Three Men and a Metahuman: The Flash Episode 2.20 Recap

Some crooks lead the cops on a chase, and somehow The Flash is right behind them. We see at STAR Labs that Cisco has created a giant system with a Flash hologram, controlled by both he and Barry. They use the tech and fool the criminals, but as Wells reminds them it’s only a matter of time before people realize he’s not real. He tells them the only way to stop Zoom is give Barry his power’s back via another particle accelerator explosion, and he knows how to contain it. A big decision in front of him, Barry goes to see his dad, who has become a lumberjack. He tells him about all the reveals in the past few episodes, prompting an odd reveal where Henry says his mother’s maiden name was Garrick, but also the theme of the episode: Do you need your powers to be the person you are?

Back at STAR, Wells shows Cisco the schematics for the device that will give Barry his speed back. He’s no sooner to telling him it’s a bad idea before he suddenly has a vibe of his brother, Dante. Barry and Henry arrive, and it seems he’s back for good now. At CCPD, Joe and Wally prepare to head home when who should show up, but Zoom (with Caitlin in tow). He tells them to deliver the message that the city is his now, and the entire police force leaves the building. Wells begins to recite Zoom’s plan from Earth-2, saying he’ll kill those police officers too. He begs Barry to get his powers back, but Barry tells Joe to round up the cops and get them to Jitters.

At CCPD, Caitlin asks why Zoom is keeping her around and it’s simple, he doesn’t want to be alone. He tries to convince her there is a darkness inside her, like in Killer Frost, but she doesn’t go for his Emperor Palpatine bait. When Zoom leaves, she reaches for a nearby evidence box. Across town, Cisco meets with his brother at a bar and the bickering begins immediately. Joe locks Jesse and Wally in the Time Vault with some supplies, they were targets of Zoom’s before so they might be again. Afterward he joins Wells in the workshop as he continues working on his formula to give Barry his speed back. Henry Allen joins them and begs him not to do it. The three father figures of Barry’s life are all trapped in the “what to do” argument, and they each have their points that all make sense. Barry arrives mid-fight and reminds them all it’s his decision.

As Cisco prepares to give up on talking to his brother, he sees a report that Zoom has taken over the CCPD and jets… with Dante right behind him. As they walk to his van, a scythe-weilding metahuman arrives and blows up a nearby motorcycle. He’s here to kill Cisco for killing his brother and unmasks to reveal he’s Earth-2’s Dante, aka Rupture. They make it out by the skin of their teeth and return to STAR Labs. Wells reveals that Rupture gets his powers from the Scythe so if they can get it away from him they can stop him. Barry is still at a loss of what to do and goes to think. He’s joined by Iris, who takes the time to tell him how she feels – she has feelings for him. Confused, Barry asks what changed and she tells him that she became available since then, plus she knows they were married not only on Earth-2 but in the future.

Caitlin gets inside the evidence box at CCPD and finds a phone, but has to hide it when Rupture returns. Zoom and Rupture have a bad-guy voice-off, which is hilarious and terrible, before he gets a new assignment: kill the cops at Jitters. Caitlin grabs the phone and sends a message to STAR Labs about what she’s heard. It looks like this might prompt Barry to get his powers back, but he says they’ll have to do this sans-Flash. At Jitters, the cops prepare and Joe assures them The Flash will be there. As Cisco prepares, Dante confronts him about the letter he wrote to him and their mother before he went ot Earth-2. Cisco reveals to his brother that he has powers, and leaves after saying he knew he wouldn’t care.

Cisco and Barry prep the Flash hologram as Rupture arrives. They quickly distract him and make him think he’s got the drop on The Flash, only for Joe to tase him and slap handcuffs on him. A news man somehow sneaks in and broadcasts to the world that the metahuman was arrested, and Zoom immediately knows it was Caitlin. He runs to Jitters and does his most evil thing so far, running through the entire shop and snapping almost everyone’s necks. Barry runs in to plead with him, but Zoom just further proves his point of how powerful he is by killing Rupture. He picks up the live news camera and tells the world the truth: The Flash is gone and there’s no one in Central City to protect them. Before leaving he reveals to Barry he’s only alive because of Caitlin.

Cisco, having seen his Earth-2 brother killed, returns to STAR Labs and hugs Dante, promising to be closer. In the Time Vault, Jesse and Wally decide they should be out there helping and try to figure a way out. Wells repeates himself, saying Zoom will now recruit all the metahumans he can find and now that they know The Flash is gone they’ll come out of the woodwork. What more do you need to believe him? He asks. After what he’s seen that night and knowing he could have stopped it before, Barry finally agrees.

Wells has it all figured out. They can contain the blast but must recreate all the aspects, meaning Cisco has to go to the roof and attract some lightning via the Weather Wizard wand. Barry straps into the device and Iris tells him no matter what happens it won’t change her feelings. Wells shuts the blast doors and begins injecting the chemicals that originally surrounded Barry that night directly into his system. Across the many halls of STAR Labs, Jesse and Wally open the door to the Time Vault and exit. The floors begin to rumble. Cisco attracts the lightning and Wells watches the particles collide. The explosion takes off and heads toward Barry.

On the other side of town, Zoom sees the lightning and somehow knows what’s up. He runs to stop it. As the particle accelerator explosion hits Barry, it seems to work, until he begins to dissolve in front of our eyes before sending out a ripple through the building. Jesse and Wally run through the halls but get hit by the Barry-wave and fall to the ground. Will they wake up as speedsters themselves? Zoom arrives in time to find Barry’s charred up costume and tells them, instead of getting The Flash his powers back, they did what he had previously stopped himself from doing: they killed The Flash.

You can view a preview for next week’s episode, titled “The Runaway Dinosaur,” using the player below.