The Flash – Monster

By: Stacy Miller

The episode opens with Barry (Grant Gustin) using his speedster ability not to fight Meta Humans, but to cook breakfast. Cisco (Carlos Valdes) talks about HR (Tom Cavanagh), telling Barry that there’s something about the alternate Earth Wells that he doesn’t trust.

At Star Labs, Cisco suggests that HR learn from the team by watching how they do things. One member of Team Flash is away. Caitlin (Danielle Panabaker) has left a voice mail message that she will be gone for a couple of days. In the message she adds, “Don’t let Cisco touch my hot pockets.” Too late, Cisco is already eating one of the tasty treats.

Meanwhile, Caitlin arrives at the place of work of brilliant biomedical researcher Dr. Carla Tannhauser (Susan Walters), who happens to be her mother. It’s obvious from the exchange that the two have that their relationship is anything but close. When something her mother says angers her, Caitlin’s frozen touch is revealed to Dr. Tannhauser who takes an interest in her daughter’s situation. She immediately performs tests on Caitlin to learn more about her Meta Human ability. Soon, Caitlin and her mother have another argument. Dr. Tannhauser says that if Caitlin hadn’t moved to Central City and just stayed working for her, none of this would have happened. But Caitlin reminds her mother that she didn’t want to live in the shadow of the famous Dr. Tannhauser. Apparently, Caitlin’s mother threw herself into her work after the death of her husband, commenting that losing someone is something that is difficult to get over. Caitlin tells her mother she knows the feeling because she loss Ronnie, her husband. This comes as a surprise to Dr. Tannhauser, who tells her daughter “I’m sorry.”

At least the parent/child relationship between Iris and Joe (Candice Patton and Jesse L. Martin) is less strained. In fact, Iris tries to encourage her dad to date again as she’s in love (hear that Barry) and wants him to know what it is to feel the same thing.

Barry continues to have a difficult working relationship with Julian (Tom Felton) who is also not a fan of The Flash or any Meta Human for that matter. Barry tries to explain to Julian that they should sympathize with what Meta Humans are going through as it must be hard to be different. But Julian believes that Meta Humans are dangerous and only lead to destruction.

At that moment, a monster is attacking Central City. This isn’t a Meta Human, but an actual monster like the one who attacked Tokyo. If Godzilla had a relative, it would be this creature. Anyway, The Flash arrives on the scene to help the civilians while Iris helps some people get off a bus. How can a speedster defeat a monster that is as big as a house?

Meanwhile, Dr. Tannhauser’s assistant decides that the way to get from under her thumb and to make a name for himself is through Caitlin. So, he locks her in the room and will run his own tests on her. Caitlin angrily demands to be released and with that, her powers as Killer Frost grow. She uses her icy touch on the man, but her mother arrives just in time to stop her daughter from hurting him further. “I didn’t raise a killer,” Dr. Tannhauser says. Caitlin calms down and her powers ease up. Mother and daughter share a long overdue hug.

Back at Star Labs, Barry and Cisco wonder how they can defeat this newest threat to Central City. Cisco also realizes that HR really isn’t helping them by offering suggestions as he’s basically repeating everything they say, but changing their words around to make it seem as though he’s presenting an original idea. A search through HR’s things uncovers a tape recording he made with a seemingly cryptic message. HR catches Barry and Cisco and plays the recording in which he talks about how he wishes he could get Cisco to trust him. Then, HR makes a confession. On his Earth, he is not only a scientist but also a novelist and wanted to write his next book based on what happens to him while he’s on this Earth.

Team Flash figure out that the monster is actually a hologram. Barry is able to stop Julian from shooting the 15-year-old boy, Elliot Anderson, who was controlling the computerized terror. Joe talks with the boy and Elliott admits that he created the monster to feel strong as he always felt powerless and wanted the world to know how he felt. Joe is great at the father-like talks and tells Elliott that he will have to face the consequences of his actions, but will still have the chance to change.

HR admits that he’s not a genius like the other Harrison Wells, but someone with ideas that could be useful. Julian also makes a confession to Barry about why he hates Meta Humans. He grew up in the life of the privileged, but left financial wealth behind and was working towards becoming top in his field. That is until Meta Humans came along. He is still learning about them so he may have been wrong to jump to conclusions.

The episode ends as Caitlin receives a video message from her mother who tells her not to use her abilities as it will turn her into something she won’t like. This angers Caitlin and she freezes the table and destroys the computer monitor. Is it too late to stop Killer Frost from fully emerging?