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FLASH SPOILER Review: Episode 2×11 – “The Reverse-Flash Returns”

The Flash
(2×11 ) –
“The Reverse-Flash
Returns”
Written by: Todd & Aaron
Helbing
Directed by: Michael A
Allowitz
So, we’re back and Barry
Allen is on the run.  Not from the law,
or any villain, no Barry’s on the run from the fact that he’s a big mean jerk
who’s trying to chase away the only source of happiness in my meaningless-
*ahem*
Barry’s trying to avoid Patty
and what better way to do that than by some super-heroing?  This time it’s a runaway chemical truck, so
while Cisco and Wells bicker like these two gentlemen:
Barry makes creative use of a
tire wrench and stops the chemical truck from becoming a chemical accident.  The days is saved again and hey! Who’s that
looking on?  I know he looks like Niles
Crane now but it’s actually our old friend Eobard Thawne aka
Reverse-Flash?  Guess we know where he
ended up, then.
Speaking of things going from
bad to worse, Barry returns to STAR Labs to learn that The Turtle died from a
mysterious brain aneurysm. (Surely not from the biopsy Wells did with all the
compassion and care of a brick wall, so get that out of your minds right now.)
So, after Jay and Wells try for round three thousand of their fight Barry
returns to the Police Station and the team splits up to work on figuring out
ways to stop Zoom.
At the Police Station…
And as Patty arrives the sun breaks forth from the
horizon bringing with it relief from the incredible pain that came from the
threat of her leaving.  Patty tries to
make small talk but Barry is a big mean stupid jerk who’s trying to avoid pain
by making Patty miserable before she leaves but I’ve got news for you Barry
Allen, Patty’s not leaving! She’s trying to get Barry to give her a reason to
stay.  He’ll figure it out soon enough
and it’ll all be fixed.  What?
Iris and Joe arrive as Patty leaves before Iris
can talk sense into Barry Joe tells them that Francine is in the hospital and
there isn’t much time left.  He then
urges Iris to go see her.
Back at STAR Labs, Wells is testing his sample of
Turtle on a sample of Barry’s cells and we see he is definitely on to
something.  But Cisco shows up to tell
Wells he’s stumped on a way to close the Breeches so he’s looking for help to
harness his powers.  Despite him getting
better he still can’t access them consistently. 
Wells has an idea, that is to scare the crap out of Cisco (and since we
know Eobard’s around, the audience) with a little Reverse-Flash Cosplay. 
It works and Cisco sees that the Reverse-Flash has
returned and he’s attacking the security at Mercury Labs.
At Mercury Labs, Reverse Flash has already taken
care of the security but before he can kidnap our friend Dr. Tina McGee Barry
shows up and calls Thawne out by name. 
This is a surprise to Eobard, since he doesn’t know Barry yet (I feel a
time travel headache coming on already) but he does know that he’s in the
Flash’s current time and that means he’ll soon know enough to defeat
Barry.  In the meantime, Thawne will have
to settle for giving Barry a speed-force right cross to the jaw and taking Dr.
McGee.
Back at the Lab, Wells explains that because
Thawne is a time traveler his personal timeline is separated from time as a
whole therefore Eddie killing himself did not erase Thawne from existence (or
save Nora Allen) so even if they capture or kill Thawne now (before he killed
Nora Allen) it will not change their history.
At another Mercury Labs facility, Thawne has taken
McGee to show her one of her projects similar to the tachyon generator Thawne
stole in season one.  Thawne wants her to
use it to help him or he’ll touch her heart as only he can.
At the Hospital, Joe and Iris visit Francine but
Wally is nowhere to be seen.  Iris and
Francine talk and Iris reveals that her greatest wish was that Francine had
come home sooner so they could have had more time together as a family.
At Barry’s Lab, he and Caitlin are trying to use
the police’s files to find Jay’s doppelganger so she can help Jay before he
dies but they seem to be having no luck finding him and Barry’s going to keep
looking.  Patty arrives and Caitlin makes
a hasty retreat, Patty makes note of him working with the gang from STAR Labs
before she brings up the fact that he’s a big mean old stupid jerk who’s
pushing her away.
Barry brings up his mother and that he’s getting
pretty used to the people he loves bailing out on him but at the same time he
doesn’t want her to miss out on following her dreams.  It’ll be okay, I’m telling you guys it’ll be
fine.  By the end of this episode we’ll
have a good laugh about how worked up I was cause for just a moment I thought
she might leave…
What?
Back at STAR Labs, Wells has taken Cisco’s REM
glasses and rigged them up even more to put Cisco further under in the hopes of
them accessing his vibe powers more deeply. 
Unsurprisingly, the goggles work and Cisco is able to see where Thawne
has Dr. McGee and what they’re working on. 
It seems McGee has successfully created a device to send Thawne home and
to thank her for her hard work he kills her anyway.  What a guy!
Wells and Cisco explain to Barry and Caitlin what
Cisco saw and while Cisco believes that Thawne has already gotten away when
Wells presses him for details Cisco tells them that he saw a clock that read
9:52p.  Luckily it’s only 6:00p which
means Cisco can see the future as well as the past.
At the Police Station, Joe arrives to talk to
Patty before she leaves and find her following a hunch.  She finds it odd that Joe and Barry have been
working with STAR Labs so much since the Accelerator Explosion.  Also, isn’t it weird that Barry’s always
working on cases that the Flash solves? 
And, isn’t it kinda freaky that Barry’s reports mention details that he
couldn’t have possibly known?  Lastly,
isn’t it downright trippy that Barry’s the Flash and Joe’s been helping him
cover it up?
God! Beautiful, kind, sweet and SMART!  That’s my One and Only guys!  It’s going to be great watching her work with
Team Flash starting next week! Why are you looking at me like that?
At a garage, Iris finds Wally and talks to him
about their mother and how he’s about to make one of those mistakes that you
take all the way to the grave by avoiding his mother at the end.  But like all dumb kids Wally pretty much
says, “A mistake I’ll regret forever? Pssh, whatever!” Then he
leaves.
At STAR Labs, while Cisco and Wells are waiting
for Thawne to fire up the tachyon device Caitlin asks Barry if he’s found Jay’s
double.  Unfortunately, there really
doesn’t seem to be an Earth-One Jay Garrick then Barry advises her to talk to
Jay because self-awareness is for other people.
That’s when Joe arrives and tells Barry that Patty
is way smarter than either of them and that he should just come clean with
her.  But Barry can’t tell her because a
supervillain might go after her.
At that moment, Cisco’s computers finally find the
Tachyon device and Barry races off to stop Thawne.  Just before Cisco’s vision can come to pass,
Barry phases right through the wall and he shoulder tackles Thawne away from
her.  Thawne then leads Barry on a chase
through the city but unlike previous chases Barry actually knows the streets
better than him and catches him.  Barry
then goes a little over the edge seems about to beat Thawne to death were it
not for Joe.
Back at STAR Labs, they’ve locked Thawne away and
while Caitlin chalks this night up in the win column Barry isn’t convinced.  Meanwhile, Cisco has a nosebleed that isn’t
ominous at all.  He later goes down to
the Pipeline to confront Thawne.  Cisco
wants Thawne to know that he helped stop Thawne with the powers Thawne gave
him.  Cisco leaves and finds that his
nosebleed is getting worse.
At the Station, Patty is waiting for Barry with a
victorious grin.  She’s got it all
figured out, she’s got him all figured out. 
She lays it all out for him; admit he’s the Flash and she’s stays.  So Barry… denies he’s the Flash.  It’s still fine, the episode’s not over
yet.  He’ll tell her and Patty will stay,
it’ll all be fine.
Barry returns to the Pipeline to talk to
Thawne.  Thawne tells him that in his
time he idolized the Flash and eventually recreated the reaction that gave Barry
his powers.  However, instead of becoming
like the Flash Thawne learned via time travel that he was fated to become
Flash’s greatest enemy.  He dedicated
himself to destroying Barry and now that he knows what time Barry is from he’s
that much closer to defeating Barry.
But before Barry can tell him that he’d already
won their war Caitlin calls him upstairs. 
Cisco’s nosebleed has turned into full-on seizures.  He’s dying because Thawne wasn’t able to
return to the future.  To save Cisco
they’ll have to let Thawne go and as a special bonus since Barry destroyed the
tachyon device, he will have to help Thawne by adding his speed to Thawne’s to
break the time barrier.
Wells explains to Barry that they’ve likely given
Thawne all the information he needed to manipulate Barry’s life in his future
and unfortunately there’s nothing they can do about it, all they can do is
restore the timeline to save Cisco. 
Barry and Thawne go down into the accelerator chamber and Barry adds his
speed to Thawne’s and sends him home. 
The day is “saved.”
The next day, Jay takes Caitlin to the park to
explain why they haven’t been able to find his double.  It seems Jay’s mother died during child birth
and Jay ended up bouncing through the foster system until he was adopted.  On Earth-One Jay Garrick’s name is Hunter
Zolomon. 
Back at the West residence, Iris is working on a
story when Wally stops by.  He’s been
thinking about what they talked about and he wants to see Francine in the
hospital and much like with Joe the week before he’s hoping to reach out to
Iris by asking her to come with him. 
At STAR Labs, Joe, Wells and Barry are with Cisco
when he comes to.  They talk to him for a
while and explain to him that the only way to help him was let Thawne go.  Barry receives a call from Patty and she
tells him she’s in trouble on the train. 
Barry races off to help her but it was a false alarm.  She had to see him one more time before she
gets to Midway City.  They say goodbye…
But it’s only for a little while until she gets on a train back to Central
City…
Because her luggage you see, sure Barry could race
back with her but she’d lose her luggage cause she’s not leaving the show… No,
I’m not in denial!
This week was a pretty solid episode.  The Reverse Flash plotline came at a really
good time and adds to the idea that just because Thawne has been defeated once
and for all in Barry’s past that is Thawne’s future.  Matt Letscher does an admirable job in an
unenviable role.  He has to build on
another actor’s performance of his character, often in front of that actor
himself.
The Cisco plotline was good, though a little shaky
for a bit there as he was essentially the polaroid from Back to the Future for
a few minutes but I like the strange relationships he was with both Wells and
Thawne.
The West family plot is still good and Wally is
growing on me.  You really have to feel for
him at this point, as events are just dumping on him pretty hard.  Still he reached out to Iris and he’s a
little closer to becoming part of the West family.
As for the Barry and Patty plotline, even if it
came pretty late in the game I am glad Patty was able to figure things out on
her own.  Though it does raise questions;
if Patty can put things together in just a few hours or days of research does
Captain Singh know about Barry dual identity and Joe’s participation in the
cover up?
Hunter Zolomon? Saddled with a name like that I’m
surprised he didn’t grow up to become a supervillain!  Seriously though, it’s very interesting that Jay Garrick’s Earth-One counterpart shares the name of the comic book
version of Zoom.  I’ve actually suspected
Jay was Zoom for quite a while now and whether that’s true or this is a red
herring I’m glad they are addressing the possibility even in passing.
Three Things We
Learned This Week:
1)     
Thawne has learned enough about Barry to put his
plan in motion to get home after he kills Nora Allen in his future.
2)     
Cisco’s ability to access his powers is
improving.
3)     
Jay’s Earth-One’s counterpart will not be able
to help E2’s Jay.
Three Questions:
1)     
Is Jay Zoom, is it possible that Hunter Zolomon
is Zoom?
2)     
Will Patty return now that she knows?
3)     
Since Barry knows how he and Thawne’s history in
his future will he risk trying to stop Thawne the next time they meet?

Just another guy on the internet.