The Flash - 'The Trap' and 'Grodd Lives'

The Pipeline continues to be both a minion bank and an ethical puzzle that
no-one seems to want to address.

With the entire team now aware of Wells' identity as the Reverse Flash, it's time for our heroes to set a trap. Their plan, having used lucid dreaming to recover Cisco's memories of the averted timeline, is to recreate his confrontation with Wells, get him to confess to murdering Nora Allen, then lock him in the Pipeline forever.

Of course, nothing is ever that simple.

The episode manages to build up a decent bit of tension. We've already had the heartbreak of watching Cisco die once, and the moment where Wells seemingly steps through the forcefield to kill him is a real panic moment. The revelation of the Reverse Flash's counter-trap and truly sinister level of surveillance is well-executed, and the flashback in which Joe calls for help with the words 'my son is coding' is a truly brilliant Dad moment.

We end the episode with Wells/Eobard Thawne kidnapping his apparent ancestor Eddie, and a chance spark of static electricity revealing to Iris that Barry is the Flash.

How does Grodd hear a supersonic punch coming? I mean... by definition the
Flash is running faster than sound, right? Oh, this is going to bug me.

We thus begin the next episode with Iris pissed at the men in her life for being all overprotective, which is fair. I'm still not buying them as a couple, but the episode does recapture something of the 'best friends' vibe.

The episode isn't 'Barry and Iris's Heart-to-Heart', however, it's 'Grodd Lives'. A series of gold robberies are discovered to have been committed by General Eiling under Grodd's mental control. When the big ape proves able to disable the Flash with telepathic pain, the tech team make him a disruptor, but Grodd also turns out to be a match for Barry in combat, and even defeated is able to make his escape.

These episodes make substantial advances in showing a more tactical Flash, attempting the supersonic punch on Grodd and using a vacuum to put out a fire, although it's not clear how Grodd is able to fight the Flash at the speed he can move. Nonetheless, it is good to see a major villain like Grodd given his due here and not treated as disposable.

The emotional core is supposed to be Barry's reconciliation with Iris and her admission of her feelings for him, but this is sharked from under them by Jesse L Martin's turn as Joe, letting rip and showing real terror when he is captured by Grodd. Joe is a tough guy and rarely shows weakness, but Martin holds nothing back to demonstrate his absolute helplessness in the face of a creature that can out-think him, out-fight him, and even turn his own body against him. It's powerful stuff, and a vulnerability not many action men get to show.

Meanwhile, Reverse Flash is puttering about and getting his master plan to return home ready, all the while mocking Eddie for being 'the only Thawne history forgot,' and taunting him with the 'Iris West-Allen*' byline on his future newspaper. This, coupled with Iris's whole 'Eddie is the man I live with' refusal to talk about her feelings for Barry until Eddie is rescued has me really rooting for 'Detective Pretty Boy' to come out on top in all of this, not least because of Rick Cosnett's superb kicked puppy face, which incredibly gives Grant Gustin and Carlos Valdes** a run for their money.

An important transition over these two episodes was Team Flash letting go of the Harrison Wells that they thought they knew, and whose advice and care had been an invaluable part of their work. Barry reflects on his seeming kindness and apparently genuine desire to help him to help people, while Cisco and Caitlin question their ability to create an effective telepathic dampener without his input. It's a critical growing up moment for them. Reverse Flash himself*** even gets to reflect how much he has enjoyed working with the Flash, despite his absolute loathing of the man Barry is to grow into. His suggestion that his final defeat of the Flash will be some sort of 'reckoning' is intriguing to me, and I wonder what it is that Thawne is trying to avert, and whether his goals are as purely nefarious as they might at first appear.

* West-Allen just sounds like a gentrifying suburb to me.
** Seriously, this series loves it some woobies.
*** Fortunately, he doesn't seem to be going by 'Professor Zoom'.