Welcome to the third instalment of the Arrowverse! Today we are jumping into The Flash!!
Barry Allen was just a crime scene analyst before he was struck by lightning during Star Labs' particle accelerator explosion, 9 months later Barry wakes up. When Barry was hit the accelerator let out a wave of dark matter that was sent out across Central City. This event changed something inside him. He wakes up with abs and after some time, super speed. But it appears he’s not the only one, a man named Clyde Mardon is creating storm clouds to help him rob banks. Cisco, Catlin, and Dr. Wells from Star Labs came to Barry's adopted father Joe saying they could help Barry like the doctors couldn't. They monitored him while he was in his coma and offered to help Barry understand and hopefully manage his new speed. One thread in this show is that people share their tragic backstory with little to no prompting. Such as Caitlin who tells Barry about how her fiancé Ronnie died during the particle accelerator explosion without Barry really asking.
When Barry gets home Iris, the girl Barry likes and grew up with, is dating her dad’s partner. A detective named Eddie Thawne. While Barry is trying to adjust to his new life he can't stop thinking about Clyde and how he can help catch him and other meta-humans, what they call those affected by the particle accelerator explosion. After many people confront Barry about how he should leave the catching of these meta-humans to the police, Barry speeds off to Starling City. He talks with The Arrow to see if he can give any advice. Arrow says Barry should follow what he believes and use his ability to protect his city, and to wear a mask. Unlike other heroes, Barry at least starts with a decent sized team that knows his identity and can help him. They even have a suit already made that can be adjusted to work for him. While Barry is fighting Mardon says he’s god. Barry has to stop Mardon's tornado before it gets too big and wreaks the city. Barry stops it by running in the opposite direction to disrupt the air flow. While trying to fight Barry Joe shoots Mardon, killing him.
Part of the group of people that know about Barry is Joe, his adopted father, really helpful and way ahead of other superhero stories. At the end of the first episode we see Wells has a secret room where he stands up (He is supposed to be paralyzed) and has holograms of future newspapers. One that says the Flash disappears in crisis and it's dated April 20th 2024.
Barry and Cisco start doing good and stopping bad guys that are not related to meta-humans, which Catlin is not happy about. Since they agreed to only interfere when meta-humans are involved. But Barry can't help but do good whenever he can. When Barry is running he is getting dizzy spells. Caitlin and Wells figure out Barry needs a lot more food now, especially when he runs. Cisco has started giving names all the meta-humans that they fight. Which most of the team finds annoying at first but they do come around eventually. Wells kills a scientist who took an interest in Barry/The Flash. Joe points out that they’ll need somewhere to hold these meta-humans since Iron Heights won’t be able to hold them and Wells thinks of the particle accelerator tubes. Iris wants to tell her dad about her and Eddie. While visiting Barry’s dad we hear the story of Barry literally running before he walked as a child.
A new player on the board, Leonard Snart is trying to steal a large diamond. He gets his hands on a cold gun that Cisco had made to fight Barry if they had to. It freezes things to absolute zero. Felicity comes to visit to see Barry for the first time Barry woke up from his coma. Barry gets very upset about the cold gun and turns off his ear piece while going into danger. Almost getting himself badly hurt. Barry has discovered that not only does he need to eat a lot, he also can't get drunk. While at a bar with Caitlin, Cisco, Iris and Eddie, a call comes in for a bombing. Eddie and Barry run off to the scene. Barry learns he can run up buildings when he needs to save a window washer at the bombing. Barry also blurs his face by moving super fast when he runs into Iris. A man named General Eiling is in town to get a woman who can create bombs out of anything she touches. Iris begins blogging about "The Streak" and has added her name to the blog to prove it is something she cares about. Barry and company are worried that Iris might get targeted by bad meta-humans if they think she knows something. Barry is able to talk the bomb girl into coming with him to Star Labs to hopefully find a way to control or help get rid of her ability. Wells sets the bomb girl onto General Eiling like an attack dog. Telling her one last mission and she can finally go home. General Eiling ends up killing the bomb girl and her whole body is set to explode. Barry has to figure out how to run on water and then run from the blast going at minimum 650 mph pushing his speed to a new limit. Grodd, the name can be seen in a cage in Star Labs more than once but we actually see the gorilla in the cage in a flashback.
Barry's childhood bully Tony is a meta-human whose skin turns to metal on contact. In order to fight him they have to have Barry hit him at a fast enough speed that it compromises the atomic structure of the metal which they approximate to be about 837 mph or Mach 1.1. Joe is asking around about Nora Allen's murder and he suspects that maybe Wells had something to do with it, if the particle accelerator made Berry's powers come to be maybe the red and yellow lightning was created by another particle accelerator. Joe questions Wells and he ends up finding out Wells had just moved to Central City and wasn't involved. But after speaking with Wells, Joe is visited by the man in yellow with red lightning who collects all of the evidence that they have on Nora's murder and leaves a picture of Iris on the wall with a knife and a note that says “Stop or else”. Wells is talking to his computer program Gideon and leaving a journal entry where he talks about Barry's progress and how the future is still intact while looking at a newspaper article that says the Flash vanishes in crisis. Barry is fighting a meta-human who can control and sap electricity and while fighting the guy kind of absorbs his powers. Tockman, who originally appeared in the Arrow, is brought into the police station. Tockman holds a bunch of people hostage there including Iris and Joe. Wells releases Tony, the man made of metal, telling him he can win his freedom by killing the electric guy who's loose in the facility. Tony dies in the fight. Wells steals a vial of the electric man's blood at the end of the episode.
Barry is chasing the man in the yellow suit. Then we jump back one day. Barry got Iris a replica of her mom’s wedding band that she lost on a 5th grade field trip. Iris got Barry a microscope for Christmas. Ronnie reveals he is alive to Catlin by just bursting into flame in a car park. She speed walks away and hides, shocked. Eddie and Iris decide to move in together after Eddie is assured the ring Barry gave her might nothing. The man in the yellow suit shows up at Barry’s work, Barry asks him why he killed his mom. The man says if you want to know, you have to catch me. They start a little race and fight in a football arena. Caitlin asks for Cisco’s help talking to Ronnie. They go looking for him and find him when says he’s not Ronnie and says Firestorm. Everyone, even his dad (who's in prison) knows Barry loves Iris. A talk with his father pushes Barry to finally tell Iris that he loves her. The team sets a trap for the man in yellow by sending signals out that they have tachyonic particles, (what they have assumed the man in yellow was after) and they plan on using a force field to trap him inside. The man in yellow falls for it and Wells and the cops go down to collect the man. Joe tries to ask why he killed Nora but the man ignores him and starts talking to Dr. Wells, he calls himself the reverse of the Flash. The barrier slightly gives in and Wells is grabbed and brought inside, he is being beaten up while the cops try to get the barrier down to help. Once the barrier is open the man in yellow grabs the tachyonic particles, punches the cops, and says to Joe “I warned you not to hunt me” before running off. Caitlin sends an SOS to Barry and he fights the Reverse-Flash. Barry is losing until Firestorm shows up and blasts Reverse-Flash. Joe tells Eddie about meta-humans and their powers. Wells is in his secret room and opens a wall revealing a mannequin. He pulls out a ring with a lighting bolt, puts it up to the mannequin and the yellow suit pops out. Wells puts the tachyonic device on it and it shudders. Wells says Merry Christmas in the man in yellow’s voice.
Barry is training, and getting faster. Captain Cold (Snart) is back with his fire obsessed friend, Mick. They steal a VERY expensive painting to sell. Cold wants to take down the Flash so he can make Central City his personal playground. Barry gets them to cross the streams of their cold and fire guns, breaking the weapons and saving the day. Iris officially moves in with Eddie and packs her things from her dad’s house. Joe offers Barry to move back in, Barry runs and grabs his stuff. Snart and Mick get broken out of police transport by Snart's sister. Someone attacks Wells at his home. The intruder says “I know what you've done. It’s time to pay the piper.” and blows out windows with sound gloves. Hartley, the intruder, tells the Flash that he knows Wells’ secret, Wells says it’s that Hartley calculated a chance that the particle accelerator would explode and Wells ignored the warning. Iris starts writing for Central City Photo News. Hartley wanted to be caught while destroying a building owned by his father so he could get in Star Labs and steal files. Joe decides to investigate Wells, and he’s keeping it from Barry. A new meta comes on the scene that can teleport where she can see. Hartley offers his assistance but is barely helping Cisco look for Ronnie, saying he knows what happened. He shows him footage that shows Martin Stein and Ronnie were fused into one person. Barry and Catlin go out to the metas old hangout spots to look for them and try to reclaim their social life. Barry gets a girl’s number, her name is Lisa and they start dating. Barry’s dad starts helping by getting info from inside the prison. This does not go well and he gets beaten for it.
They can’t let Ronnie roam around anymore. So they start tracing Stein’s old friends and family. They go to Stein’s wife and discover Firestorm has been watching over her. Using an old mirror in Barry’s old home that has a silver nitrate backing (silver nitrate which is used in film for photographs) Cisco is able to pull photos of the night Nora died. They find some blood splattered on the wall that came from one of the two speedsters. Barry is having trouble balancing being Flash and having a dating life. Both Caitlin and Stein’s wife convince Firestorm to come to Star Labs for help. Ronnie and Stein could go nuclear unless they do something. One of the blood samples they found at the house came from Barry as an adult. Once Firestorm is separated, both people go back home. Joe shows Barry what they found at his home. Time travel, Barry had to have gone back in time to get his adult blood in the house the night of the murder. The army, and General Eiling, shows up to take Firestorm with them. Stein is able to feel when Ronnie is being attacked. They all reconvene at Star Labs to get them safe. Wells gives up Stein to the army. They are able to save Stein by remerging Firestorm, but this time they accept it and are able to better control it. Wells kidnaps Eiling and reveals he’s the man in yellow. He also leaves him for Grodd who is living in the sewers.
While Barry is running to a crime scene he sees another version of himself running beside him. Clyde Mardon’s brother Mark is seeking revenge on Joe for killing his brother. Cisco is starting to put together that Wells is a little fishy. Mark attacks the police station and the chief gets hit and loses the use of his legs. Mason from the news is watching Wells and says he has evidence of him being a sociopath. Joe and Eddie go looking at old Mardon brother hangouts, and they find him and Joe is taken hostage. Cisco turns on the force field machine and a recording of Reverse-Flash comes up. Wells sensing something was up shows up behind him, standing, and re introduces himself as Eobard Thawne. He shows Cisco how he can go so fast that there can be two of him, which he calls a speed mirage. Eobard tells his story and then kills Cisco. Barry and Iris go down to the docks to save her dad and they confess their feelings for each other. Then Mark creates a tsunami to hit the city. Barry changes into the Flash in front of Iris and runs to stop the tsunami. But he runs too fast and runs into the past, to the beginning of the episode.
Barry is living the same day. Wells tells him to do exactly as he did before but so much bad stuff happened that Barry can’t help himself but intervene. He catches Mark before the attacks and Wells tells him he might have brought something worse. Barry and Lisa break up, since he knows Iris likes him. Cisco has a very bad time at his brother Dante's birthday party which he didn’t have to go to before since he was helping find Mardon the first time around. Barry and Cisco go to a bar and a woman approaches Cisco interested in taking him home with her. When they do get “home” she takes off her wig and Snart comes out from around the corner. Heatwave, Mick, brings out Dante and the trio force Cisco to make and remake them all guns. The next morning Barry talks to Iris about his feelings and she tells him nothing has changed and to stop making her be the bad guy. Cold, Heatwave, and Cold’s sister show up at a rival families casino to settle an old debt. Eddie punches Barry while they are at a crime scene for bothering Iris. Dante decides he’s done not fighting for things in his life and tries to break out and away from Snart and pals. This leads to Dante getting 1st degree cold burns on his fingers and Cisco is asked who the Flash is or Snart will kill Dante. Snart and his crew hit the casino’s money while it’s in transport to a safe place. Snart agrees to stop hurting people and Barry will leave him alone. Caitlin tells Iris and Eddie that Barry is suffering from lighting sycosis and that’s why he’s been acting so weird. The Reverse-Flash shows up at the Central City Photo News and kills Mason and steals and destroys all of his info on Wells. Barry loses his faith in Wells.
The episode starts with Reverse-Flash and Flash bursting through a time-space and fighting into Barry’s old house. After the fight and Nora’s death Reverse-Flash tries to go forward in time but can’t. He takes off his hood and has a different face than Wells. We see Wells and his wife Tess on a beach, while Reverse-Flash is watching on. Reverse-Flash set a trap for Wells and Tess, a strip of spikes in the road. Reverse-Flash steals the life and likeness of Wells to continue living in this time and to get the particle accelerator up before the original date of 2020 (yikes) to make the Flash. Back in our current time, Barry and Joe are looking into Wells for Nora’s murder. A bunch of presents come raining down on parachutes to the playground. When they hit the ground they explode. A man named The Trickster releases a video claiming credit and promising more. Barry and Joe visit the old Trickster, who is of course played by Mark Hamill. Iris askes the Flash for help finding Mason. The new Trickster gets the old Trickster out of prison and they take Barry’s dad hostage. Old and new Trickster are father and son, old tracked down and groomed new to fulfil his legacy and break him out. The Tricksters give poison champagne to everyone at the Mayor’s fundraising gala. When Barry goes to help they attach a bomb to his wrist that will go off if he goes below 600 miles per hour. Wells talks Barry through how to run through a wall to get the bomb off. Flash shows his face to Eddie to convince him to help them keep Iris in the dark. The Flash starts helping even more directly with Eddie and Joe. Felicity shows up while the team is talking about a new bee or bug based meta-human. Felicity and Ray ask for help with Ray’s A.T.O.M. suit. Cisco starts getting flashes of memory from the day that never was. Barry gets surrounded by bees and bitten. Iris and Eddie get in a fight about Eddie keeping secrets. One bee rides home with Barry and causes trouble at Star Labs before it gets smacked. They look at the bee under a microscope. The bees are robots, and the girl who made them is named Brie Larven. Felicity describes Ray as Barry in Oliver’s body to Caitlin. Barry and Joe bring Cisco and Caitlin in on their suspicions of Wells.
The rift between Iris and Eddie is getting worse, and Eddie tells Barry he can’t go much longer lying to her. This new meta-human can touch someone and change into them. Cisco and Joe are in Starling city to look into Well’s accident and The Black Canary askes Cisco if he can help modify her sonic device. Caitlin is having some serious doubts about Wells being the Reverse-Flash. Meanwhile the shapeshifter shoots two cops while looking like Eddie. Cisco and Joe find the real Dr. Wells’ body. Eddie tells Iris that he has been working with the Flash and that’s why he has been so distant. Cisco, Barry, and Caitlin find Wells’ secret room, with his suit storage open. Also the future newspaper pulled up. They start talking and Gideon starts interacting with them. They find out Barry marries Iris, becomes the chief of police, and creates Gideon. Barry tells the crew about the time he time traveled. They make lucid dream glasses so Cisco can go into his dream to get evidence they can use against Wells. They decide to recreate the night Cisco died but with a modified force field that Wells shouldn’t be able to walk through. But Wells is two steps ahead, he uses the shapeshifter to pretend to be him. Wells had cameras everywhere so he knew what Barry knew and was far from Star labs. He kidnaps Eddie as insurance while Eddie and Iris are out walking. Eddie was going to propose before the interruption. The Flash assures Iris he will get Eddie back and their hands touch as he leaves. There is a blue static when their hands disconnect, which only happened once before with Barry at the hospital when he was in a coma, Iris figures out Barry is the Flash.
Iris confronts Barry about her knowing he is the Flash. Iris is pissed that she was kept in the dark, and that Eddie is still gone after 24 hours. They find General Eiling causing mayhem and bring him back to Star Labs. Eiling is basically comatose mentally. He is being controlled by Grodd psychically. They head into the sewers to try to find Grodd. They find Grodd and get him to stop controlling Eiling. They say he can stay here if he stops hurting people, Grodd agrees. Wells is keeping Eddie in the particle accelerator while he rebuilds it.
While saving Eddie from the particle accelerator Iris finds the ring Eddie was going to propose. Wells puts a futuristic tube in the accelerator to charge it up. They expect it to take about 36 hours to charge. The meta-humans are going to die if it gets turned on and they are still in there. Barry suggests moving them to Lian yu and Oliver’s prison there. But they need to clear a way to transport them through town to an airfield. Eddie tells Iris about seeing the future and that she marries Barry, not him. Barry goes to Snart for help transporting the metas in case the containment breaks. Snart wants all records of him removed from the internet, CCPD, and onwards. Barry agrees and does it. Snart's sister has caught feelings for Cisco for real this time. It tests Cisco's resolve but he holds true. They get a food semi truck to load the metas into and Barry places construction barriers in the way to stop traffic. The metas get their powers back before the plane gets there and Mardon causes a storm that takes it out. Almost all of them team up to fight the Flash, Cold and his sister stop the fighting and tell the metas that they tampered with the truck to let them go. Now they all owe him and he hopes they will join his Rogue’s Gallery. Barry agrees with Joe that he won’t be taking any more steps on the dark side. Eddie and Iris officially break up. Firestorm and The Arrow show up to help fight Wells.
Wells gives Barry the option to go back and save his mom. Stein points out that he will have no idea how much will change if he does. Joe thinks he should go back but Barry’s dad doesn’t think he should. After talking with Iris, Barry decides to do it. Wells says to do this they need to release one hydrogen particle into the accelerator for Barry to run into. That should open a wormhole, but if he doesn’t go fast enough he’ll die. Cisco is not a fan of this plan, not trusting Wells anymore. Cisco confronts Wells about how he remembers him being murdered in the alternate timeline. So Wells tells Cisco that he was affected by the accelerator, that Cisco can see through the vibrations of the universe and he is destined for great things. There is a chance that the wormhole could cause a black hole to open and destroy the world. Wells says if Barry can save Nora in 1 minute and 40 seconds then they can close the wormhole before it becomes a black hole. Caitlin and Ronnie get married!!! They decide if the world is going to end in a black hole they can at least die knowing they got married and together. Eddie says “screw the future” and he’s going to be with Iris no matter what the newspaper said. Iris agrees and they resume being a couple. Barry does it, he makes it back to the night his mother died. The Flash that is there stops to tell Barry no before he saves young Barry. He listens but is able to say goodbye to his mother while she bleeds out. A helmet comes out of the wormhole that has little wings on it like Barry’s hood. Barry comes back through the wormhole and punches Wells before he can leave, destroying the time machine cutting off his escape. The group shuts down the wormhole before it can turn into a blackhole. Wells starts beating on Barry saying he will always be there to fight Barry and there is no way of getting rid of him. Eddie shoots himself so Eobard, Wells, can never be born. It works, He turns back into Eobard before disappearing. The wormhole reopens, and creates a blackhole. Barry tries to close the blackhole by running in the opposite direction it is turning to disrupt the flow. And that’s where season 1 ends, with Barry running into the blackhole.
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