The Flash – Pay the Piper

By starrymag | May 12, 2020

By: Malasha Parker

 

 

Barry (Grant Gustin) startles Joe (Jesse L. Martin) as he zooms into his witness protection house to tell him what has been going on with Iris (Candice Patton). Joe tells him about his position on it and asks Barry about the rest of the ones taken hostage. Barry tells Joe he’s trying to have hope, but he can’t help feeling like he can’t save her this time. 

 

Barry tells the rest of the team everything that’s been happening. Cisco (Carlos Valdes) starts to get freaked out about the possibility of the ones in the mirrors’ lives. He starts to yell at Barry and Barry begins getting frustrated and yells back at Cisco. His watch starts to turn red and Cecile (Danielle Nicolet) has to calm him down. She says she’ll go check to see where Singh’s mirror version is and Allegra (Kayla Compton) offers to check the Bentley building. Ralph (Hartley Sawyer) says he’ll look into Eva (Efrat Dor). Cisco states that there may be a way to get into the other mirror dimension. Cecile tries to talk, but Barry tells her he’s just going to work on the artificial speed force and leaves.

 

Iris says she’s read Eva’s secret files, so she’s going to try and find Kamilla (Victoria Park) and Singh. Her brain starts to get jumbled and she says that Eva calls it “neural dissonance.” She’s making a video for Barry in case he finds it and doesn’t find her. Her voice cracks before she gets up to leave.

 

Allegra comes to talk to Barry in the speed lab. They’re both feeling dumb and while she’s freaking out Godspeed (voice BD Wong) comes in an disrupts the room by zooming around. He holds Barry down with a wave force and tells him that he isn’t impressed. He starts to electrocute him when Nash (Tom Cavanagh) enters and shoots him with a cannon. Godspeed leaves them saying, “This is not over.”

 

They’re back in the bay trying to figure out where Godspeed came from. Nash and Cisco start to argue as Ralph tells them to calm down. He asks Barry what he’s thinking and tells him that he’s stressed. Barry asks Cisco if he has a plan and yells at him. They all take a breath and then try to figure it out. They realize that Godspeed’s vibrations were able to extract the speed from a speedster. Barry says that Hartley Rathaway can help them, but they mention that he hates The Flash since Crisis. Cisco says he dug up why that is when he was doing research. We see that instead of Barry just taking out the henchmen, he counteracts it with a lightning bolt that caused an issue for Hartley’s right-hand man Roderick Smith (Joel Semande). Ralph gets a text from Killer Frost (Danielle Panabaker) and leaves. Roderick is in an energy containment facility. Nash says he has a plan. 

 

Ralph rushes into the apartment, but Killer Frost says that everything is fine. She thanks for everything she’s done for him. She says they may not be able to finish her journey because she’s leaving soon. Ralph asks her if she’s coming back, but she just says she doesn’t know how long things will take. Ralph suspects it’s something else. Frost eventually admits that she doesn’t want to go because Carla isn’t her mom. Ralph tells her that she is just as important as Caitlin and that if she can’t see that then maybe she does have a long way to go. 

 

The Flash’s at Hartley’s hideout. Hartley (Andy Mientus) zaps The Flash and realizes that there is something wrong with his speed. The Flash tells him that he thinks he can help him with it. 

 

He tells Hartley that he thinks he can fix Roderick and that he could use his help. Hartley says that no one can help him. The night of the incident he thought he could help him, but he had to send him to Mercury Labs. Hartley asks who “we” is and Nash comes out. Nash tells Hartley that he thinks they’ll be able to combine light with helium to slow down Roderick’s molecules. 

 

Kamilla is working in the mirror version’s cortex when Iris finds her. Kamilla is startled at first and throws something at her, but Iris reveals that Cisco is the love of Kamilla’s life and that she knew it from the moment she met him. Only the real Iris would know this. Kamilla runs to give Iris a hug. She tells Iris that she just woke up there, but she never saw Eva. Kamilla says she gathered all the gadgets but she can’t read the screens. Iris tries to look at them, but her brain starts to malfunction again and. She explains to Kamilla that things haven’t started affecting her yet. Iris tells her they shouldn’t be there and runs from the room. 

 

Barry brings Hartley to S.T.A.R. Labs. Cisco starts telling him about the machine that vibes things and Hartley begins taunting them about their powers and figuring out who they are. Cisco says he’s trying to save the person he loves and that Hartley wouldn’t know anything about that because he only loves himself. Cisco leaves, so Hartley and Barry go to look at Roderick.

 

Nash tells Allegra what she needs to do so that they can finish the procedure on Roderick. It starts to work, but then he begins to be in a lot of pain. Hartley yells at them to stop because it’s hurting Roderick and he tells Barry not to ask him for anything ever. When he leaves, Godspeed rushes in and tells him to give him his speed or death will rain down on his city. 

 

Nash says they need a bonding agent. Barry thinks he can do that, but he’s going to work on the artificial speed force. Nash starts easing the work and Barry gets upset. Nash begins yelling at him asking him who’s fault is it that the people he can talk to are all gone. Barry replies that it is his. Barry is frustrated and he doesn’t know what to tell the team that he’s supposed to be leading. Nash states that this is not over because all he has to do is trust himself. Barry doesn’t think he can because of him living with an impostor for three weeks, but Nash says he has to forgive himself. Barry misses Iris so much and when he thinks of what her being there means to him he realizes how to help Hartley. 

 

Cisco struggles with the device he’s making and Cecile says that Kamilla knows how to take care of herself when he gets frustrated. Cisco says he just feels more confident when Kamilla is around and all he can think about is the hero he used to be. Cecile tells him that Kamilla fell in love with him and not his powers. She encourages him and he starts back working.

 

Iris is shaking while trying to drink water when Kamilla finds her in the mirror lounge. Iris says she let Eva betray her for too long and not the neural dissonance is getting worse. She doesn’t understand how she let that happen. Her skill as a reporter is to find the truth and she couldn’t do that. Kamilla immediately tells her not to beat herself up about it because Eva fooled a lot of people and she wants Iris to not doubt herself. She tells Iris she has to trust herself again because she has trust in her. Iris explains they have to find Singh before they get out of there. 

 

Barry finds Hartley crying and tells him he knows why he’s so upset. He explains that he knows what it’s like to be responsible for losing the one that they love. Roderick is Hartley’s boyfriend, the love of his life. Hartley blames himself solely. Barry shares that they’re no good to the people that they love if they can’t find the strength to move forward and forgive themselves. Cisco calls and tells them that something happened at Iron Heights. Barry tells Hartley he can stay or he can be the man Roderick fell in love with. 

 

They see that every Godspeed they’ve caught has gotten their speed taken and they’re all laying on the floors of their cells. 

 

Godspeed tells Flash on the news that he has one minute or people will start to die. Barry says he has enough speed to handle it and races downtown. Hartley hears everything.

 

Godspeed says that times up, but Flash is able to arrive in time. Godspeed is moving faster than Barry, but Flash knows the city better. Flash lets Godspeed get ahead of him, but he gets hit. Godspeed starts to steal his speed, but Flash gets away. He tries to run up a building, but loses speed halfway. Hartley/Pied Piper is able to save him from the fall. They use their powers together to stop Godspeed as he descends the building. He crashes on a car and there’s an electrical secretion oozing from him. They think they’ve found the solution they’re looking for. 

 

The charges they got from Godspeed will be used to charge Roderick. Thankfully, i tworks and they leave Hartley and Roderick alone for a moment. Cisco says he’s relieved to get rid of Godspeed, but he wasn’t the real one. All he could say was that the one who sent him wanted infinite velocity and they don’t know who the “we” is. He was just like the others.

 

Ralph comes back to apologize to Frost. She tells him he was right, but Ralph says he wasn’t. He then presents her with his version of a diploma. Frost thinks she may be fine dealing with Carla, but she isn’t rejecting Carla anymore. 

 

Roderick thanks Barry for everything and says that they owe him. Roderick leaves the two to talk. Hartley tells Barry he gave him his world back and that he’ll get his back, too. All Barry has to do is believe that the world can change because that’s the part he forgot. 

 

Barry goes back to the team. He tells them that they’ve all lost so much this year and sometimes it feels like there is no more to lose. He says they still have their faith and will to fight for those they love. Eva has never faced them head on and they’re going to beat her so they can get everyone back. Cisco says he has an idea to get their people out of the mirrorverse— a perpetual motion machine. He has to go to Atlantis. Time to get to work.

 

Eva emerges from a containment cell in an all black suit with the words, “I’m coming for you, Joseph.”