Barry, Caitlin, and Cisco go out to a bar and join Iris and Eddie.
Iris says that Barry’s new friends are nice, and they share a toast.
However, once she joins Eddie at the dart board, Barry complains to
Cisco and Caitlin that his hyper-accelerated metabolism doesn’t let him
drunk.
A window cleaner is on the outside of an archive while
inside, a security guard is on his rounds. A woman, Bette San Souci,
slips into an archive room and starts searching through files. The guard
hears her and comes to investigate, and discovers that Bette has blown
open the door with a small explosive charge. He orders Bette to
surrender and she slides her backpack across the floor toward him. A few
seconds later, an explosion rocks the building. The scaffold outside
breaks loose and the window cleaner hangs on to the railing.
At
the bar, Eddie gets a call about the explosion and tells Barry and Iris
that he has to go. Once he leaves, Barry changes into his Flash uniform
and runs to the scene. He calls Caitlin and Cisco, who work out how
fast he has to go to run up the side of the building. Flash does so and
grabs the window cleaner just as he falls, and takes him to the ground.
Iris is there and Flash vibrates his face to keep her from recognizing
him, and then runs off.
Later, Barry is with Joe and Eddie
investigating the crime scene. Barry tells the detectives that he can’t
find any trace of an explosive. After getting a description of the
intruder from the guard, the detectives go into the file room but have
no idea which file Bette was in or what she was looking for. Joe gets
Eddie out so that Barry can go through the cabinets at superspeed and
fine the file. Meanwhile, Joe and Eddie go back to the station and
discover that General Wade Eiling and his men have taken over the
investigation. Singh orders Joe to turn over his files and Joe has no
choice but to agree.
Barry arrives a short time later and Joe
tells him what is happening. A soldier takes the files Barry has
collected but he steals them back moving too fast to be seen. Joe
suggests that Barry and the scientists checking out what’s going on. As
Barry leaves, Vukovich comes over to tell Joe that he saw Iris at the
crime scene. When Joe gets home, he asks Iris why she was at the bomb
site. He figures that she was watching over Eddie, but Iris says that
she hoped the Streak would show up there. Iris tells her father that she
saw the Streak and plans to write it all up for her blog.
At
S.T.A.R. Labs, Barry tells his friends what happened and Harrison admits
that he’s worked with Eiling in the past. Eiling wanted Harrison to
help develop enhanced gene therapy, but Harrison soon realized that the
general was trying to develop mind reading capabilities for the Army.
Harrison stopped the research when he realized that Eiling was going to
abuse his developments. Barry shows them the folder, from the VA, and
Cisco hacks the Army’s computers to confirm that the thief was Bette,
who was an EID disarmament specialist in the Army. He comes up with the
address of Bette’s emergency contact and Flash speeds there. Bette is
leaving and the hero cuts her off, and she accidentally touches his
chest emblem. It starts to flow and Bette tells him to get it off. Flash
speeds down the streets and gets out of his suit just in time as the
emblem explodes.
Barry returns to the lab and tells the others
what happened, and they realize that Bette is a metahuman who can
explode anything that she touches. While Cisco complains about his suit
blowing up, Barry insists that it was an accident and Bette didn’t
intend to hurt him. Joe arrives and they figure that Eiling knows what
Bette can do and wants to put her to work for the military. The
detective talks to Barry privately and reminds him about his promise not
to let Flash get close to Iris. He asks Barry to make sure that Iris
doesn’t continue writing her blog. Barry goes to Jitters and tries to
convince Iris that she imagined seeing the Streak. She doesn’t believe
it and reminds Barry that she stood by him for years when he
investigated impossible theories, and figures that he’s hiding
something. Cisco calls Barry to tell him that they’ve hacked Eiling’s
surveillance network. The general has spotted Bette going to Dr. Harold
Hadley, the military surgeon who performed several procedures on her.
Bette confronts Hadley at the medical center and says that she remember
him cutting her open. She holds him as well as Eiling responsible for
transforming her.
Eiling and his men pull up outside the building.
Flash runs in and confronts Bette, but sees the soldiers’ sighting
lasers and pushes her to the floor. The soldiers open fire and Hadley
runs out while Flash tells Bette that he can help her. She lets him get
her out just as the soldiers move in and realize that their target is
gone.
At S.T.A.R. Labs, Harrison tells Bette about the
explosion, and realizes that she was in Central City ten months ago when
it happened. The scientists give her a pair of gloves to contain her
powers, and Bette explains that she had been injured by shrapnel while
defusing a bomb. The Army flew her to Central City for the operation and
she was there when the dark matter explosion occurred. As they analyze
her cellular structure to determine how she’s changed, Harrison says
that they have to study her in action.
As Caitlin studies
Bette, Bette wonders if she deals with metahumans for a living. The
scientist admits that Bette is the first metahuman who has been willing
to let them test her, and notices a bullet wound on Bette’s shoulder.
Caitlin removes the bullet and discovers that it has a tracking device.
Eiling and his men come up in the elevator, and Harrison tells the
others to get Bette out of the building while he deals with the general.
He then goes to see Eiling, who rubs in the fact that Harrison’s
reputation is ruined since the explosion. Harrison claims that he has no
idea who Bette is, and the soldiers search the place.
At the
airfield, Bette tests her abilities and Cisco dubs her Plastique. She
tells Barry about how she developed a fear of bobby-trapped objects when
she was working as a disarmament specialist, and now she can’t touch
anything. When she wonders if they’ve helped Barry find a cure, he
admits that he doesn’t want one because he’s happy using his powers to
help people. Joe calls Barry and complains that Iris has posted another
story about the Streak and put her name on it. He apologizes for blaming
Barry and hangs up, and Barry tells Cisco what is going on. They
realize that if any of the evil metahumans think Iris knows about them,
they might go after her.
That night, Flash goes to see Iris,
superspeeding around the place and vibrating his vocal chords so she
can’t recognize him. They go up to the roof and Flash asks Iris to stop
writing about her. However, he can only say that there’s more about him
than she understands. Iris wonders if he could stop doing what he does,
and Flash insists that he doesn’t do it for the glory. She says that she
is writing to support Barry, but he seems to have lost his belief in
the impossible. Iris asks Flash to help her prove that Barry is right,
and Flash says that Barry is a lucky guy before he speeds off.
The next day, Caitlin tells Bette that the shrapnel in her body has
merged with her at a genetic level, and there’s no way to remove it.
Bette walks out to have a moment alone, and Barry suggests that they
recruit her for part of her team. Caitlin and Harrison disagree,
pointing out that Bette’s powers are too dangerous. Barry wonders what
would have happened to him if he had been in the same situation, hunted
by the military, but Caitlin points out that there are no other
alternatives.
That night, Barry meets Joe at his police lab and
tells the detective why Iris is writing the articles. He wants to tell
iris the truth, because he tells her everything. Joe has worked out that
Barry is in love with Iris and assures him that his feelings aren’t
obvious to her. He wonders why Barry never told Iris that he loves her,
and Barry admits that he was too slow. Despite that, Joe tells his
adopted son that the universe has a way of bringing two people together
if they’re meant to be.
After Cisco and Caitlin go home,
Harrison tells Bette that he knows what she’s going through because he’d
also give anything to get back what he lost because of the explosion.
He points out that the metahumans are her people now and as a soldier,
she’s sworn to protect those under her care. Eiling will never stop
going after them, so Harrison says that Bette’s duty is now to kill
Eiling. Once she does, she and the others will be safe. Bette considers
Harrison’s advice and then leaves.
Later, Barry returns to S.T.A.R. Labs and Cisco tells him that Bette took off on her own.
Bette arranges a meeting with Eiling at the waterfront. She says that
she’s willing to surrender, but when Eiling arrives he has his men
surround her.
Cisco hacks the Army surveillance feed and
discovers what Bette is doing. Barry realizes what Bette is doing and
speeds to the waterfront.
Eiling insists that with the
metahuman powers of Bette and a few others, they never need to endanger
another soldier again. Bette tosses some ball bearings at him and they
explode, injuring Eiling and his men. She prepares to kill the general,
just as Flash arrives and tells her that she’s not a murderer. As they
talk, a wounded Eiling shoots Bette and then passes out. Bette tries to
tell Flash that Harrison encouraged her to kill Eiling, but does of her
wound. Her body starts to glow and Barry realizes that her powers are
running out of control. Caitlin warns Barry that the explosion will
devastate the city and the only way to stop it is get Bette’s body out
to sea. Flash runs out to the ocean carrying Bette’s body and drops it.
As he runs back, the corpse explodes and Flash just manages to outrun
the blast wave and get back to Central City.
Later, Eiling is
assuring the public that the explosion was a military test. The team
watches the newscast and Harrison admits that Eiling is too powerful for
them to do anything about. Barry goes to see Iris at her home and tells
her that he tried to help someone but they died and it hurts. He says
that he doesn’t want her to write the blog for the same reason, but
can’t provide any further explanation. Iris realizes that he’s hiding
something and Barry claims that he’s put his mother’s death behind him,
and tells Iris to do the same with the Streak. She insists that she’s
going to make the rest of the world believe in the Streak, and Barry
says that perhaps they shouldn’t see each other for a while. Iris sadly
agrees and watches Barry walk out.
That night, Barry goes to a
bar. Caitlin and Cisco join him and provide Barry with a 500% proof
drink. He drinks it and gets a buzz for a few seconds.
Joe comes home and finds Iris working on her blog. She refuses to discuss it with her father.
At the lab, Eiling comes to see Harrison. The general has worked out
that the accelerator explosion created Bette, as well as Flash. Eiling
suggests that they work together, but Harrison threatens to go to the
press and end his career. Stalemated for the moment, Eiling leaves but
warns that it won’t be long before the public works out that metahumans
exist... and Harrison is responsible.
-----
Five years
earlier, Harrison discovers what Eiling is doing with their test
subjects and orders him out. The scientist then goes to a cage and
assures their latest subject--a gorilla named Grodd--that he has a
different future in mind for him.
Written by Gadfly on Jun 23, 2019