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The Flash Review – Season 1, Episode 12: Crazy For You

By Steve Lam

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Not-So-Fast Recap: An upside down car, two people trapped inside, and an angry, loose power line.  Yep, sounds like a job for the Flash!  He speeds in rescuing the boyfriend first.  As the Flash is about to get the girlfriend, sparks ignite the leaked gasoline.  The car explodes, but the girlfriend is safe — already rescued from the car by our Scarlet Speedster.

Back at S.T.A.R. Labs, our beloved team of nerds (yes, Barry included) celebrates their latest heroic outing.  The team retires for the night, with Barry going home to do movie night with Joe.  Caitlyn soon finds that Cisco has been going against her wishes in searching for Ronnie.  Cisco’s excuse: Hartley Rathaway (our Pied Piper from last week) mentioned knowing what happened to Ronnie.  Cisco also believes that Caitlyn hasn’t quite moved on from her loss.

Outside of Iron Heights, Shawna Baez, teleports inside and quickly knocks out all the security cameras.  Evading guards at every corner, she finds her betrothed, Clay Parker, and teleports him out.  The two end up back in her car and race off.

Barry and Joe investigate Clay’s cell, where Barry finds an organic trail left by Shawna’s teleportation.  In a chance encounter, Barry runs into his father, Henry, being transported by a guard.  The two have a brief, but happy reunion.  As Henry is led away, Barry finds out that Joe called in a favor to have his father moved through the halls where Barry was going to be — allowing the two to meet.

In her apartment, Shawna explains to Clay that her powers started to manifest shortly after he was put away.  Shawna wants Clay to leave with her, but he still owes money to someone named Marcus.  Besides, he now has other plans after seeing what she can do.

At S.T.A.R. Labs, the team analyzes the organic material found by Barry.  They run it through a crime database when they notice that it’s a mix of DNA that includes Clay’s and someone else’s.  An immediate hit for Shawna comes up.  As the team leaves to track Shawna, Cisco goes off on his own to speak to Hartley.  Cisco learns from Hartley that Ronnie’s situation is tied with the disappearance of Professor Stein (ding ding ding, Easter egg #1).  Hartley will reveal more once he’s allowed out, but Cisco doesn’t comply.  Hartley then plays to Cisco’s sentimental side to further his goal.

At their favorite coffee shop, Barry is in a good mood from seeing his father earlier in the day.  Iris, though, thinks that the newspaper only hired her because of a perceived relationship with the Flash.  She’s worried that she might lose her job if she’s not able to write more about the hero.  Barry assures her that they’ll find a worthy story together.

Cisco has finally given in.  He makes Hartley slap on modified handcuffs in preparation of allowing him to leave his cell.

Visiting Henry, Barry and Joe learn that Clay owes money to Marcus Stockheimer, a mob boss.  Barry, worried about his father’s safety, asks Henry not to put himself in danger anymore by gathering information on criminals.

Cisco and Hartley tour the outside of S.T.A.R. Labs.  Listening to Hartley to take a closer look, Cisco discovers a bomb shadow (human figured residue left from an explosion) of Stein on a wall.  As they walk back, Hartley attacks Cisco in a bid to escape.  Cisco overpowers him and uses a device to activate Hartley’s cochlear implants — causing him immense pain.  Hartley complies, but now wants to show Cisco everything.  The only caveat: Cisco will need to remove Hartley’s handcuffs because of the location they’ll be going.

Caitlyn shows Barry her findings on Shawna’s DNA.  When Shawna comes into contact with someone, the other person will briefly take on her abilities.  Noticing Caitlyn’s body language, Barry inquires as to what’s bothering her.  Caitlyn is worried that she has no social life outside of work.  Barry assures her that his is no better.  The conversation comes to a quick end when they detect a robbery in progress — Shawna and Clay.

The Flash arrives just as Shawna is placing stolen money into her car.  Shawna leads the Flash on a chase with her teleportation powers.  The chase ends when Clay fires a gun and the Flash barely catches the bullet about to hit him.

As Caitlyn patches the bullet graze wound on Barry’s neck, he describes his run-in with Shawna.  Harrison wheels in and labels her power as quantum entanglement — the ability to manipulate interconnected particles over an infinite distance.  Caitlyn quickly sees her chance and does her best “Cisco” — she dubs their newest meta-human “Peek-a-Boo.”

Barry runs into Iris and Eddie just as they’re exiting the police station.  He was about to help Iris with a story, but she was just in the midst of leaving to have dinner with Eddie’s mother.  Barry, now with an empty schedule, calls Caitlyn and tells her that he’s going to check out bars that Shawna and Clay frequented.  Caitlyn gives it a thought and decides to join Barry.

Caitlyn meets Barry at a bar and the two discuss their pursuit of non-existing relationships.  The two decide that they need to get themselves out there.

Cisco and Hartley are at CCPD using Barry’s computer to look through confiscated files.  Via video footage, they see evidence of Stein and Ronnie merging into one being.  Hartley, seeing his chance, pulls out his cochlear implant and activates it.  Cisco is overpowered by the high-pitched sound.  Hartley goes on to destroy Cisco’s frequency device and escapes.

Back at the bar, a drunk Caitlyn pulls Barry on stage for an impromptu karaoke performance.  Afterwards, alone at the bar, Barry is approached by a woman named Linda Park (Easter egg #2, Wally West’s wife in the comics) who gives him her number.  As she leaves, Caitlyn rejoins Barry.  Just as she’s about to vomit, Barry speeds her outside.

At a train yard, Clay and Shawna give their stolen money to Marcus.  He soon discovers what Shawna can do and wants to force them to continue working for him.  Suddenly, Joe and his task force raid the building.  A shootout ensues with Clay getting injured and Shawna teleporting him away.

Barry speeds Caitlyn home.  Still drunk and unaware, she starts to undress, making Barry extremely uncomfortable.  When she asks for his help, he super-speeds her into her pajamas.  Thanking him for a fun time, she requests that Barry stay with her until she falls asleep.

The next day, Barry and Caitlyn enter the lab to find both Harrison and Cisco in a somber mood.  Cisco admits to freeing Hartley in exchange for information about Ronnie.  Continuing, Cisco reveals the guilt he’s been bearing for sealing Ronnie inside the accelerator.  Caitlyn tells Cisco that if Ronnie was still here, he’d know that Cisco did the right thing.  The team quickly moves on to their immediate concern — catching Shawna.

Harrison reveals his findings about Shawna’s abilities.  Without light, it seems that the particulates become inactive, which means Shawna needs to see her destination in order to teleport.  They’re interrupted when Barry gets a call and finds out that his father has been stabbed.

Barry and Joe visit Henry at Iron Heights’ infirmary.  Henry was stabbed because he discovered and divulged information about Marcus to the police, which led to Joe’s raid.  Barry wants his father to stop risking his life, but Henry wants to help Barry anyway he can.  Barry learns from his father that a prisoner named Julius, one of Marcus’s men, was the one who stabbed him.

The Flash speeds Julius out of his cell.  Julius knows that if the guards catch him trying to escape, an additional five years will be added to his sentence (although the Flash corrects him – it’s actually ten years).  Seeing no other options, Julius spills his guts.

On a highway, Shawna teleports to an armored transport and steals cash.  Teleporting back to a car being driven by Clay, they’re stopped by the Flash.  Shawna teleports out, and both her and the Flash do battle in a street tunnel.  Clay speeds in while Shawna teleports back into his car.  As they speed through the tunnel, the Flash take out all the lights — limiting Shawna’s field of vision.  When the Flash finally disables their car, Clay runs off, abandoning Shawna.

Shawna is imprisoned inside a cell with one-way mirrors at S.T.A.R. Labs.  She admits that she still loves Clay, even after what he did.  Caitlyn admits to Barry that she needs to move on from Ronnie, and that she needs to find someone else to love.  Barry seems to be ignorant of Caitlyn’s growing attraction towards him.

The Flash finds Iris and hands her a folder with information regarding Clay and the Iron Heights breakout.  When she asks him why he’s doing this, he tells her that she’s a good reporter.  The Flash then speeds off.  Little does he know, Iris snapped a picture of him on her phone — the same angle that appears in the future newspaper read by Harrison.

Barry arrives at Iris’s office.  Unknown to her, he’s actually here to meet a lunch date.  It turns out to be Linda Park, the girl he met at the bar, who’s actually a sportscaster.

Barry pays a visit to his father at Iron Heights, who’s still recovering in the infirmary.  Henry has his suspicions that Barry is the Flash, but Barry jokingly brushes it off.  In a poignant moment, Henry tells Barry that if he was the Flash, he’d tell him how proud he was.

In the epilogue, two utility workers venture into the sewers where they find the walls scrawled with the word “Grodd.”  Soon, Gorilla Grodd comes out of the dark and viciously attacks them.

Favorite moment: Like all The Flash episodes, there are multiple great moments.  However, if I had to really choose one tonight, it would be Cisco preventing Hartley’s initial escape attempt.  When our favorite mechanical engineer went into action, I said this out loud, “Dayam!  Cisco’s got skills!”

Final thought: A great episode with some great character development.  Every scene struck the perfect emotional cord.  I thought the Barry and Henry moments were done extremely well without being too sappy.  The Flash is also great at tying all the different subplots into a unifying theme at the end.  With Cisco’s guilt over Ronnie, Barry and Caitlyn stuck in their respective romantic ruts, and Shawna’s and Clay’s eventual separation, the theme of “needing to move on” came through strong and clear.

So enough of the boring screenwriting technicalities, I’m sure all of you readers want to nerd out on Gorilla Grodd.  We finally saw him tonight in all his glory — ruthless and savage.  Okay, he might’ve been a bit too wild in tonight’s episode.  That’s fine.  I think the creators of The Flash may want to develop him slowly over time.  Show him growing more and more intelligent, and getting more accustomed to his abilities.  Crazy For You was another great installment of a fun series.  Looking forward to next week!

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