The Flash recap: 'The Man in the Yellow Suit'
Diyah Pera/The CW
"WHAT THE WHAT?!" is an apt descriptor of both this episode and the reaction to it after the episode-ending stinger. Before the episode stinger, the episode made sense. It was The Flash vs. The Man in the Yellow Suit, a.k.a Reverse Flash. Simple, right? But, then came the stinger: Wells enters his futuristic chamber of secrets, puts on a ring with a Flash-like lightning bolt on it, and uses it to open a secret closet inside his secret room that feels like it's bursting with secrets. Inside the closet is a bloody yellow suit, because comics.
But, I'm getting ahead of myself.
Like last week's episode, tonight was all about the feels: Caitlin caught feels, Joe caught feels, Barry had a lot of feelings. There were multiple scenes in which you couldn't have been faulted for at least shedding a tear. However, "The Man in the Yellow Suit" was also missing The Flash's sense of fun—which is okay. Actually, it's more than okay because it was nice to see the show build upon the development that took place in last week's episode of Arrow in which we found out that The Flash is more than capable of handling emotionally serious story lines. Shall we dive into tonight's episode?
After opening with an unnecessary flashforward to Barry chasing Reverse Flash all around the city, we then jump back to a day before and find Joe and Barry decorating this year's Christmas tree. For some reason, Iris can't wait a few days and insists that she and Barry exchange presents right now. No surprise, Barry's gift for Iris is thoughtful, loving, and speaks volumes as to how he feels about her. He got her a replica of her mother's wedding band; Iris lost the original during a school field trip when they were younger (I wouldn't be surprised to find out that Barry actually used his superspeed to somehow find the original). And Iris got him what's apparently the best microscope on the market because Barry likes science. Eddie shows up at the home and is a bit taken aback, and rightfully so, by Barry's gift.
While Barry is sharing Grandma Esther's alcohol-filled eggnog with the S.T.A.R. Labs team, his lease in the friend zone is being renewed as Eddie and Iris head to Jitters for coffee. You'd think that since she works there, Jitters would be the last place Iris would like to spend time with her boyfriend. And yet for some reason it isn't. Anyway, Eddie uses the moment before he gives Iris her Christmas present to discuss Barry's gift. He asks Iris if she ever suspected that Barry might like her more than just friends because, as he puts it, "Friends don't give friends wedding bands." Iris quickly shoots down Eddie's worries and says that they're just friends because she's figuratively the most na?ve person in the world. (Again, Iris not knowing Barry is into her is the most unbelievable part of this show.) With his worries calmed, Eddie asks Iris to move in with him and she says yes.
Across town, Caitlin finds out that Ronnie's still alive when she sees him creepily following her in an underground parking garage. She chases after him and has her mind blown when she sees him flame-on, Human Torch style.
Meanwhile, Reverse Flash pays Mercury Labs a visit looking to steal something. Not finding it, he kills several guards.
Barry, Joe, and Eddie show up to the murder scene at Mercury Labs, and Barry quickly deduces that the guards could only have been killed by someone moving super fast. Luckily for them, there's a witness who describes seeing a blur in the lab, which excites Eddie, who's the new leader of the Anti-Flash Task Force. While Eddie may not get the Flash-related break he needs, Barry does when he hears the witness say the blur looked like a man in the yellow suit. It's at this moment that Joe reveals to Barry that he's known that the man in the yellow suit was back in town for awhile because he paid him a visit. Naturally, Barry's upset, but understands once Joe tells him that the guy threatened Iris' life.
NEXT: The Flash vs. Reverse Flash
Back at S.T.A.R. Labs, Joe and Wells bring the rest of the team up to speed. Turns out, Mercury Labs was once second to S.T.A.R. Labs, but overtook the metahuman-concerned lab in the wake of the incident and is led by the brilliant, yet egocentric, Dr. Tina McGee (played by Amanda Pays, a castmember of CBS' old Flash series). Based on an article reporting that Dr. McGee is developing technology of the future, Wells deduces that she's messing with tachyons, which are theoretical particles, a.k.a. more science stuff. If Reverse Flash were to get his hands on tachyons, he could become invincible, or, I don't know, travel faster than light, Wells casually informs the rest of the lab. Rewatching that scene, it's clear how great Tom Cavanagh is at subtly conveying Wells' lust for tachyons.
As always on this show, if not more so here, time is of the essence, so they all get to work, except for Caitlin, who decides to pay Iris a quick visit at Jitters. Following her rather hot encounter with Ronnie, Caitlin's there to ask Iris about reports of a man who can turn into fire that were posted on Iris' blog. Iris promises to send her the few other reported sightings she has in her Gossip Girl-like inbox. To cover her bases, Caitlin also asks Cisco to help her find Ronnie.
Unfortunately for Team Flash, Dr. McGee refuses to let the police, especially Wells, use the tachyon prototype as bait for Reverse Flash. "You know no one wants to insure the future's technology more than me," says Wells to convince McGee that they'll return the device once the man is caught. (ASIDE: New drinking game: drink each time Dr. Wells says "future." END ASIDE).
Meanwhile, Barry's thinking back to the night of his mom's murder and of how scared he was that night. However, Iris interrupts the moment to tell him about her moving in with Eddie and to tell him that Eddie thinks he has feelings for her. Barry does his usual "No, that's crazy. I don't like you romantically" thing, and Iris believes him. Honestly, I don't think any of us would fault Barry for taking the night off, buying a bottle of wine, taking a bath, and brooding to Drake's music.
However, there's no time to brood. As Barry's pensively and emotionally looking out the window of his lab, he sees the Reverse Flash standing on a nearby roof watching him. AND WE'RE OFF. After a 30-second long chase, Barry and Reverse Flash stop to chat, and Barry asks why he killed his mother. Reverse Flash tauntingly tells him he'll have to catch him to find out—and we're off again. This time the chase ends in a football stadium. As he's provoking Barry and kicking his butt, Reverse Flash reveals that not only does Barry know who he is, but that they've been at this cat and mouse game for awhile. "I'm always one step ahead of you… It is your destiny to lose to me just as it was your mother's destiny to die that night." And with that, Reverse Flash speeds off and leaves a defeated and confused Barry on the ground.
Team Flash tries a second time to convince Dr. McGee to lend them her tachyon prototype. This time, however, Barry threatens that if she doesn't let them use it, he'll call Science Showcase magazine and tell them about all the cool stuff he saw while at Mercury Labs. That's more than enough to convince Dr. McGee, who thinks Barry and Wells are very similar—they're both excellent manipulators. It's another moment where the show continues to play with our theories about Wells' true identity as this time give credence to the "Barry from the future" theory.
Meanwhile, Caitlin and Cisco decide to track Ronnie down. However, once they do, they are surprised by what they find: Ronnie isn't Ronnie Raymond, or rather he says he isn't. Both of them are confused and hurt, but it makes sense since we know from the comics that Firestorm is a combination of Ronnie Raymond and Dr. Martin Stein, who we know will be played by Victor Garber. At this moment, Dr. Martin Stein is consciously inside Ronnie's body. After rejecting Caitlin's pleas to help him, Ronnie flames on, in the process of saying "Firestorm" and disappears. As to be expected, this incident thoroughly upsets Caitlin, who's thinking about what she would give to spend one more minute with Ronnie. However, now that she has, she wishes he'd actually died in the explosion, which, while heartbreaking to hear, is valid—up until this point, Barry's the only nice metahuman they've met.
NEXT: Triumphing over fear
Having been sidelined by Wells and Joe because of all of his emotions, Barry decides to pay his father a visit. Clearly Barry picked up Oliver's tendency to self-guilt trip during his time in Starling because he decides to apologize to his dad for having Reverse Flash right in front of him and letting him slip away. All joking aside, it's actually understandable why Barry feels guilty: He loves his dad and wants nothing more than to see him free. Filling in for Joe this week, Henry gives his son some much needed "real talk." Revealing himself to not be as oblivious as Iris, Henry tells his son that he needs to move on from his mother's case and stop being scared of telling Iris how he feels. It's time for Barry to have a life because the Man in the Yellow Suit has taken far too much away from them.
And to everyone's surprise Barry actually tells Iris how he feels. He tells her he loves her and that he's waited so long to tell her because he was afraid that if she didn't feel the same way he would lose her. Iris just sits there speechless and in tears. Acknowledging the bad timing, Barry apologizes and leaves her to process the big news. Like the scene with Barry's father and the one with Caitlin opening up to Cisco, it's hard not to feel for these characters. However, I would've given anything for Iris to have found out, either from him in this scene or later on, that he was The Flash.
Throughout tonight's episode, Cisco has been hard at work on a force field to hold the man in the yellow suit, and now the trap is set and it's just a matter of drawing him out. Cisco successfully does so. Reverse Flash zooms into the lab and gets caught in the force field. Having finally caught this murderer, Joe decides to ask him why he murdered Nora Allen, but he doesn't answer. Instead, he directs his attention toward Wells. Revealing his powers are different from Barry's and that he's not bound by these puny little mortals' contraptions, Reverse Flash drags Wells into the cage and proceeds to beat him up.
Joe takes a pipe to the generator maintaining the force field to shut it down and save Wells. Reverse Flash quickly secures the tachyon device and then proceeds to take out all of the cops, except for Eddie. He's about to set his sights on Joe when Barry zooms in for round two. In a burst of yellow and red lightning, Barry carries him outside, but this fight doesn't go any better than the first. Luckily for Barry, Ronnie shows up in time and uses his fire powers to drive Reverse Flash away. Ronnie tells Caitlin to stop looking for him and flies off.
Back at the CCPD station, Joe lets a confused Eddie in on the metahuman secret, but tells him that no one else can know. What's really bothering Eddie is that Reverse Flash didn't kill (Hmmm). Then, Joe heads upstairs to Barry's lab to make one thing clear to Barry: "The world may need The Flash, but I need my Barry Allen," Joe says, and then everyone watching bursts into tears as The Flash confirms it has one of the best surrogate father-son relationships on TV at the moment.
Joe and Barry head home and find Cisco, Caitlin, Eddie, and Iris waiting for them. Naturally, things are awkward between Iris and Barry, nonetheless, Barry congratulates Eddie on his new roommate. While this is going on, Cisco pulls Joe aside and points out that during the fight he saw red and yellow lightning like what Barry claims to have seen on the night of his mother's death—which means there were two speedsters there.
Back at S.T.A.R. Labs, Wells, who told Caitlin and Cisco he wasn't in the mood for socializing, applies the tachyon device to his yellow suit and says "Merry Christmas" in the deep and distorted voice the Reverse Flash used throughout the episode. We have some timey-wimey shenanigans going on!
Wall of Weird:
— Wells Theory #1: I can't say I wasn't disappointed, and I'm sure commenter Samurai Jack was too, to find out that Wells is not Metron. Anyway, clearly Wells is some version of Reverse Flash. Odds are he's Hunter Zolomon, the second Reverse Flash. In the comics, Hunter Zolomon is all about making The Flash (who is Wally West at the time) go through immense tragedy in order to turn him into a hero who's willing to do what it takes. Based on what we've seen, Wells is definitely preparing Barry for something. What if this version of Hunter Zolomon either found a way to contact the future, or is from the future, and is making sure the future turns out as it should. This would also explain why he let Eddie live, to give Flash his greatest enemy. Whether or not Reverse Flash actually knows who Wells is is up for debate. One can make the argument that Wells was beaten up to throw people off of him because he talks about the future so damn much.
— Wells Theory #2: We stop theorizing because who knows what to expect from these writers.
— Wells Theory #3: Because comics.
— It's worth noting how The Flash is borrowing the whole "mentor becomes greatest enemy" thing from Arrow. Hey, why reinvent the wheel when you have something that worked before?
— Well, this is the midseason finale. I've had fun recapping the show and reading your reactions to each episode in the comments. If you want to talk about The Flash during the hiatus, feel free to reach out to me on Twitter @chancelloragard. See you back here in January.