The Flash - 'The Runaway Dinosaur'

"I don't think we're in Kansas anymore."

Barry wakes up at home to find Joe processing the scene of his mother's murder. Only it's not Joe, it's the Speed Force, and it sets him a challenge: catch a speeding blur and he will regain his speed.

In the 'real' world, Harry and Cisco struggle to retrieve Barry after Cisco vibes him, while Henry looks after Jesse, who is in a coma much like Barry's. Joe also drops a coffee cup to see if Wally has gained access to the Speed Force, but he hasn't. Then Girder breaks out of the morgue as a zombie and mindlessly pursues Iris.

Cisco manages to reach through to Barry, but he refuses to come back out, as doing so would mean going back without his powers. The Speed Force leads him through a series of painful memories, and asserts that he has turned his back on his gift. It seems odd that the Speed Force is so choosy about who gains access to its powers, but juiced Zoom in the first place.

"Barry; I am not your father."

Barry faces his mother's death through the medium of a children's book called 'The Runaway Dinosaur', and catches the blur, which is himself. Then Cisco brings Iris to the threshold, she pulls Barry back and he defeats Girder. Hurrah!

And Zoom unleashes his army of metahumans on Central City.

'The Runaway Dinosaur' is a flawed episode of the Flash, despite a decent central premise. The Girder subplot is a bit of busywork peril - no wonder they didn't want to bother with a new villain - and while Barry got some nice character work, it didn't feel as if it were moving him from somewhere he actually was. We really needed to see more of his ongoing hangups over Nora's death leading up to this, rather than just being told that he never visits his mother's grave. After all, he got a pretty big slam of closure at the end of last season.

Honestly, I'm a little disappointed that neither Jesse nor Wally appears to be displaying signs of Speed Force channeling, but maybe that's for later. Clearly the important thing is winding up for the big finale, which looks set to be Team Flash vs. the Legion of Zoom.