FLASH: SPOILER Review 1×12 – “Crazy For You”

The Flash (1×12) – “Crazy
For You”

Written by: Aaron and Todd Helbing

Directed by: Rob Hardy

This week’s episode opens on a rescue. First, Barry save a young couple from a car
that rolled over just before the car is engulfed in flames. After Barry saves the man and finds Barry
with his girlfriend he thanks the man and Barry runs off.

Barry returns to the lab and as Cisco does minor repairs to
the suit Caitlin informs them that this was the fastest Barry’s ever ran. Cisco tries to get the team to celebrate at
the bar but Barry begs off for movie night with Joe. Caitlin also says no but when Cisco presses
she shows him his tablet containing the FIRESTORM Thesis. He explains he started looking into it after
talking with Hartley but she is uninterested, saying she’s moved on.

Cisco points out that it doesn’t seem like it since she
essentially hides away at home and it seems to him she might still be hung up
on Ronnie.

In a car parked outside Iron Heights, a woman is looking
through the windows with a telescope, suddenly she teleports out of the car and
into the prison. She continues her Kurt
Wagner impersonation to avoid guards and smashes security cameras until she
ends up outside a man’s cell. She then
teleports away with him back into her car and the pair drive off.

The next morning, Barry is investigating the man’s
cell. Joe identifies that man as
“Clay Parker” while Barry shows off some residue left behind by the
woman. He’s found it all over the prison
in a clear trail of her teleporting.

As Barry and Joe discuss the case, a guard stops in front of
the cell with Barry’s father. The two
have perhaps their first physical contact since he was sent to prison before
the guard takes him back to his cell.
Joe explains that the guard owed him a favor.

Back at the woman’s apartment, she explains to Clay that not
long after he went to Iron Heights she fell ill; passing out and waking up
somewhere else. She eventually learned
to control it and now can jump to anywhere that she can see. When she tries to get him to leave Central
City with her, he tells he can’t because he still owes someone named Marcus a
lot of money.

At STAR Labs, the team quickly identifies the woman as
Shawna Baez, a small-timer with several drunken disorderly. Joe and Barry leave to try and track down
Shawna and Clay while Caitlin and Wells try to figure out how her power
works.

Meanwhile, Cisco heads down to the Pipeline to talk to
Hartley about Ronnie and why Dr. Stein was at STAR Labs the night of the
Explosion. Hartley replies that mystery
isn’t why Stein was there but “Why he didn’t leave.” He then says that he can’t tell Cisco but has
to show him. Cisco leaves as Hartley
taunts him.

Barry and Iris catch up at Jitters. After he tells her about
talk face to face with his father she laments about her position at the Picture
News being little more than The Flash’s PR Woman. Barry vows to help her break a big story that
will show the editor that’s she’s more than that.

Later at the prison, Barry and Joe are talking to Henry.
He’s been talking to people around the prison and learned about Clay owing
Marcus. Barry and Joe are thankful but
try to discourage Henry from digging for fear of repercussions.

Outside of STAR Labs, Cisco has taken Hartley out of his
cell. Hartley shows him a “bomb
shadow” similar to the ones left behind in Hiroshima and Nagasaki after
the US dropped the Atomic Bomb saying that it was all that was left of Dr.
Stein. Cisco is unimpressed and when he
tries to take Hartley back down to the Pipeline he tries to escape. They fight and Hartley overcomes him before
Cisco pulls out a secret weapon. A sonic
device he designed to attack Hartley cochlear implants.

Inside, Barry has found Caitlin still looking at Shawna’s
cells. When he asks her what’s bothering
her she tells him that her talk with Cisco has left her self-conscious about
her social life. Barry laments that his
isn’t much better all things considered.
They’re interrupted by a robbery in progress with suspects matching Clay
and Shawna’s descriptions.

Barry races off to confront them holding up a Blackhawk
armored truck. She teleports their money
back to her car when Barry arrives. He
chases after her as she tries to teleport away but he’s able to catch her each
time until Clay shots at the back of his head.
Barry has to use his abilities to catch the bullet before it strikes the
back of his head and the pair manages to get away while he’s stunned from the
effort.

Back at the lab, Caitlin tends to Barry’s bullet wound while
he tells her and Wells Shawna’s ability.
Wells explains that her power is based on “Quantum
Entanglement.” Caitlin then dubs
her “Peek-a-boo.” Barry leaves
to help Iris work on her story but she’s having dinner with Eddie and his mother. He then calls Caitlin and asks her to check
out some of Shawna’s dive bars with him.

Barry arrives to see that it’s Karaoke night at the nicest
dive bar I’ve ever seen, and Caitlin arrives dressed to impress. The two talk and while Barry laments his
compulsion to play Iris’ White Knight, Caitlin points out that at least Iris
doesn’t burst into flames and fly away.
Barry decides they should try to have fun and Caitlin does him one
better by firing down a vodka and tonic and staring a tab.

Cisco and Hartley have snuck into Barry’s lab to look at the
security camera footage from the night of the explosion. When Cisco asks what they’re looking for,
Hartley explains that he saw Stein the night of the explosion and that Stein
specializes in taking two things and making them together at a molecular level. Searching the footage, Cisco finds Stein
working on something near the spot of his bomb shadow as an energy wave hits
him. In the wave, they can make out
Ronnie’s face. When the wave strikes Stein
he and Ronnie both disappear.

While Cisco is lost in the footage and its implication,
Hartley removes one of his implants and uses it to subdue Cisco before he
escapes.

Back at the bar, Barry is dealing with a bartender who
doesn’t seem to understand the concept of working for TIPS while a drunken Caitlin
goes up on stage and use the crowd to goad him into singing with him. Barry turns out to be an excellent singer
(being sober probably helped some) as well as a good sport.

After the song, Barry returns to the bar to cash out and
meets Linda Park. The two flirt and after
learning Caitlin is not his girlfriend she gives Barry her phone number before
Caitlin returns on the brink of making a mess.
Barry races her home and puts her to bed.

In a warehouse across town, Shawna and Clay try to pay off
Marcus but when he pulls a gun on them and Shawna uses her power Marcus decides
they aren’t done making him money.
However, Joe arrives with SWAT officers and raids the warehouse. Clay is wounded and Shawna teleports them
away.

Barry and the STAR Trio gather at the lab the next morning
and when Cisco tells them he let Hartley escape trying to help Ronnie, Caitlin
takes time out of her hangover to try and convince him to let Ronnie go for
her. When they move back to the task at
hand, Wells explains he believes Shawna’s power is based on light which plays
into her need for line-of-sight.

Unfortunately, they’re interrupted by a call to Barry’s
phone. His father has been stabbed. At the infirmary, Barry learns that Henry was
stabbed after chasing down a tip that leads to Joe’s raid. When Barry tries to stop Henry, his father
explains that there’s not much he can to do to help. He also tells them where he heard the tip,
one of Marcus’ men named Julius.

The Flash races into Julius’ cell and deposits him outside
the prison’s gates. Julius panics, if
he’s caught escaping it will add a decade to his sentence. Barry tells him that he’ll return him to his
cell if he tells him about Marcus’ heist.
However considering Julius got Barry’s dad stabbed, Barry leaves him
outside the gates as the guards arrive.

He finds Clay and Shawna behind the truck and follows them
into a tunnel. They stop and Shawna goes
after Barry armed with a collapsible baton.
She gets the best of him for a while before Clay tries to run Barry
down. Barry then tries a new tactic; he
takes a wrench to every light in the tunnel and Clay’s headlights, eliminating
Shawna’s ability to escape.

When Barry
pulls her out of the car, she’s distraught because Clay left.

Back at the Pipeline, Cisco explains that her cell’s glass
is a two-way mirror meaning she can’t see out to teleport. When Barry tries to talk to her she says that
despite Clay leaving her she still loves him.
After they leave Shawna’s cell, Caitlin tries to apologize to Barry for
the bar. He plays it off then says that
they’ve been hung up on Iris and Ronnie for too long. Caitlin agrees, saying if he’s merged with
Dr. Stein then Ronnie is truly gone and she’s ready to accept that.

The Flash finds Iris on the street and hands her information
for the story of Shawna and Clay. When
she asks why, he replies that she’s a good reporter and “The only one I
know” before he runs off. Iris is
quick with her camera phone and gets herself another story with the first
picture of The Flash. At the newspaper,
Iris runs into Barry. However, he’s not
there to see her, he has a date with Linda that he’s picking her up for.

After his date, Barry visits his father and the two talk
about it. During the course of their
talk, Henry shows him the paper with Iris’ picture on the front page. He also makes it pretty clear that if he was
the Flash’s father, he’d make sure the masked hero know how proud of him Henry
was.

Afterwards, in the sewers two City workers are investigating
some problem with the power grid. While
they look around they find writing on the walls. The word “Grodd” has been carved
over and over into the walls. The two
men are attack from the shadows by a Gorilla.

A Gorilla named, Grodd.

Very, very strong episode this week. Peek-a-Boo was a fun villain, a good challenge
for Barry’s power set. She also represents
a good change of pace, as most of the villains have attempted to overwhelm or
overpower him, Shawna could answer his speed with a different type of
speed.

Using Hartley to bring the Ronnie storyline from a “c-story”
position more to the forefront for next week’s episode was well executed. The bar scene and the Barry Caitlin stuff
skated the edge of a little too cute but didn’t cross and I liked Linda Park’s
introduction as a romantic rival for both Iris and Caitlin. Lastly, what can I say about Grodd beyond it
being another great tease for a classic Flash villain?