after dealing with all of the bullshit that Barry, Cisco, Caitlin, and Wells, have been through together.

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Apparently, escape velocity is 25,020 mph. No wonder Barry thinks it’s an impossible speed to reach… why are they doing this again?! Oh right, Zoom. So Barry takes an Olympian’s runner stance and take s a running leap across the canyon. He’s doing it, he’s doing it! But then he looks down and falls… right into a net held up by Cisco’s drones.

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Back at the lab, Jesse (Quick) is on an Earth-1 pop culture binge since she’s watching a Destiny’s Child documentary. She seems to have embraced her fate being stuck on this earth, but it’s clear that Harry Wells isn’t letting her be 100% involved in the Flash action. Latchkey dad.

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The team is in a slump, and Cisco suggests that they take a break and get turnt. O lawd. Even Jesse joins them in da club after her dad puts a tracking device on her.

“I have a life to live, Dad, and a whole world to explore.” –Jesse Wells

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Barry Yelps a club (four stars, according to him),  and they meet up with the West siblings: Iris and Wally. It’s nice that Barry and Wally are still working at getting along… because inside I’m screaming, LOOK AT ALL OF THESE SPEEDSTERS TRYING TO GO OUT AND BE NORMAL AND GET LIT!

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Wally and Jesse meet for the first time, and I remember that Wally is the only one who doesn’t know Barry’s secret. Jesse tells Wally a white lie about being “new in town,” and Barry/Iris/Caitlin/Cisco all tilt their heads as they start to ship the two youngins. Cisco asks Caitlin to dance, and things gets awesome.

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Cisco and Caitlin (#KillerVibe) tear up the dance floor, as Barry and Iris (#WestAllen) watch in amused horror. And then Iris kinda-sorta hits on Barry. Apparently she can’t shake off the knowledge that their doppelgangers are living in marital bliss on some other earth? My prediction of the subversion of the Westallen Crush is coming true! Looks like Wells was right after all: knowing information about Earth-2 would influence the Earth-1 inhabitants in unforeseen ways…

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See, Barry? Wasn’t a night of friendly drinking and lowered inhibitions between friends a good idea? Before things get too real, a speedster flashes throughout the club stealing all of the cash from the registers and buzzed club-goers. The citizens think it’s The Flash. Stupid, drunk idiots. Barry chases after the supserspeedy thief, but SHE outruns him.

Iris’ editor at Central City Picture News likes the idea that The Flash has turned bad. Editor Scott assigns Iris the story, and she defends The Flash/Barry, but he doesn’t want to hear it and continues to push the Metahumans-Do-Whatever-They-Want angle onto her.

At the lab, Jesse confronts her dad about the watch/tracking device that he slapped onto her wrist the previous night. She hacked into it in an attempt to stop it’s beeping and found Harry’s audio-diaries. Uh oh. Jesse finds out that her dad is an even bigger asshole than she thought.

While Cisco and Barry try to figure out the origins of the robbing speedster, Caitlin interrupts their theorizing and tells them about the secret Velocity-9 formula that she’d been working on to help Jay regain his speed/regenerate his body cells.

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Barry is frustrated that Caitlin and Harry didn’t tell him about the Speed Drug because he’s been busting his ass trying to get fast enough to beat Zoom, and it turns out Zoom has been cheating with speed steroids. Caitlin explains that the V-9 is deadly and its speed effects are temporary. She sadly puts her hand on the glass case containing Jay’s helmet, and Cisco comforts her by putting a hand on her shoulder. Cisco is then thrust into a Vibe Vision. Cisco’s Zoom vibe is interrupted by the Metahuman alert. Barry speeds off to find the “Bad Flash,” but gets sonic-boomed in the face. The speedster is a woman, and this fact turns Cisco on.

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Caitlin pays a trip to her Mercury Labs friend, Eliza Harmon, whom the team thinks may have reverse engineered a version of the Velocity-9. Eliza seems friendly. Really, really friendly. She makes a quick Law & Order joke and even throws in a “That’s what friends are for!” followed by a lady scientist hug.

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It turns out that she’s the lady speedster, and she’s an addict. A CRAZY addict, so it’s just all of the bad things. She’s even named herself. Cisco likes it and hates it.

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The self-named Trajectory takes a hit from her last vial of Velocity-9 after the little voice inside her head peer pressures her. Just what we needed, another socially awkward/chemically-imbalanced speedster. She breaks into S.T.A.R. Labs and flashes Barry into the Pipeline Prison. The cells really do keep ALL metahumans in.

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Trajectory/Eliza is annoyed with everyone and everything because she wants her fix. She wants the V. Trajectory threatens to kill Jesse if she doesn’t get her fix, so Harry Wells whips up a batch. As a “taste test,” Trajectory shoots Jesse up with the V-9 before she speeds away, seemingly pleased with the non-poisoned results. Hmmm… Trajectory and Jesse have coincidentally similar body types. Jesse goes into shock but is fine after a blood transfusion from her father; their blood type is PZ Negative. Earth-2 is weird.

“Villains gonna vill.” -Cisco Ramon

Caitlin is a genius and put a micro-tracker in Trajectory’s V-9, so they track her to a bridge in the city that is currently getting destroyed by her speed-friction. Complete chaos. Looks like Barry is going to have to make that leap hitting escape velocity like he practiced earlier? Mach 3.3.

Barry makes the jump because it’s his TV show and he always goes fast enough, and tries to talk sense into Eliza/Trajectory. Barry uses some of the points from the speech Harry gave him earlier after Barry had stolen the V-9 because he was tempted the “level the playing field” since all of the other speedsters were cheating with their speed. My pure, good bb Barry Allen. the V-9 in Eliza wins out, and she doses up one last time before running off in a flash of blue lightning. She runs so fast that she disintegrates.

Some things click in Barry’s brain when he sees the blue lightning. Jay. Velocity-9. Zoom. Finally, Barry! We gotsta know!

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Super-quick Things

  • Ugh, they wasted a perfectly good toast to Jay.
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  • Was Jesse’s watch beeping for speedsters or methumans? Because it definitely beeped when Wally arrived. Just saying.
  • Scott the CCPN Editor is an anti-Flash dickhead, but he’s fine. Go for it, Iris. Get back in the game!
  • So that’s how Jesse became so… quick. And now she ran away.
  • HOW. MANY. JAYS. ARE THERE?