BWW Recap: THE FLASH Gets Caught in The Trap

Barry (aka THE FLASH, played by Grant Gustin), Caitlin (Danielle Panabaker), Cisco (Carlos Valdes) and Det. West (Jesse L. Martin) set a trap to snare Reverse Flash (aka Dr. Harrison Wells, played by Tom Cavanagh) using Cisco as bait. Settle in, we'll get you up to speed.

Cisco goes from creating Black Canary's signature sonic scream device to being bait. Is it too soon to start capaigning for Cisco to don the mask and become the hero known to comic book fans as Vibe? Valdes has brought so much to the role, the guy deserves his own spin-off.

We begin where we left off. Caitlin, Cisco and Barry are in Dr. Wells' secret room looking at the newspaper from the future. Cisco likes the redesigned suit. Caitlin notices the by-line (Iris West-Allen; indicating that Iris marries someone named Allen in the future; who are we kidding, we know it's Barry). Oh, and the artificial intelligence computer tells Barry Wells came back to the past to kill Barry Allen. Oh, and Barry created the a.i. The secrets just keep coming.Wells is heading their way, though. So, the "ask the questions of the computer from the future" comes to an end.

Det. Eddie Thawne (Rick Cosnett) meets Det. West at the coffee shop where Iris used to work. Eddie wants to propose to Iris and he wants to make sure her dad is OK with it. Joe tells him he doesn't have his blessing and the pair are off to the West home where Team Flash is currently operating sans Wells. West and Thawne get filled on the trip to the time vault and Barry's future trip back in time to try and save his mother. Barry also tells them about traveling back in time two episodes ago. Cisco's dreams of being murdered by Wells are actually memories of another time stream --one that was altered and changed by Barry.

Flashback #1 (what is this, ARROW?): Barry in a coma in the hospital after being struck by lightning when the partical accelerator blew up. West hasn't left his adopted son's side. Iris enters just in time to see Barry go into some kind of convulsion and flatlines. Doctors and nurses rush into the room, kicking the Wests out. Wells is waiting in the hall. "They can't save him, but I can," he tells West.

Back at the West house in real time, Barry's plan is to get Wells to admit to killing Barry's mom.

At the lab, Cisco is busy at work modifying a pair of sunglasses where Cisco can enter his dreams and face his fears. Thankfully, this show is not afraid to embrace the comic book-type plots!

Wells enters and actually assists in solving the problem the gang is having with communication with the subject who is sleeping and in dreamland. Of course, he doesn't know the full extent of why they are doing this (or does he?).

At the precinct, Captain Singh (Patrick Sabongui) yells at Barry for being late with lab results from evidence of some other case. Barry apologizes, but he has been pre-occupied on another case. He sympathizes. He's been busy planning his wedding with Rob (Jeremy Schuetze). Barry turns around and runs into Iris (Candice Patton). She wants to talk to him (I'm guessing about the disappearance of Mason Bridge, who we know was murdered by Wells a couple of eps back). Eddie steals Barry away to show him the engagement ring. Barry freaks. Eddie asks Barry to find out why West is against Eddie marrying his daughter.

Cisco and Caitlin show up along with the dream glasses. Cisco worries whether it's "Inception" or "Dreamscape" (which is to say if he dies in the dream will he die in real life). We see the events of two episodes ago literally through Cisco's eyes (first-person, with the occasional shot of Cisco saying 'whoa!'). Cisco wakes just as dream-Wells is trying to kill him,

Wells calls Barry and asks him rather angirly "Where are you?" There's a fire in a highrise. It happens to be where Capt. Singh's boyfriend works. Barry speeds off. To make matters even worse, the fire is on the same floor where Rob works. Singh is on site. Wells tells Barry to wave his arms, creating a wind tunnel to suck the air out of the room, thus extinguishing the fire.

Later, Wells confronts Barry on his hesitation. Barry says he was worried he couldn't save everyone. Wells counters that the only one preventing Barry from achieving every goal is Barry himself.

Barry discusses trapping Wells with West. West blames himself for everything. After all, he is the one that let Wells take Barry, thus setting Barry on the course to become THE FLASH. Barry corrects him. Wells is the one who set everything in motion and now Barry wants him to pay for it.

Cisco has agreed to be bait and recreate the situation that led to Wells confessing and then killing Cisco before Barry altered the timeline. Cisco has reversed the trap he used previously on Reverse Flash so that a speedster will not be able to penatrate the field. Barry speeds at it full force and it knocks him across the room like a pinball.

Barry catches up with West as they leave Cisco to trap Wells. West didn't give his blessing because he knows Eddie isn't the right guy for Iris, Barry is. Barry races off to meet with Iris.

She isn't there to profess her love for Barry, however, She hands him a case file. Everything strange that has happened in Central City can be traced back to the night the partical accelerator blew up. Yesterday's news, Iris! We have known this since the series began. Barry tries to poke holes in her theory (to throw her off the trail), but he's a terrible liar. He takes the folder, promises to read it fully and talk about it later. She spies a photo of her and Barry on Barry's desk.

Flashback #2: the photo is at Barry's bedside at the hospital. Iris is talking to the comotosed Barry, pleading with him to wake up. She tells him about Detective Pretty Boy (Thawne; I'm not the only one who calls him that!) and how he asked her out. After her mom died and Barry came to live with them (after his mom was murdered), he somehow managed to make the West house a home again. She goes to hold his hand and a lightning bolt shoots from Barry's finger, shocking her.

Wells returns to the Labs and Caitlin informs him that Cisco is in the bunker. He's figured out what went wrong the night they tried to trap Reverse Flash. Wells wheels himself down there. The elevator opens, Wells gets up out of his chair and tells Cisco "hello," just like he did two episodes ago.

Wells stops short of providing the confession needed to free Barry's dad. Cisco steps into the forcefield and activiates it. Wells tells him he's smart, but not that smart. Wells steps through the forcefield. West shoots at Wells. Barry speeds after the bullets, saying "He didn't confess." He is able to grab two, but misses the final bullet. It hits Wells in the chest. Caitlin pronounces him dead.

But it isn't Wells, but last week's villain, Hannibal Bates (who can look and sound like anyone he touches). Wells tells them via a speaker: "I've told you this before: I am always one step ahead."

Wells grabs the Reverse Flash suit out of the time vault and splits, promising Barry they will face off again very soon.

Barry arrives at the vault to see the footage Wells has been using all along. He has tapped every moment of all their lives from the beginning and has been manipulating all of them from the get-go. Barry realizes that Iris is included in the footage and concludes that she is Wells' bait to trap Barry.

Thawne is about to propose to Iris, but Reverse Flash rips the ring out of his hand and throws him. Iris tells Reverse Flash she knows who he is: he killed Barry's mom. Reverse Flash raises his arm and starts vibrating his hand (as if to rip her heart out as he did back two eps ago to Cisco). Barry arrives. Reverse Flash grabs Eddie and speads off.

Flash tells her to go home and not say anything, he will bring her back. She moves to grab him to stop him from speeding off. A little bolt of lightning shoots from his fingertips just like when Barry was in a coma. Iris now realizes THE FLASH is Barry.

At Reverse Flash's hideout, Wells takes off his mask and introduces himself as Eobard Thawne. Wells is a future relative of Det. Thawne. Eddie theorizes that's why Reverse Flash didn't kill him that night in the lab when they first tried to catch him. Eobard tells Eddie that he needed Eddie as an insurance policy.

Final Flashback: Barry is in a coma. Wells vibrates his hand, is about to kill Barry and stops. He laments that all the times in the future, he would have killed to have Barry where Barry is now. Ironcially, Wells needs Barry to get back to the future, so he can't kill him. At least not yet.

And with that, our ep comes to a close. Thoughts? Comment below and follow me @triggercric and follow @BWWTVWorld for all the latest updates, scoops and recaps.

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