In The Flash recap, Barry needs help from Jesse and Jay Garrick to try and stop a nuclear bomb from wiping Central City off the map…
By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer
In the middle of a season spent battling ‘The Thinker’ Clifford DeVoe, ‘The Flash’ managed to produce one of the best episodes that had absolutely nothing (really) to do with the big bad.
Instead, the latest episode of The Flash takes place over the course of 10 seconds — at least that’s the actual frame of time theorized as Barry and two more speedsters get locked in ‘Flashtime’, which means they are moving so fast that everyone around them appears frozen in time.
Barry races into flashtime because a nuclear bomb is about to explode and wipe Central City — and hundreds of thousands of people — off the map.
This episode also sees the return of Jesse Quick and Jay Garrick, both of which add a lot to the show, while the end provides a connection to the future and a tie back to the battle with DeVoe.
All in all, a very quality hour of ‘The Flash’. With that said, let’s recap the latest episode of ‘The Flash’ titled ‘Enter Flashtime’…
Bomb Track
At STAR Labs, Barry is currently racing around the building with Cisco throwing up breaches all over the place as he attempts to catch one before it closes. The reason for this training is so Barry can hopefully captured Clifford DeVoe the next time he attempts to escape to his pocket dimension, which is how he’s been moving around the city with no one able to track him this entire time.
Sadly, Barry can’t run fast enough to catch the breach, which means he won’t be quick enough to race into DeVoe’s pocket dimension. Add to that, Cisco devised a way to track the signature on DeVoe’s jumps so they can see that he’s been teleporting around the city for the past three years in an effort to complete whatever mission he’s concocted. Team Flash is no closer to finding out DeVoe’s motivations but hopefully this tracking system will allow them to figure out where he’s going next so Barry can race to capture him.
In the middle of all this, Iris convinces Barry to finally take a break after hours of training so they can finally spend some quality time together as husband and wife. Meanwhile, Jesse Quick returns from Earth-2 after her father Harry send an apology cube to their universe but failed to put a message inside.
The apology cube was Harry’s way of getting his estranged daughter to visit, but clearly their same problems still exits. It seems Jesse has been trying to get Harry to talk about her mother in an attempt to help Harry get past her death, but he won’t even address the subject. The chasm between father and daughter is wider than ever but familiar problems have to be put on hold after Joe sends out a distress call to Team Flash.
It seems Central City P.D. was tasked with escorting an ARGUS transport through town when they were ransacked by a gang of gun toting thugs, who are trying to steal whatever shipment was on board. A gun fight as broken out as Joe tries to stop the criminals and he needs an assist from Team Flash in the worst way.
Barry — along with Cisco and Killer Frost — race into save the day but it’s already too late.
It seems ARGUS was transporting some sort of fusion reactor that can be turned into a nuclear bomb and the person tasked with stealing it has just engaged the core and set off the detonator. That means in a matter of seconds this fusion bomb is going to eviscerate all of Central City and only Barry is fast enough to stop it.
The Longest 10 Seconds Of Your Life
As soon as the criminal presses the button to engage the nuclear weapon, Barry races into ‘flashtime’, which is the same way he was able to spend a few moments with Iris during his trial several episodes ago. This time around, Barry pulls in Jesse Quick and then tells her to go find Jay Garrick on Earth-3 because they will need as much brain power as possible to solve this problem.
Barry then unfreezes Cisco, who attempts to breach the bomb to a dead Earth but because he’s moving as such rapid speed, his powers won’t work. Barry then tries to get Killer Frost to freeze the bomb so it can’t explode but she’s unable to muster enough power to slow down the reaction.
Barry then turns to Harry, who suggests throwing the bomb into the Speed Force as the only way to ensure the explosion doesn’t wipe out everybody in Central City. When Jay Garrick arrives, he soundly rejects that plan as Harry can’t be sure that the bomb won’t destroy the Speed Force, thus wiping out all of the speedsters throughout the multi-verse.
The speedster then theorize that perhaps if they combine all of their powers together to throw lightning bolts at the bomb they may be able to fuse the atoms back together again before they can break apart and explode, which causes the nuclear reaction. Unfortunately while Barry and Jesse complete their runs, Jay is running out of speed. Age has caught up to the speedster from Earth-3 and he’s forced to drop out of flashtime.
Jesse soon experiences the same problem and Barry tells her to run away to save herself from the pending explosion. Instead, Jesse races to her father’s side to be together when the bomb goes off.
Finally, Barry wants to spend his last few moments with Iris because he’s finally encountered a problem even his speed can’t fix. This isn’t exactly the kind of husband and wife time that Barry had in mind, but if he’s going to be with anybody at the end of the world, he wants it to be Iris.
That’s when Iris figures out a way to stop the nuclear bomb by using the Speed Force rather than tossing the nuclear weapon into it.
Iris reminds Barry how Team Flash built an orb that matched his exact heat signature so that the Speed Force would be fooled to believe he was still there when in reality he had escaped. If Barry can race into the Speed Force and take out that orb, the lightning storm that invaded Central City at the end of last season would follow him and if he can lead it to the bomb, the plan to fuse the atoms back together would actually work.
Iris to the rescue yet again and so Barry races off into the Speed Force, grabs the orb, the lightning follows and it all culminates in a gigantic collision — one that stops the nuclear bomb from exploding.
A Silver Age
With the day saved, Team Flash discovers that the criminal was actually an eco-terrorist who wanted to use the bomb as a way to send a message to the world and she wasn’t actually connected to DeVoe in any way as the team first suspected.
Meanwhile, Jay Garrick bids his farewells while informing Barry and the rest of the team that he’s going to be retiring from the hero business soon. Instead, Jay will train a new speedster to take his place on Earth-3, which opens up all sorts of possibilities for the future.
As for Jesse, she finally reaches a peace with her father when Harry uses the device originally created to stop Cecille from hearing Joe’s thoughts by reversing the effect so she can listen to her father’s thoughts. It’s there that Jesse hears her mother’s voice and all the memories locked away inside Harry’s head so she can finally understand what they meant to each other and so her father can finally let go of the pain he’s been holding onto for all these years.
Barry is left thanking Iris once again for coming up with a plan that saved the city while he finally figures out that he’s fast enough to get through one of DeVoe’s breaches assuming the team can finally figure out where he’s going next.
Finally, Caitlin reveals that while she’s never remembered anything that has happened while she’s transformed into Killer Frost, this time was different. She remembers Killer Frost’s thoughts including her request to Barry to save Caitlin from this nuclear bomb. She’s not sure what that means, but perhaps Caitlin and her alter ego are finally coming to some sort of mutual understanding.
The last sequence features the character played by Jessica Parker Kennedy, who first appeared during the first part of ‘Crisis on Earth-X’ when she popped up at Barry and Iris’ wedding. Many have theorized that this girl is actually Barry and Iris’ child from the future. Anyways, she nervously runs into Caitlin and Harry at the coffee shop before babbling on and on about an important meeting. After they leave, she reveals that bumping into them was the meeting but what was she trying to find out?
Only time will tell until this character’s true identity is finally revealed.
‘The Flash’ returns with a brand new episode next week as Barry loses his speedster powers — and Iris gains them.
https://youtu.be/YKJzFi3lSYY
