The Flash Season 3, Episode 13 Recap: “Attack On Gorilla City”

By Tim Adams | Feb 23, 2017

The Flash and friends head to Earth-2 in search of Harrison Wells, who’s being held as a prisoner of Gorilla Grodd in Gorilla City.

After a week hiatus for Valentine’s Day, The Flash is back on The CW. When we last left #TeamFlash, Jesse Quick appeared to look for help finding her missing father, Harrison Wells. It seems Wells received a decrypted message inviting him to Earth-2’s Gorilla City. We see a quick glimpse of Wells scrambling in a forest before he’s scooped up by a giant gorilla.

Barry Allen notices the similarity between Gorilla City and a news article from the future that read, “City still reeling after gorilla attack.” If they can rescue Wells, then perhaps they can alter the future enough to save Iris West from dying at the hands of the God of Speed, Savitar.

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Barry, Cisco Ramon, Caitlin Snow, and Julian Albert decide to head to Earth-2 while Jesse and Wally West remain behind to protect Central City. As Julian Albert states, “Are you going to the planet of the apes?”, to which Barry replied, “No, just a city of them.”

Wally is happy to see Jesse again, but she doesn’t appear to be as thrilled. Iris’ words of advice are to “give it time then lock it down!” Before Wally can give this a try, a bad guy alert goes off for a bank robbery in town. Wally and Jesse head off to stop the thieves, which turns into a solo venture as Kid Flash handles it himself as Jesse watches.

While #TeamFlash walks through the jungles of Gorilla City, they’re lured into a trap and tranquilized. They wake up in holding cells where they can’t use their powers. Suddenly, Wells shows up mind-controlled by Grodd. Speaking through Wells, Grodd informs everyone that a gorilla named Solovar rules Gorilla City. Grodd is looking to overthrow Solovar, who wants a war with the humans. Their only means of escape is The Flash killing Solovar or else Central City suffers.

Back at S.T.A.R. Labs, Wally confronts Jesse on her weird behavior. He wants Jesse to stay after all this drama with her Dad is resolved. She’s not sure if Wally was initially attracted to her or her speed, but now that he’s a speedster, he’s forgotten about her.

Solovar pays #TeamFlash a visit and Barry agrees to fight him in the arena. Cisco coins it “speedster versus super gorilla. Best/worst video game ever.” The Flash’s strategy of speed punches and a lightning throw aren’t working against Solovar. Finally, a maneuver Flash learned from the Reverse-Flash makes him the victor. However, Flash refuses to kill Solovar and he ends up tranquilized again.

Image Courtesy of The CW

It turns out that Grodd tricked Flash into beating Solovar and showing the other apes that humans are to be feared. Now he plans to take his gorilla army to Central City by using Cisco to open a breach. As Wells awakens, the team debates whether killing Cisco is the right thing to do to save Central City.

Jesse is feeling down in the dumps after her talk with Wally, but luckily HR Wells is there to give her some love advice. #TeamFlash has a plan to use Caitlin’s Killer Frost powers to freeze Barry enough where it looks like he had a cardiac arrest. This raises the question of how come Barry and Cisco’s powers don’t work in the cell but Caitlin’s do?

After Barry is removed from his cell, he vibrates his body to warm up and then frees the others. They race out of Gorilla City back into the jungle, and then Cisco opens a portal back home. As Wells is recuperating, Jesse tells Wally that she plans to stay behind with him. More of the romance between Caitlin and Julian is teased, and the episode ends back on Earth-2 with Grodd stating he always thinks ahead, and the reveal that he has Gypsy to open breaches for him.

Next: Catch up with a recap of 'Untouchable'

Highlight

It’s always fun to see Gorilla Grodd on the small screen. Even though The CW minimizes the amount of time he’s on camera due to their special effects budget, they get around it in clever ways (using his telepathy to speak through others for example). Also, having Jesse Quick stick around adds another speedster to the lineup.

Closing Thought

“Attack on Gorilla City” leads us to next week’s episode, “Attack on Central City” as Gorilla Grodd’s Earth-2 army invades Central City. It will take the combined efforts of The Flash, Kid Flash, Jesse Quick, and the rest of our heroes to pull out a win.