BWW Recap: Add Girder and 'THE FLASH is Born'

Well, they finally did it. A man of steel showed up on THE FLASH, just not that Man of Steel. Superman is still confined to the movie realm. We're talking about the villain Girder (aka Tony Woodward, played by Greg Finley), a meta-human capable of turning his skin into steel. In the comics, he's part of the New Rogues (a league of super villains that make life a living hell for THE FLASH). Let's not speed ahead of ourselves, though.

We begin with a voice over from Iris West (Candice Patton) continues to endanger her own life by blogging about "The Streak." THE FLASH (aka Barry Allen, played by Grant Gustin) meets her on a rooftop and once again begs her to stop risking her life.

The intervention is cut short by police sirens and we mee the VOTW (villain of the week). The guy has stolen a yellow humvee. Barry speeds over to the car chase. Tony Woodward gets out of the car. Barry throws a punch and breaks 18 bones in his hand as Woodward's body turns to steel. Woodward beats him up pretty bad.

Team Flash (Carlos Valdes as Cisco, Tom Cavanagh as Harrison Wells and Danielle Panabaker as Caitlin) arrives back at the lab to find Barry passed out on the floor. Caitlin's diagnosis is the afore-mentioned hand fracture, some broken ribs and a bruised spleen.

The police quickly ID Woodward and Barry realizes the pair share a history. They went to grade school together and Woodward used to beat him up then, too. Det. Pretty Boy Thawne (Rick Cosnett) says he fired a dozen bullets into Woodward the night before and "they sparked right off of him."

At S.T.A.R. labs, Det. West (Jesse L. Martin) asks Wells for help in solving murder of Barry's mom. West thinks another meta-human like Barry probably is the real killer. Of course, that was 14 years before the partical accelerator explosion that gave Barry and all the meta-humans we have met so far their super powers.

Elsewhere in the lab, Cisco christens the VOTW "Girder" and does the math while Barry trains "Karata Kid" style on a metal dummy. The training ends when the dummy dislocates Barry's shoulder and Barry gets a call from Eddie regarding Woodward's stolen vehicle from the other night.

Back at CC Jitters (seriously, that's the name of the coffee shop with Iris works), Iris is cornered by Woodward, who wants to know why she is writing about "The Streak." When she doesn't return his flirtations, he smashes her phone and leaves a wad of cash in the tip jar for the damage.

Iris fills in THE FLASH on her little visit from Woodward (conveniently leaving out her super tip). Barry heads to the iron works where Woodward was last employed. From his radio headset, Cisco warns Barry that they don't know how to defeat him yet. Woodward sucker-punches Barry and drops a shelf on him.

Cisco and Caitlin retrieve the badly-bruised Barry. Wells is ticked ("he could have killed you," he says). Cisco finally finishes the math and tells Barry if he is running at Mach 1.1, he should be able to literally drop the sonic boom on Woodward.

It's the middle of the day and West and Harris pick up their earlier talk in --where else-- a bar (it's gotta be happy hour somewhere, am I right fellahs?). West begins to connect the dots. Wells arrived in the city right around the time that Barry's mom died. Wells is insulted and leaves.

The moment everyone but Iris saw coming happens. Woodward kidnaps her and takes her to their high school (dude, you can't go back to high school). Woodward tells her he killed the Streak. She pulls a fire alarm and tries to escape. Is it wrong that I'm rooting for the TV series to forgo all comic book continuity and kill off Iris?

Barry arrives and he and Woodward go at it for round three. Woodward is still landing too many blows. Barry speeds off (some 5.3 miles; enough to run back and hit Mach 1.1). He speeds back and delivers a sonic punch that takes his former childhood bully down. The final blow to knock Woodward out? Is delivered by Iris.

Barry delivers Woodward to the S.T.A.R. labs make-shift meta-human prison, taking a moment to reveal his true identity to Woodward (yeah, that's not going to come back to haunt you, Barry).

West, meanwhile, eats some crow. Turns out Wells also lost his wife around the time Barry lost his mom. The two agree to help find Ms. Allen's real killer.

Also making amends: Barry and Iris. She tells Barry The Streak "comes in the blink of an eye" and he says "in a flash?"

She blogs about her encounter with the fastest man alive and notes a friend gave her a great name for the hero: THE FLASH.

Final moment: The yellow blur shows up at the West home to steal all of Det. West's files on the Allen case and leaves him with a warning carved into the wall: Stop or else. Oh, and Iris' photo has a dagger in it.

And with that, our ep comes to a close. Am I the only one who thinks Iris is kind of annoying? Share your thoughts below. And follow me on Twitter @triggercritic and follow @BWWTVWorld for all the latest updates, scoops and recaps.