Barry’s in quite a good mood (making breakfast and catching up on the TV he missed) when this episode of The Flash begins. But he can’t just go back to how things were before he left (mainly, leading the team and thinking the Flash is just him), as he learns when Iris calls him out on it and makes the two of them attend couples therapy.
Also in “Mixed Signals,” Gypsy breaches in for a date with Cisco, but his work interrupts those plans. Elsewhere, Caitlin’s still struggling with, and hiding from the others, her Killer Frost side, as it almost comes out when they’re alerted of the unauthorized breach that ends up just being Gypsy.
The Flash Season 4 Spoilers: Will the Crossover Feature a Double Wedding? >>>
Don’t Take Credit for Someone Else’s Work
The team first learns they’re dealing with a hacker when a tech billionaire is “shaken to death” in an elevator and Cisco finds encrypted code in the system.
“Kilgore” then strikes again, taking control of a guy’s car. But fortunately, even though Barry doesn’t listen to Iris when he should have and turns the car down a street under construction, Barry stops Tim from crashing into a brick wall at 120mph to his death.
The same code is found in the car’s system. Caitlin’s the one who figures out that it’s an organic virus with a digital sub-base. They’re dealing with a meta.
Kilgore goes after Tim again at CCPD, using the bomb squad’s equipment to bring a grenade to where Joe is questioning him, but thanks to the distress signal on the team’s phones, Barry is alerted and saves them.
Tim runs off to warn Sheila, the third person involved in stealing an app, Kilgore, from the meta, Deacon. When she refuses to apologize for doing so, Deacon hacks her insulin pump. Wally’s able to save her, but by then, Deacon has gotten away with Tim.
Deacon makes Tim admit over a live stream that he and the other two stole the app from him and got rich while he got nothing. Not only can Cisco track them, but he and Caitlin have also created bio-digital antibodies to stop him by inverting the binary code his powers are derived from in his DNA.
Fortunately, Barry and Wally arrive on the scene to save Tim from a deadly, painful game of wishbone, but thanks to Cisco’s many tech upgrades to Barry’s new suit, Deacon takes control of it and uses the weapons system to knock out Wally.
When Deacon’s distracted, Barry speeds away and has to use a payphone to make a collect call (from “Guys, help me!”) to the team. He then learns his suit has a flotation mode (in case he loses his speed while running on water) and a self-destruct protocol (since they’ve encountered an evil version of Barry before), one that is activated. (Barry really should have read Cisco’s instruction manual for the suit.)
Since Barry can’t get the suit off (thanks to another upgrade of Cisco’s), Iris comes up with a solution: he needs to throw a lightning bolt at himself. It could kill him, but he trusts her, and it does work in time for Barry to stop Kilgore from shooting Tim and inject him with the antibodies.
Kilgore is put in a cell in the meta wing of Iron Heights, and he’s surrounded by three layers of signal dampening walls, so he shouldn’t be a problem anymore … right? (Wrong.) He wasn’t in Central City during the particle accelerator explosion, so how’d he get his powers? It was a real life-changer, and since he wasn’t the only one, Central City is about to have its hands full, is all he’ll tell Barry and Joe.
But there’s definitely something off about the look from the Warden as he looks in on Kilgore before we check in with the Thinker and find out that Kilgore is just where he wants him. Next up is to find the (11) others.
Quiz: Which TV Scooby Gang Do You Belong To? >>>
Therapy is Good for the Soul
Caitlin suggests to Iris that she and Barry try couples therapy, something she and Ronnie did when they went from just working together to working together and dating and had trouble communicating. But “we’re Barry and Iris,” Iris protests, not thinking they need it since they’ve known each other since childhood.
However, after Barry doesn’t listen to her in the field, Iris thinks it might not be the worst idea and he reluctantly agrees. And in those sessions, there is some humor (despite all the friends and family members they’ve lost) as they try to explain how serious their communication problems can be (life or death!) without revealing that he’s The Flash.
But then the truth comes out when Iris blurts out, “How could you leave me?” getting to the heart of the issue. It’s not something they can talk about in therapy, but it is something they talk about back at S.T.A.R. Labs. He’s everything to her, Iris explains, and she was the one who had to lie to friends and family about where he was. He didn’t want to leave her, he assures her. And while he put on a brave face, it was killing him inside. He admits that he didn’t talk it through with her because he knew he would’ve stayed if she asked him to.
With the ring on her finger, she tells him that “we are” the Flash. He doesn’t have to carry the weight of the city on his own. And that’s a sentiment that Barry later echoes.
Earth-19’s “Shmoopy” Romantic Holiday
Unfortunately for Gypsy, Cisco has to keep postponing (and eventually cancels) their date night due to work. Gypsy says it’s “fine,” but Caitlin clues Cisco in on the truth: it’s not fine, at all.
Cisco then offers to make it up to Gypsy another night, which is when she admits that on her Earth it’s 1-1-1 Day, the day you celebrate with the one you love, when one soul plus one soul equals one soul. It’s sappy and shmoopy, yes, but something about Cisco makes Gypsy want to do shmoopy things.
So once Kilgore is locked up, Cisco puts together a fancy candlelit dinner and promises to always make it up to her when catching deranged killers gets in the way of their dates.
What did you think of Barry and Iris’ couples therapy sessions? What do you think of 1-1-1 Day? And do you think that warden is sketchy? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
The Flash season 4 airs Tuesdays at 8/7c on The CW. Want more news? Like our Facebook page.
(Image courtesy of The CW)
Contributing Writer, BuddyTV
If it’s on TV — especially if it’s a procedural or superhero show — chances are Meredith watches it. She has a love for all things fiction, starting from a young age with ER and The X-Files on the small screen and the Nancy Drew books. Arrow kicked off the Arrowverse and her true passion for all things heroes. She’s enjoyed getting into the minds of serial killers since Criminal Minds, so it should be no surprise that her latest obsession is Prodigal Son.
