The Flash Episode 20 Recap, The Trap

We pick up directly where last week left off, with Barry, Cisco and Caitlin inspecting Dr. Wells’ hideyhole. They start to read the newspaper and the AI Gideon makes herself known and the group get a treasure trove of information about the future like Iris and Barry’s marriage, that he becomes the director of the Central City Police CSI Division, He’s a founding member of…well something, and there’s even a nice tease for Hawkgirl hidden in the news print! Barry asks Gideon why Wells tried to kill Nora Allen and she says he was angry, because Barry escaped. As Wells enters the building and nears the hideyhole, Gideon reveals she won’t tells Wells of their encounter and will obey any command Barry gives her, because he created her. They zoom out of there just as Wells enters and asks Gideon if everything is all right, and she says everything is just fine.

Eddie meets up with Joe at Jitters, and he’s got the jitters as he stumbles over himself in trying to ask Joe for his permission to marry Iris. Though it seems he might say yes, Joe puts his foot down and says nope. Barry calls them and that night they explain everything they saw in the “Time Vault” (come on, hideyhole is way better). As they talk, Barry says he has a bad idea, triggering a flashback within Joe to the night that Harrison Wells spoke to him at the hospital as Barry lay in a coma, offering to help him. Joe reluctantly agreed in the moment and he comes to in the present when Barry reveals they need to access Cisco’s memories and figure out a way to get Wells to confess.

The next day at STAR Labs, Cisco works on the dream goggles, and Dr. Wells enters asking about their project. They provide a good cover story, and Dr. Wells even contributes into making the project better. Later at CCPD, Captain Singh yells at Barry then very quickly is nice to him, citing the stress of wedding planning, and telling Barry to never get married. Just as Barry starts to bumble his words, he runs into Iris who wants to talk with him. He tries to put it off, but Eddie immediately shows up too and also asks to talk to him privately. Eddie pulls Barry aside and shows him the ring he bought Iris, which makes Barry even more jumpy. He tells Barry that Joe said no and he wants him to talk to him about it, and Barry agrees, though remarks to himself that Iris may not go for the name “Iris Thawne.”

That night they put the dream goggles on Cisco, who walks through his memories of that night and listens to Dr. Wells make his grand confession once again. He even recites some of the bits of dialogue in his sleep so Barry, Joe, and Caitlin can hear, allowing them to make the connection between Dr. Wells and Eddie. Cisco violently wakes up as Dr. Wells calls Barry, alerting him to a big fire downtown, which happens to be the same building that Captain Singh’s fiance works in. Barry runs inside and finds a number of people trapped behind the flames and the sprinkles not working. Wells coaches Barry into spinning his arms wicked fast to create a vaccuum and put out the fires, which he gets the hang of after a quick pep talk.

Barry returns to STAR Labs and puts up his suit where he has another one of those great double-sided conversations with Dr. Wells. Wells tells him the only thing standing in his way is himself and there’s no limit to how strong he’ll get. Thanks to all his snooping though, Barry knows that Wells is just buttering him up, though he also brings some butter and tells Dr. Wells he couldn’t have done any of this without him. Back at Casa de West, Barry talks to Joe about his weird relationship with Wells and despite knowing the terrible things he’s done, he still kind of likes him. The pair agree they have to trap him and they can’t trust him, not like they have before – he’s going to pay for all the things he’s done.

Eddie joins Barry, Joe, Cisco, and Caitlin at STAR where they go over the plan: Cisco will wait for Wells, Caitilin will record everything from the Cortex, and Eddie will protect Iris. Cisco reveals he’s converted the containment field to keep Speedsters out, and Barry bounces right off it in a quick test. Barry then pulls Joe aside to bring up the topic Eddie asked him about. Joe reveals he said “No” because he knows that Iris will get caught up in the moment and say yes, and she’ll never back down from her marital promise even though she’ll know she married the wrong guy. She loves Barry, even Joe knows it. Speaking of the devil, she sends him a “911” text and he goes to meet her.

Iris waits for Barry at CCPD and when he arrives it seems like they’re going to have a lovey dovey moment, but in fact Iris has blown the whole case wide open. She’s compiled pages of evidence tying the metahumans to the Particle Accelerator explosion. Barry plays it off, citing a big hole in her argument: he doesn’t have powers. He exits, leaving Iris time to fawn over a photo of the two of them on his desk. We flashback to when Barry has been moved to STAR Labs and Iris sits by his bed talking to him, revealing her first date with Eddie took place, because he wasn’t around to stop it. She puts her hand on his and literally sparks fly between them.

Wells enters STAR Labs and Caitilin tells him that Cisco thinks he figured out what happened the night they tried to trap the Reverse Flash. He says he’ll go help him. Cisco stares at the Reverse Flash hologram as Wells enters from the elevator. The scene plays out as it did weeks ago almost exactly, until he tries to get him to confess, which isn’t good enough for Barry and Joe who sit in the corner waiting. As Wells approaches him, Cisco leaps into the containment field and turns on the shield, but Wells is able to enter it and continues approaching. Joe emerges from hiding and fires three shots at Wells. In one of the coolest scenes of the series, Barry runs forward, catching two of the bullets, but the third travels into the field and hits Wells in the chest. Surprise though, Wells thought ahead, and it was actually the shape-shifting Hannibal Bates and not Dr. Wells. Wells and Barry have a brief shouting match but it’s not as easy as “come fight me big fella!” No, Wells has plans. Barry runs to the time vault and finds Wells’ chair, the Reverse Flash suit gone, and countless videos from throughout the season of none other than Iris, seemingly his true target.

Barry runs to find Iris, who is walking along a bridge with Eddie in front of STAR Labs. Eddie tries to set a romantic mood, interrupted by Joe calling, and prepares to propose. The Reverse Flash runs by and plucks the ring from Eddie’s hand though and makes another pass through, knocking him down. He approaches Iris who tells him she knows he killed Barry’s mom, but as Barry approaches, Wells grabs Eddie and runs off. Right on time, Barry tells Iris not to worry, he’ll find Eddie. She reaches out to touch him and sparks form between them, leading her to finally realize that Barry is The Flash, a much better version of the reveal than what we saw in the episode that didn’t actually happen anymore.

Wells brings Eddie to one of his other hide outs and reveals himself to be Eobard Thawne, a distant relative from the future. Eddie thinks this whole thing has been about him, but Thawne says no, Eddie is just his insurance. We flashback once again to Barry in his coma at STAR Labs. Dr. Wells stands over him all creepy like, spinning super villain yarns about how young he looks, how helpless he appears, how he’s watched him grow up, and how fate made it that Dr. Wells would be the one that has to groom his greatest enemy. He makes Barry a promise, which he can’t hear, that there will be a reckoning and Barry will die.

You can check out the promo fro Episode 21 of “The Flash” in the player below. Titled “Grodd Lives,” the episode is officially described as follows:

“Barry (Grant Gustin) must deal with the Reverse Flash’s (Tom Cavanagh) latest threat to a member of the group. To make matter worse, Dr. Wells unleashes Grodd on the city in order to distract Barry and the team. Joe (Jesse L. Martin), Barry and Cisco (Carlos Valdes) head down into the sewers to catch Grodd but the gorilla quickly gets the upper hand after he kidnaps Joe. Iris (Candice Patton) and Barry have a heart to heart talk.”

Directed by Dermott Downs and written by Grainne Godfree & Kai Yu Wu, “Grodd Lives” is set to air May 5. “The Flash” airs Tuesdays at 8 P.M. EST on The CW.