The Flash Episode 5 Recap, Plus Episode 6 Promo

At a local bar in Central City, Barry mingles both of his circles of friends together as Iris and Eddie play darts and mostly ignore Caitlin and Cisco. Barry also stands off by himself for a few minutes as he delivers our opening monologue. Both groups of friends think it’s great the other is present, despite not actually speaking to each other, but there is a more pressing concern at hand, Barry can’t get drunk anymore due to his fast metabolism.

On the other side of town, a man is washing windows on a high rise and a security guard wanders through empty hallways before giving the all clear, but it isn’t all clear. Inside one of the rooms a woman is stealing files and she gets caught red handed, but she throws an explosive backpack in the way to make her escape. The explosion is quite substantial and send the window washer tumbling over the side of his cart. Barry and Eddie leave the bar to go to the site, and they’re followed by Iris. Cisco and Caitlin do some calculations for Barry to figure out how fast he’d have to go to run up the building to save the window washer and after he successfully accomplishes that he comes face to face with the worst possible thing, Iris, staring at him in his Flash duds.

The next morning Barry, Joe and Eddie are investigating the bombing, though Barry is unable to find any traces of an actual bomb. Eddie reveals to the pair that whoever the mystery woman is was after a file folder from a room down the hall, though it would take them days to figure out what she took, unless they had super speed. Back at Central City PD, the Army has shown up and they’re taking over the case of the bombing and demand all of the collected evidence. Barry hands it over but quickly takes the file he snatched earlier. Joe tells Barry he and his STAR Labs buddies need to take a look into this one. Meanwhile Iris shows up and Joe confronts her about going to the bombing site the night before. She reveals that she was looking for The Streak for her blog.

At STAR Labs, Barry tells the crew about the Army taking over the case and Dr. Wells reveals he knows General Eiling all too well as they worked together on an enhanced soldier project years ago. Using the file Barry lifted, Cisco is able to track down the person that caused the explosion who they reveal to be one Bette Sans Souci. Barry runs off to talk to her, but she accidentally touches his suit, which she says he might want to get out of. Barry speeds down the alley and manages to get out of his suit before it explodes in a tiny mushroom cloud. He makes his way back to STAR Labs where he reveals what happened to Cisco’s suit, which annoys the young inventer to no end. Joe shows up at STAR just in time for the “meta-human” discussion of the week, where we learn that Bette is creating the bombs with her touch, but also to convince Barry to get Iris to knock it off with her new blog.

As Joe requested, Barry attempts to coerce Iris into letting go of her crusade for The Streak, but she won’t hear it. She fully believes in what she’s doing and refuses to believe that Barry isn’t totally fascinated by all of this. The STAR Labs crew figure out that Bette is targeting a military doctor that experimented on her previously and that Generel Eiling and his crew are en route. Barry rushes to the scene and arrives just in time. Bette takes a bullet wound to the arm but Barry convinces her that he can explain everything and the pair escape.

Back at STAR Labs, Wells and company explain the entire thing to Bette – the particle accelerator and how it combined with the storm to create all of the meta-humans. She tells them she had just returned from Afghanistan where she was defusing bombs, and one managed to go off nearby and fill her with shrapnel. The group deduces that the dark energy from the storm combined with the shrapnel inside her to give her the explosion powers. As Caitlin gets ready to perform some tests on Bette, they realize the bullet that grazed her was implanted with a tracer and General Eiling and his posse are on the elevators. Barry, Cisco, Caitlin and Bette all book it, leaving Wells to chat with the General.

Cisco and Caitlin begin to test Bette’s powers, when he comes up with the clever name of “Plastique” for her. Barry and Bette talk about their abilities, she posits the “what if” to him of if he could get rid of his powers, would he? Barry seemingly says no as he’s always wanted to help people and these powers certainly allow him to carry that out, but Bette’s powers don’t so much lend themselves to this. Joe calls Barry once again to get him to convince Iris to let it all go, which gives Barry an idea.

As Iris is closing up at the cafe, someone enters, and of course, it’s none other than Barry as “The Streak.” He masks his voice and he asks her to stop writing about him. Iris tries to ask questions but he dodges them or doesn’t answer at all – typical superhero interview. The Streak tells her he doesn’t do what he does for the recognition, so her blog isn’t necessary. Unbeknownst to Iris, she relays a story to Barry about Barry, that his belief in the impossible all these years is what led her to keep this up, that he’s not crazy for believing in out there things.

Back at STAR Labs, the crew tells Bette it’s impossible to change her back, her molecular structure is too far gone. Barry wants to recruit her onto the team, seeing her potential and her desire to help, but everyone else on the crew shoots down the idea. He tries to tell them to save her life like they saved his.

Barry and Joe meet up at the CCPD crime lab where Barry gives Joe a progress report on his attempts at convincing Iris to cool it, which haven’t been successful, much like his attempts to woo Iris which Joe is 100% aware of, a revelation to Barry. Joe relays the theme of the episode to Barry that the universe has a way of figuring things out when it wants something to happen. Meanwhile at STAR, once again Bette and Dr. Wells talk about her abilities, he relates to her because the accident that created her “put him in this chair” (which we know isn’t true). In a last desperate attempt, he coerces her into killing General Eiling.

The next day Barry meets up with Cisco and Caitlin and asks about Bette, who they reveal left. It’s not long before they realize that she’s been surrounded by Eiling and his goons outside the city and they know she isn’t planning on surrendering. Barry races to the scene and arrives just after Bette has thrown some explosive ping pong balls at the soldiers, but he wasn’t fast enough as the general shoots Bette in the chest. With her dying breath, Bette tries to tell Barry that Dr. Wells put her up to it but all that comes out is his name.

Bette’s body begins to glow after she passes and in order to get her body, which will cause a substantial explosion, out of the way Barry figures he needs to run on the water. Wells and Cisco do some calcuatilations and relay to Barry how fast he needs to go, which as expected ends up being quite fast. Barry takes off across the water and bumps Bette’s body in the open sea and books it back to Central City as her body’s explosion sends waves all the way back to the city.

General Eiling covers up the incident as military testing, leaving Barry sick that he got away with murdering her. Barry goes to the West house and tries to convince Iris to knock it off one more time. He tiptoes around Bette’s story and that he lost a friend and he can’t imagine losing family, telling Iris if she keeps writing she might put herself in danger and he couldn’t live with that. Iris counters that Barry has been a voice for this kind of thing for years, forcing Barry to lie and say he’s put all his family business behind him. The pair decide to “not see each other for a while” (the first friendship break-up I’ve ever witnessed) and Barry leaves to rendezvous with Caitlin and Cisco at the bar where Caitlin reveals she’s created some super alcohol just for Barry. They toast to Bette’s memory and Barry gets his buzz on.

Meanwhile at STAR Labs, General Eiling pays Dr. Wells a visit where he tries to convince him to partner up with him once again as he clearly is at the forefront of meta-human research. The pair exchange threats before Eiling eventually departs and we see a flashback to five years ago where the two were arguing once again. The two bicker over the treatment of an experiment. As Eiling leaves, Wells enters a room and speaks to the subject they were talking about, a caged gorilla who of course is named Grodd (and was teased in the pilot episode as escaping). Wells tells him he has a “whole different future in mind” for him.

You can also check out the promo for episode 6 of “The Flash” in the player below. Titled “The Flash is Born,” the episode is officially described as follows:

“The Flash faces a new meta-human named Tony (guest star Greg Finley), who can turn himself into girded steel at will. While Dr. Wells and Caitlin are concerned about Barry’s safety, Cisco comes up with a plan to take Tony down. Meanwhile, Iris’s blog on The Flash gets her into trouble, and Eddie witnesses Tony’s abilities firsthand and begins to ask questions that Joe doesn’t want answered. Joe asks Dr. Wells to help him solve Nora Allen’s murder.”

Directed by Millicent Shelton and written by Jaime Paglia & Chris Rafferty, “The Flash is Born” is set to air November 18. “The Flash” airs Tuesdays at 8 P.M. on The CW.