The Flash - S1E11 - The Sound and the Fury
Previously on The Flash, ‘Revenge of the Rogues’
Teamwork Makes the Dream Work
The Flash is chasing three bad guys on motorcycles, and when they split up, Wells gets on the mic to talk Barry through leading all three into a trap. Back at the lab, the team celebrates by taking a selfie. Oh, this happy family is going to be so over when they find out what a lying liar Wells is.
At home, Iris finds out the editor of a local paper wants her to come work with them since he’s a fan of her blog. Yay! I guess.
At his home - which is way nicer than Joe’s - Wells gets a prank call and then someone busts out all the glass in his living room’s ceiling. Yes, his living room has a glass roof because rich. Wells uses his speedster skills to avoid an a hail of glass. Holdup. Did we know he can move that fast? I’m still not 100% sold on Wells being Reverse Flash, and this certainly screws up my theory that it’s Eddie, but I’m still holding out hope.
Team Flash, plus Joe and the cops, show up at Wells’ the next day to investigate. Wells blows it off as a teenage prank, but via a flashback we see that he had a protege five years ago who was a bit of dick to Cisco on his first day. Clearly, it’s him.
House of Lies
Eddie and Joe discuss the scene and point out that Wells doesn’t have a scratch on him, and he should. When Barry uses his speed to reconstruct the glass, he learns there’s no point of contact with any kind of object. The glass just exploded. Wells admits to him that the person responsible is Hartley Rathaway. Note: Rathaway is the son of the couple whose painting was stolen in last week’s episode. Also, right before they were robbed, the father wouldn’t take Hartley’s calls remarking that “I don’t have a son.” Clearly, Hartley has ALL the daddy issues, real and surrogate.
Wells explains to Barry and Joe that Hartley played a big role in building the particle accelerator and he was disowned by his family when he came out to them. Old money. Old values.
Iris’ first day at her new job goes pretty horribly. Her mentor, Mason, is an asshole, and the editor doesn’t care about her ideas for stories unless they’re about The Flash.
At Barry’s lab, Joe questions Barry about Wells, hinting that maybe they don’t know all they should about him. Their talk is cut short when multiple 911 calls come in about an attack on the Rathaway office building.
The Prodigal Son of a Bitch
Hartley is using these sonic booms from his hands to break ALL THE GLASS. Why are there so many glass buildings in this town? Anyway, The Flash shows up to stop him and Hartley knows that The Flash is working with Wells. He hints that Wells has a secret right before The Flash grips him up.
Hartley gets his very own cell in the basement and it couldn’t have happened to a nicer asshole. He taunts Caitlin and Cisco, and claims he can’t remove metal pieces in his ears because of the injuries he suffered in the explosion. If he takes them out, he suffers massive headaches. Once he’s alone with Wells, he uses that time to speak around him to The Flash, knowing that he’s listening. He warns that Wells will turn on him.
Wells confesses his secret to the team: Hartley warned him beforehand that it could explode. Wells decided that all the possible rewards were worth it. Welp. Caitlin and Cisco aren’t too happy about that - especially Caitlin since she lost her fiance. Barry tells Wells he owes them more than an apology.
At Jitters, we learn that the writers are really trying hard to make Iris THE WORST. Seeing that Barry had a bad day doesn’t stop her from wanting to talk about HER problems, which Barry allows because Barry is THE BEST.
The Sound of Getting Played
Cisco figures out that Hartley had his gloves set to the lowest setting when he attacked his father’s building. Hartley wanted to get caught! As soon as he makes that discovery, an alarm sounds and Hartley uses the metal in his ears to blow up his cell… just as Cisco was approaching. Wells rushes to the basement, but stops as his speed gives out on him.
Hartley knocks out Caitlin, retrieves his gloves, and uses a thumb drive hidden in them to download info off the S.T.A.R. Labs computers. By the time The Flash arrives, Hartley is gone.
Wells figures that Hartley won’t stop until he feels Wells has paid for his crimes. Wells calls the most pitiful press conference ever at the police station, and publicly admits that he knew there was a chance the accident would happen.
Mason asks if Wells plans on rebuilding the particle accelerator, and Wells ignores him to take a question from Iris instead. Iris just double downs on Mason’s question and Wells says no.
Back at the labs, Wells gets back on Cisco’s good side by telling him that while he and Hartley were both brilliant, Hartley’s brilliance made working with him a fucking nightmare, whereas Cisco is actually a cool person who doesn’t inspire rage and massive eye rolls.
Scarlet Knight
Hartley terrorizes motorists at a toll booth then calls Wells to suggest they have one last game of chess. He tells Wells to send his scarlet knight if he can find him, meanwhile he’ll kill time taking care of a few pawns. You know, bad guys who cause traffic jams are the worst kind of evil assholes.
They track his location, and The Flash arrives to do his thing. As Hartley tosses cars off the dam, Barry rushes to get the people out of the falling cars before they can explode. Meanwhile, Cisco figures out that Hartley stole the data on Barry and his suit. Now that he has Barry’s frequency, he can use his power to break Barry.
Luckily, Wells manages to tap into the radios of all the nearby cars and amplify a radio signal that basically shuts Hartley down. Day saved.
Barry goes to the police station to have a father-son chat with Joe. He tells him that no one - not even Wells - will replace him. Awwww. When Barry leaves, Eddie comes in with news that he didn’t find anything at Wells’s house and asks Joe if he is sure that he wants to investigate Wells. Oh, hell yeah.
Cisco goes to Hartley’s cell to gloat, but Hartley has another trick up his sleeve: Cisco is going to let him out because he knows where Ronnie is, he knows what really happened to him that night, and he knows how to save him. Welp.
In his secret crazy lair, that tachyon device isn’t helping Wells maintain his power. He’s disappointed, but tells Gideon that the real endgame is near.
Thoughts & Questions:
- Cisco: “That’s because Hartley could sometimes be a jerk, but every once in awhile he could be a dick.” Joe: *cute giggle*
- That picture of Barry in his Flash suit is going to come back to bite them in the ass, isn’t it?
- Investigating Wells BETTER NOT get Joe killed.
- I still think Eddie will end up being Reverse Flash. I could barely explain my theory to my husband, so hear me out: I assumed that because he has the suit and because he needed that tachyon device from the other labs - which is what Reverse Flash was after - Wells’ goal is to become Reverse Flash. I thought Wells was trying to eventually get Barry’s power of speed and healing, not that he had it already. He thinks the Reverse Flash is him, from the future, going back for that device, but the twist will be that it’s Eddie. And I suspect that Eddie investigating Wells will play a part in how it all begins. Then again, I could be completely wrong and everything is as we see it.
- Every episode needs a bro moment between Barry and Joe. These two have the best chemistry on the show! And when Jesse L. Martin smiles, all is right with the damn world.
