The Flash Episode 21 Recap, Grodd Lives

(Author’s note: Apologies for this one being late, I was away on a work trip.)

Iris tries to cope with finding out that her best friend was hiding a big secret as our episode begins. Barry zips around the city while she stares wistfully at the horizon. Captain Singh inquires about Eddie’s absence at CCPD, but Joe and Barry cover for him. Joe reminds Barry that he should really find Eddie, and they also go over notes on a string of gold store robberies. Later, Iris comes to Barry’s lab and tells him about the man in yellow taking Eddie. They have a great double-sided conversation in which Barry doesn’t know Iris knows he’s The Flash and takes her at face value despite everything she’s saying being in reference to the fact that she does know. It’s clever.

On the other side of town, a shipment of gold is being prepared for transportation and a heavily-armed soldier appears and blows up a truck. Barry enters STAR Labs to find Cisco tinkering with Dr. Wells’ spy cameras. When they get the alert, Barry takes off to confront the gunman, but falls to the ground suffering from some sort of surgery-related flashback. Not only does this incapacitate Barry, but it makes the gunman immobile too, as they learn when they inspect the security footage later. It’s not like when Rainbow Raider got in Barry’s head before he notes, but he admits it hurts to get whammied. Just as he says this he gets another whammy as Iris enters, revealing she knows his secret. Cisco and Caitlin listen in while the two of them talk where Iris reveals how she found out and Barry tells her not only that Eddie has known for a while, but that Dr. Wells is the man in yellow. Once again, Barry tries to justify his choice as protecting Iris, but she says he can stop protecting her.

Following how we last saw him, we find Eddie tied to a chair in some sort of sewer dungeon. Wells enters, sadly without food for Eddie, and provides no proof when Eddie asks for anything regarding their relation or his origins, though he does go bananas at the mention of The Flash. At CCPN, Iris takes notes on seemingly everything and ties it all back to the man in yellow. Joe enters to talk it out with her and tries to explain himself, doing just as poor of a job as Barry did earlier. Iris, in perhaps the largest and best chunk of character development offered to her in the entire series, counters his rationale by saying if she had known she could have been better prepared to deal with literally everything that has happened. She also goes on to blame Joe for what happened to Eddie. Joe is saved by the bell from a work call.

At STAR, Barry reveals Joe told him they’re planning on moving $300 million worth of gold and they’re expecting the assailant to try it out. The means for moving it are different though as it’s hidden inside an ice cream truck, but the gunman is still prepared and blows it up with a landmine. Joe prepares to take him down, but Barry manages to arrive just in time and knock him down. Both of them walk over and unmask him, revealing him to be General Eiling. They take him back to the Particle Accelerator prison where he stands catatonic, and replies to their questions in guttural caveman talk. Eiling repeats phrases like “Eiling not here,” “Eiling bad,” and “I Am Grodd, Fear Me.” This leads Cisco and Caitlin to explain the circumstances of Grodd to Barry and Joe, that General Eiling wanted to develop super soldiers with psychic abilities and Grodd was his guinea pig, whom Dr. Wells saved when he learned about Eiling’s experiments. They all figure out that the particle accerlator explosion kick-started the drugs in Grodd’s system and made him a metagorilla, and that Wells is using him as a distraction. Iris enters offering her services and revealing the reports of animals in the sewers, a place that Cisco reluctantly agrees to go.

Barry, Cisco, and Joe all assemble in the sewer, leaving a trail of flares in their wake, and holding a banana, because why not. Back at STAR, Caitlin and Iris talk about Barry, who Caitlin says feels quite terrible, but he should says Iris. Iris then inquires about Ronnie and Caitlin opens up about the whole Firestorm debacle. Once again into the sewer, the trio walk down the sewer and watch Grodd’s writing evolve from primitiive letters and drawings to equations and formulas. He snarls at them from a distance and knocks Barry down with another of his fear flashbacks just after he hits him with a tranquilizer dart. Grodd then appears out of the ceiling like a Xenomorph and hoists Joe away into parts unknown. Joe wakes up in another part of the sewer and is forced by Grodd to turn his gun on himself before throwing it away. With Grodd before him, Joe tries to bring up Wells, but the gorilla isn’t talking. He’s also not a fan of bananas.

At STAR Labs, they reveal that Barry’s brain scan was the same as Eiling, meaning that these mental intrusions are psychic attacks by Grodd. They put a tracker in the tranq dart that hit Grodd and are using it to find him, but Barry is more worreid about the psychic attacks and asks for some sort of tech to keep him out, which would have been no problem if Dr. Wells was still around. Iris leaves in a huff and Barry tries to talk to her, but she’s justifiably angry. Their argument intensifies when Iris accuses him of lying once again and he says she lied about her feelings for him too. Back in Dr. Wells’ sewer dungeon, Eddie tries to taunt him by saying they’ll find him eventually. Wells returns the taunting favor by talking about how much of a failure Eddie is in comparison to the rest of the Thawne line. He also mentions that he doesn’t get the girl, revealing the future headline and Iris’ marriage to Barry. Eddie doesn’t take it well.

Cisco reveals his anti-telepathy strip for Barry despite them having no way to test it. They track Grodd’s movements and Iris pleads to bring her Dad back before Barry runs off. Barry gets into position and Cisco activates steam valves to get Grodd into a spot exactly 3.5 miles away, the exact distance Barry needs to deliver another supersonic punch. As he builds up speed and runs right at the beast, Grodd turns and charges at Barry and catches his fist mid punch, hurling him down the sewer. The pair tussle, but Barry’s punches have no effect and Grodd just tosses him through a brick wall wherein the anti-telepathy strip falls of his noodle. Grodd begins another attack, which brings Barry to his knees in the middle of some subway tracks with a train on the way. Iris gets in his ear in the communicator and talks him through it, and Barry manages to get out of the way at the right moment. Frustrated naturally, the Gorilla charges at Barry and is hit by yet another subway, which must be the most frightening thing that driver has ever seen. Barry rushes to Joe and gets him out of there.

Barry lets General Eiling out of his cage after his brain scan proves normal. They have a pointed talk about metahumans, with Barry’s assertion that they’re not all bad. Eiling reveals that he’s known Barry was The Flash for a while, leaving Barry to connect the dots that he never went after him because he thinks him might need him one day, which Eiling doens’t dispute. Upstairs, Joe lays in a hospital bed and talks to Iris, he apologizes and realizes now that what he did was foolish, especially after waiting to die at the hands of Grodd. Barry talks with Caitlin and Cisco and they start to connect the dots about Wells’ plan with Grodd, and that they’ll need a stronger anti-telepathy helmet. With the new addition of Iris to the team, they can handle it.

Later that night, Iris stands on the roof where she first me The Flash, and she’s joined by Barry. He reveals that the things she said to him in the sewer gave him courage and she’s been in his heart with every step in his super career. Barry tries to bring up her feelings for him once again but she can’t have this talk with Eddie out there, but afterwards who knows? In the mean time, Grodd is scaling a building across the way and leaps down into the city below. Back in the sewer dungeon, Dr. Wells finished working on his doohickey claiming he has “the key.” He ascends the ladder and puts the key into a contraption and we see the Particle Accelerator door open in front of him.

You can check out the promo and photos for episode 22 of “The Flash” below. Titled “Rogue Air,” the episode is officially described as follows:

“As Wells (Tom Cavanagh) once again gets the upper hand on the S.T.A.R. Labs team, Barry (Grant Gustin) realizes he needs to make a big move and reaches out to an old foe, Captain Cold (guest star Wentworth Miller), for help. Joe (Jesse L. Martin) and Caitlin (Danielle Panabaker) warn Barry that Cold can’t be trusted. True to form, Cold has his own agenda that involves the meta-humans trapped in the containment cells. As things seem to be going from bad to worse, The Flash gets reinforcements – Arrow (guest star Stephen Amell) and Firestorm (guest star Robbie Amell).”

Written by Aaron Helbing and Todd Helbing and directed by Doug Aarniokoski, “Rogue Air” is set to air May 12. “The Flash” airs Tuesdays at 8 P.M. EST on The CW.