The Flash – News Flash

By starrymag | November 5, 2018

By: Malasha Parker

 

 

The Flash opens with a flashback to the night of the Enlightenment. We’re seeing the events take place through the video camera of a young woman. She decides to get closer to the destruction and she notices that there are two speedsters. Her phone gets zapped and before she can get to it, XS saves her from being hit by electricity. She goes to go get her phone but the screen turns purple and she’s shocked at what she’s looking at.

 

Back in the present, Iris (Candice Patton) is dancing to music while she attempts to make a family breakfast for Barry (Grant Gustin) and Nora (Jessica Parker Kennedy). Nora wakes up when the smoke alarm starts going off and mentions how her mom still knows her way around the kitchen in a sarcastic tone. After Barry joins them and they all sit down to endure the breakfast, Nora pulls out a phone to get a picture of her lumpy pancakes. Iris asks when Nora got a phone and she says that Barry got it for her. Iris seems a little sad about it once she realizes that she hasn’t given the number to her but to other people. Nora escapes the table to go meet Sherloque (Tom Cavanagh) and Iris mentions how she’s still not making progress in building a relationship with Nora like Barry. He says maybe she’ll come around and Iris throws away the lumpy pancakes saying she’ll make him a banana instead.

 

The group has gathered at S.T.A.R. Labs, per Sherloque’s request. He asks about Cisco (Carlos Valdes) and they tell him that he’s at his parents to recuperate and lay low. He jots down some notes on the board about what is already known about Cicada (Chris Klein). Ralph (Hartley Sawyer) mentions that they should try to figure out why Cicada wears a mask. Sherloque doesn’t think it’s important, but he offers to help Ralph figure it out. Barry, Nora and Iris all leave to go to the CCPD baseball game.

 

Barry’s excited for the game, but the coach still isn’t letting him have third base. His team is down two men, so he’s trying to get into a new spot. After watching Barry struggle through some bad plays and attempts at catching the ball, we see the ladies watching the game. Nora gets an alert on her phone from an app called Spyn Zone that gives alerts on articles about things that happen immediately in the city. When Nora shows them the picture of who runs it, Iris recognizes her as Spencer Young (Kiana Madeira)– a millennial who used to be a junior reporter at CCPN that didn’t last long on the job. She only wanted to be famous and didn’t care whether the story was truthful or not. Nora mentions that she thinks she’s cute and Iris says that that doesn’t really matter. Before Nora leaves, she makes a snide remark that Spencer must be doing something right because she has twice as many followers on her app than Iris has on her blog. Nora gets another alert from the Spyn Zone app and her eyes flash purple as a man walks onto the field with a bag. Cecille (Danielle Nicolet) gets a feeling and she yells alerting the field. Barry yells for everybody to move and Nora runs in and grabs the bag, throwing it in the air before it explodes. Both the man and Nora’s eyes flash back and we see Spencer standing in the background with a smile as she puts her phone away.

 

Iris asks Nora how she knew what was happening and she says that she doesn’t remember how it happened. Nora gets another notification and it’s an article about her getting the bomb away from the game. Iris notices that it was fast and how if Cicada knows about Nora, she could possibly be his next target.

 

Ralph takes Sherloque back to where they first encountered Cicada. While Ralph is searching, he finds fluoropolymers and says that if they find out where that is used they’ll be able to find Cicada.

 

Iris confronts Spencer at CC Jitters. Spencer says that she followed her lead and started her own thing like Iris. Iris mentions how she found a source that said metas are being targeted. Iris tells her that XS and other metas could be targeted if they keep getting wrote about in the media. Instead of taking it as a hint to stop, Spencer tells her that putting the metas in danger never stopped Iris from writing about The Flash. Iris warns her to stop before someone gets hurt, but she says that the only one who will get hurt is Iris when she makes her blog irrelevant.

 

Barry is scanning the detective that took the bomb to the baseball game with a special device. He says that he doesn’t remember anything or where the bomb came from. Joe (Jesse L. Martin) says that it came from the evidence lock up. The cameras show him stuffing the bomb into a bag and leaving. When an officer tells them about a fire at CCPN, Barry and Nora rush off to help. When they get there, we see Spencer videoing them. She says she’s going to make The Flash move and then puts a message on a screen by using her phone. Barry looks at it and rushes off. Nora has to stop the fire herself, so Iris tells her how to stop the fire by herself. She safely stops the fire and runs out of the building, with Spencer waiting outside to capture the moment. Iris tells Nora “good job” and Nora responds with a “Thanks, mom,” putting a genuine smile on Iris’ face. She asks for Barry and we see him finally coming to a stop on the outskirts of Las Vegas.

 

Barry and Iris congratulate Nora on stopping the fire on her own when they’re all back at S.T.A.R. Labs. Caitlin (Danielle Panabaker) comes in to tell them that there was some weird activity with Barry’s brain scan, but everything else came back normal. He says that all he remembers is showing up with Nora and then showing up in Vegas. They think it’s some kind of hypnosis that’s happening, but Nora doesn’t understand why anyone would want to do that. Iris says that it’s for publicity. She then mentions Spencer wanting to get famous by making her XS famous. They look at the time stamp on her articles and notice that she’s been posting her articles too quickly. Nora defends her, but everyone else is still skeptical of Spencer. Barry sends Caitlin to go do some scans on their suits to see if Spencer is responsible.

 

Ralph and Sherloque show up to a warehouse to track down Cicada. They ask one of the men about the mask and he takes them to the back where all of the men are wearing them. Sherloque deducts that there are probably thousands of masks made. As they leave, we see Orlin in the background removing his mask and looking at them through a glass.

 

Barry, Iris, and Nora are in a fan outside of CC Jitters. Barry gives Nora a watch that will detect if Spencer is a meta or not. With some pointers, she heads in to meet her. When she goes inside, she bumps into Spencer and instead of making an in-and-out run, she ends up starting a conversation with her. Nora mentions she’s a fan of her work and then Spencer starts flirting with her. When Iris realizes what’s happening, she runs in to help her. After fumbling over her words, Nora finally starts the scan and it comes up negative for dark matter. Iris tells Nora to stay away from Spencer not matter how cute she is, but Nora ignores her warning. Iris says that Spencer is still dangerous and her just wanting to protect her. Nora makes a comment under her breath about that always being the thing Iris says to her. Fed up with Nora’s attitude towards her, Iris asks what her problem is. Nora finally tells her that Iris lied to her in the future. She shows her a scar on her chest from where Iris put a power dappening chip in her. She’s only known about her powers for six months. She tells Iris she doesn’t need her to protect her and leave Jitters.

 

Iris is at S.T.A.R. Labs trying to call Nora, but only seeing that all her calls are blocked. Iris tells Barry how she doesn’t know how she could do something like that to her. Barry tells her that she can’t blame herself for what her future self might do. He thinks Nora will forgive her, but Iris still doesn’t understand. Barry tells her that he knows she would never do anything without thinking about what’s best for their family. He says that if future her thinks it was the right thing to do, then so should she.

 

Caitlin sees something unusual on a brain scan, but gets frightened when Sherloque scares her by talking with of the masks. He asks her to hit him and after some probing, she does it. He uses the mask to make the same sound as Cicada. An alert comes through the systems. Iris tells them that CCPD is getting alerted about a bomb at stadium. Nora and Barry get there to find nothing. Iris looks at the posts made by Spencer. Her and Caitlin see that the brain scans are the same as the codes being made for Spencer’s headlines. We see Spencer type a message and then send it up to the screen. Before Iris can warn Barry and Nora not to look at the screen, Nora has already seen the message that says “XS KILLS THE FLASH”. Her eyes flash purple and she zooms around to knock Barry on his back.

 

Barry tries to tell Nora to snap out of it, but it doesn’t work. Barry flashes around with Nora chasing after him. Iris grabs a gun and a breach device to go help her family. Before she gets there, Barry is caught by Nora and she beats him down quick enough to vibrate her hand through his chest. Before she can kill him, Iris shoots her with a gun, effectively suppressing her powers and knocking her out. Spencer was videoing the entire incident, but Barry catches her before she can leave.

 

Back at S.T.A.R. Labs, the team sees that the mayor is stepping down and the detective from the baseball game is being exonerated. Sherloque tells them what new information has come into play. They learn that Cicada and the dagger were created the night of the Enlightenment. Barry takes the back off of Spencer’s phone and realizes that the satellite created meta-tech. This means that metahuman abilities can be in the hands of anyone.

 

Iris tells Nora that she’s sorry for suppressing her powers but she thinks it was the right thing to do. Nora thinks she’s talking about what happened at the stadium, but Iris tells her she’s talking about the future. Nora’s shocked, but Iris explains that after seeing how things happened at the stadium, she thinks that her decision must have been a good one, one to protect her. Nora voices how she feels like she suppressed her powers to control her. She says that she took a choice away from her that she didn’t know she even had. When Barry joins them Nora tells him why she’s so upset, but Barry tells her that he supports Iris’ decision. Before Nora leaves, she tells Iris that the worst part about finding out about her powers is the fact that she didn’t hear it from her mom. She zooms off and shows up on Joe and Cecille’s doorstep asking if she can stay.

 

We see Orlin fumbling around his home in pain. When he falls down and grabs ahold of a pole, he realizes he dented it. He grabs back ahold of it and fully crushes it together, realizing he has a new strength, but the scar on his chest is looking worse than when we first saw it.