After last week’s return, Barry Allen is officially back in business in The Flash. On “Mixed Signals”, Iris and Barry try to work on their communication while a new metahuman strikes Central City.
And so, with a complete lack of shame, The Flash reuses the set for Felicity Smoak’s apartment from Arrow in the cold open: a real estate agent is showing the place to a potential rich buyer. As said buyer takes the elevator downstairs, the machine starts acting up: the word “Kilg%re” appears on the screen and the elevator begins going up and down fast before speedily free falling, resulting in the man’s death. The perpetrator is shown to us immediately as he stares down at his work, with purple-glowing eyes.
Barry starts his day with an homage to Risky Business, singing Old Time Rock n’ Roll on his underwear — despite Grant Gustin being a babe, I suddenly feel the need to look away due to sheer second-hand embarrassment. Anyways, Barry ends up cooking a lot of breakfast and speedster-binge-watching-TV before Iris is even out of bed.
Side thought: Barry mentions the whole “Jon Snow is alive/dead” debacle to which 1) if my fun-time shows could stop mentioning Game of Thrones, I’d be incredibly thrilled and 2) Barry says that he is catching up on TV from the six months he stayed in the speedforce, so why is he still watching those particular moments from GoT? Did the writers simply not think of more recent moments to namedrop or is the show supposed to be taking place in 2016? What is the truth, Barry Allen, and why am I overthinking this? All good questions, I’m sure.
Nonetheless, Barry tells Iris that he has basically taken care of everything wedding-wise which does not leave Iris beaming as one would expect. Back to the crime scene, Barry and Cisco arrive to put their CSI/Tech Consultant skills to use and they are able to get the elevator’s code which appeared to be hacked.
At the STAR Labs, Cisco officially unveils The Flash’s new suit which is packed with all kinds of new technology. Barry cancels a training session, which also leaves Iris feeling weird and this doesn’t escape from Caitlin’s eyes: she even suggests couple’s therapy to Iris, but she brushes it off. Their conversation is cut short by a breach opening, but it’s just Gypsy paying a visit to her boyfriend (right? Are they official?) Cisco for a date night. Sadly, Cisco is loaded with work, so Gypsy agrees to wait for a couple of hours.
Cut to Kilg%re’s new victim: a man riding his fancy new car is put in jeopardy when said car stops responding to his commands. Barry takes the lead to stop the car, but ignores Iris’s advice on where to take it, which turns bad really fast when the vehicle starts moving against a construction zone. Taking a page from Season Three’s Best Moments, The Flash decides the best course of action is to dismantle the car which thankfully works just in time.
Cisco investigates the automobile’s code and finds a similar hack to the elevator’s. Caitlin points out that the code looks like an organic virus with a digital sub-base and the verdict is in: the killer is a metahuman. Additionally, Cisco sort of recognizes the names of victims from some technology magazines he used to collect. Iris talks to Barry and tells him that they should go to couple’s therapy and, serendipitously, she already has an appointment scheduled right away.
At the therapist’s office, Barry reads the news about Oliver Queen being unmasked as the Green Arrow before the Dr. Sharon Finkle begins their appointment. During their surprisingly funny time together, they dive into their personal tragedies/deaths (Barry’s mom and dad, Ronnie, Eddie, Iris’s mom, HR, Laurel, Snart… yes, they’ve been to a lot of funerals) and how they need to sync up again after their time apart and now starting to work together.
Cisco finally finds the magazine he had been looking for and it shows a picture of the two victims, Tim Kwan and Kurt Weaver, besides a woman called Sheila Agnani and some other guy who, spoiler alert, is the killer. Right then, said killer has just activated a robot to deliver a grenade to Joe’s office at the CCPD when he is interviewing the surviving victim, Tim Kwan. Joe calls in Barry to help and so he does, leaving the appointment with Dr. Finkle in a rush.
After the emergency is solved, Cisco lets the rest of Team Flash know about the killer’s history: Ramsay Deacon worked with his three partners on a software that was bought for a large amount of money and now is allegedly pursuing a vendetta against his former colleagues. While Joe and Wally go to protect Sheila, Iris takes Barry back to therapy.
Upon a cancellation from Cisco, Gypsy says everything is fine and leaves. Thankfully, Caitlin is there to point him in the direction that, when it comes to the Dating Rules, number one is don’t pick up the phone, you know he’s only calling cause he’s drunk and alone when a girl says it’s fine, it’s actually not fine (Caitlin forgot to mention that this only happens with couples who are not communicating properly, but I guess, go off?). Cisco calls Gypsy back and she explains to him that she wanted to go on a date that day specifically because it is 111 Day on Earth-19: an equivalent, I suppose, to Earth-1 Valentine’s Day.
Dr. Finkle gets the two lovebirds talking and communicating with each other about the issues that Iris has been keeping shut lately which includes a timely explosion: “Why did you leave me? You left me, Barry, you just left me. Standing there, alone. How could you do that?”
Meanwhile, Deacon attacks Sheila, using his powers on her insulin pump. Wally thinks fast and injects her with glucose, stopping her insulin shock. After his talk with Gypsy, Cisco finally breaks through with the antibodies for Kilg%re’s virus. Iris and Barry talk with each other about his absent time, their fears, and their own communication issues.
Ramsay Deacon starts streaming a confession from Tim Kwan about how they stole his software and sold for billions. Wally and Barry arrive at the streaming location just in time to stop Ramsay from murdering Tim in a Saw-esque fashion. Before Barry can inject Deacon with the antibodies, he starts manipulating The Flash’s new suit which shoots a blast on Wally (man, the lengths this show goes to in order to not let Wally participate, especially when the plot needs the non-speedster villain to be magnified).
So, basically, Ramsay traps Barry inside his suit, using the technology against him. Barry calls STAR Labs from a payphone in order to get some instructions. Upon a self-destruct code being activated, Iris tells Barry to throw lighting on himself which, surprisingly, works, rebooting the suit. He is then able to use the antibodies on Ramsay and rescue Tim Kwan.
Finally, Cisco is able to go on the date with Gypsy even if it’s not during 111 Day specifically. Barry visits Deacon in Iron Heights to ask him how he got his powers given he was not present during the particle accelerator explosion, but he plays coy and reveals only that other people got powers as well. For our last scene, we pay another visit to the Thinker and the Mechanic, the actual responsible party for Kilg%re’s powers in addition to apparent eleven other subjects.
