The Flash Recap With Spoilers: “Wildest Dreams”

Warning: This article contains major spoilers for The CW‘s The Flash Season 9 episode, “Wildest Dreams.” Read beyond this point at your own risk.

The episode opens with Dreamer walking through what appears to be a warehouse when she is suddenly hit with what can only be described as images of doom — crows, graves, black widow spiders. Soon, a group of people appear behind her with a hooded figure, and she says that they can’t stop her now that she’s this close. Dreamer prepares to battle this figure, but they are able to remove her power. Iris inexplicably appears and tells Dreamer that it’s about control and then Iris collapses. Nia suddenly wakes up in National City’s Jitters and realizes she needs to get to Central City.

At CCCM, Iris takes a call from Barry. She’s working late at the office on a story and having cheese fries cravings. Allegra shows Iris the headline that she’s come up with for the article Iris is writing on the Red Death and it’s the exact headline of her Pulitzer-winning article. Suddenly, Iris seems to be having doubts. At STAR, Khione seems to have unlocked her ice powers and spills something on Mark in the process, prompting him to take off his shirt which leads to kissing — but it’s all a dream. Mark’s fallen asleep on monitor duty. Chester and Khione show up to relieve him, but Mark invites Khione out for the day instead.

Nia shows up at CCCM. Nia tells her that she’s her role model — they recently had that brunch Ryan mentioned. Nia tells Iris about her recent efforts to take her powers to the next level and then about her most recent dream and how her powers were erased. She thinks that the only person who can help her is Iris because she was also in the dream. While they’re sitting there, Nia gets an image of the hooded figure and suddenly both she and Iris are knocked out. They end up in a dream where Nia is a police officer and Iris is the captain. It’s Iris’ dream.  Nia is trying to figure out what is going on as well as how to wake them up, but she can’t. Iris is intrigued by this dream life, however. and wonders if this dream means she should have been a cop. Suddenly, a door appears, and Iris thinks it’s a way out. Nia tells her that in her previous dream, Iris died and explains about the hooded figure. Nia thinks the hooded figure can only kill in dreams, so Nia thinks they need to be extra careful.

They go through the door and suddenly they are working at Jitters — but so is Barry and Chester. In the waking world, Barry shows up at CCCM to bring cheese fries and finds both Iris and Nia asleep. He takes them back to STAR. They are in a deep REM sleep and don’t respond to outside stimuli. Even Cecile can’t sense anything. Everyone else in National City are off world and can’t help. And things are getting worse. If they don’t wake up soon, they will be in permanent comas. In the dream, things start getting weird in the coffee shop and Iris takes control of the situation and solves the issue. Nia suddenly starts feeling warm and tells Iris they need to go. It turns out that they are having something called “angry sleep”. Nia realizes that they need to crack the code of whatever the problem Iris is dealing with in her real life to get out.

Iris reveals that she misses being able to clock out at the end of the day, she misses having her freedom. Suddenly, the scene changes to the warehouse like place where we first saw Nia — their dreams are merging. They are now sharing a nightmare and Nia tells her that they have to run. Things are only getting worse for them physically in the real world as their fevers keep rising and even Chester and Allegra aren’t sure they can solve this one this time.

Nia and Iris are cornered by the hooded woman who attacks them. Nia stands up to the woman and says that she is the dreamer, and she is control and won’t let her hurt them. Then a door opens and suddenly Nia and Iris are back in CCCM but are still dreaming. They observe Iris’ employees talking about her Pulitzer win and they aren’t happy. They think she’s a fraud. Nia talks with Iris about the situation and Iris tells her about her feelings that she hasn’t earned things because she knows about the future. She feels like she’s not making her own choices. Nia tells her that she is making her own choices because destiny is the culmination of a lifetime of choices, and this is a path that she did indeed create.

In the waking world, Mark takes Khione to a bar, but it’s pretty obvious that it’s not her vibe. Mark keeps trying to take Khione on things that Frost would have wanted to do. He wants her to be more like Khione, though he denies that. Karaoke starts and the crowd tries to get them to do it because they assume Khione is Frost. She takes the mic and says Frost is dead and then confronts Mark. She points out that he never tried to get to know her and then walks away.

In the waking world. Cecile suddenly realizes that someone else is there with them, but she doesn’t know who. Cecile tells Barry that both Iris and Nia are going to be okay because what she just felt was a powerful and kind presence, a guardian angel type of thing — but it was the hooded figure. In the dream, Nia and Iris find a door covered in spiderwebs. Nia explains that a spider bite killed her mother and Iris tells her that maybe she’s not supposed to regain her powers. Maybe she just needs to follow where things go, even if it’s scary. Nia realizes that she needs to give up control and has to go through the final door alone. Nia makes her way through to another door and ends up back in the warehouse in her Dreamer suit with the hooded figure again.

Nia tells the hooded figure that she’s ready to give up control and accepts whatever comes next. The figure removes her hood and shows herself to be the original Dreamer — the ancient source of Naltorian dream energy. She gives Nia the power now that they’ve both embraced their paths and both Nia and Iris wake up completely fine at STAR. After it is all over, Nia explains that the original Dreamer is going to teach her how to use her powers beyond her wildest dreams. Cecile can feel the original Dreamer, but only Nia can see her. Barry and Iris go home, have Big Belly (from National City) and Iris goes ahead and publishes her story.

Later, everyone has a big family breakfast at the West house. Mark stops by to talk to Khione. He’s still struggling with having lost Frost. He apologizes to Khione, and she forgives him because she’s his friend. He says he will miss her because he’s decided to leave town because he has to go through his pain and grieve properly and alone. He makes her promise to keep exploring her powers.  She goes back inside ends up freezing breakfast because she’s sad.

The Flash airs Wednesdays at 8/7c on The CW.