The Flash Recap With Spoilers: Fast Lane

The episode opens on a trio of young criminals -- one guy talking a lot of trash while a second [...]

By Russ Burlingame

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The episode opens on a trio of young criminals -- one guy talking a lot of trash while a second hods a third over a vat of boiling tar. The victim gives his captors an account number where they can recover money he apparently stole from them, and they drop him. He falls, screaming, into the vat, and moments later, the particle accelerator explosion sends a wave of energy through the area as his fellow crooks make their escape.

Much later, a tar-covered hand pushes up through the concrete.

Barry is making his rounds as The Flash, feeling bad about his breakup; he sees Joe and Iris having dinner with Wally and leaves to go somewhere else. While the Wests make dinner conversation, Iris again tries to urge Wally to stop drag racing, and he gets frustrated and leaves.

After Wally leaves, Joe asks Iris to go a little easier on Wally so that they can get to know each other better, and Iris says she will, but that she doesn't approve of him letting Barry off light.

At S.T.A.R. Labs, Wells records a memo into his watch: what he learned from Turtle's brain matter and the Reverse-Flash has allowed him to create a device he can install in Barry's suit and help him steal some of Barry's speed.

Barry arrives, and wants to work on the breach problem; Wells doesn't want him around, but Barry is insistent, even speed-reading all of Wells's science books. Wells spends the whole time trying to hide a device he's working on.

That night, Wally heads out to a race, where Iris arrives, dressed in a way that gets her wolf calls. She argues with Wally, who leaves her to race over her objections. She's there undercover for the paper, and takes a quick photo with her phone.

At a garage, a well-dressed man calls out to people we can't see. The victim from earlier appears, covered in tar and ranting about his experience over the last two years. He kills the man.

Later at the scene, Joe identifies the victim as a criminal named Daniel Burge. Barry looks at the badly-burned body, and is about to leave to take samples to the lab. Joe is heading off to talk to Iris, and after some well-intentioned jokes from Barry about what a strict dad he is, he seems to be feeling more guilt about his dealings with Wally.

While Cisco shows Barry a new mobile app he's created to track metahuman activity in the city, Wells removes the insignia from The Flash's costume and affixes a device to the back.

At the newspaper, Joe arrives to meet Iris, who is working on a story about recent street racing injuries and fatalities. She tries to guilt Joe into being a better parent, and he tells her to give Joe a little space so he can give Wally some.

At S.T.A.R., Barry waxes poetic about his relationship with the other Harrison Wells, when Harry starts getting upset and kicks him out of the lab.

In the central room, Cisco has results from the burn victim -- apparently the man died from suffocation, not the burns; it seems the man was wrapped in hot asphault. Barry and Cisco coin the name Tar Pit, and shortly after that, Cisco's app gets a ping downtown.

Barry speeds off to the crime scene, where he confronts Tar Pit, who is about to kill Clay -- the ringleader responsible for his death. Barry stops him by cooling him down, causing Tar Pit to accidentally open a hydrant, and then he takes Clay away.

At S.T.A.R., Wells has successfully bottled some lightning and whispers that Jesse is coming home.

Later, Team Flash is looking into what might have caused Tar Pit, who he is and the like. Cisco pulls Barry aside and tells him he's a little slower than usual, asking if he's okay. Barry is fine and blows it off.

Iris heads into the office of the man who runs the drag races, showing her a galley from the next day's paper, an expose on his operation. He threatens to ruin her life if she publishes it. She reveals she's been recording the whole conversation, and he kicks her out of the office.

Later at the paper, Wally confronts her, and she's upset with him for still being in bed with them if they're so dangerous. She guilts him for not honoring his mother's memory, and he tells her to stay away from the gangsters or he can't protect her.

Later, at S.T.A.R., Barry and Wells argue. Wells tells him that eventually Zoom will make him choose between Team Flash and his daughter, and he'll choose Jesse. Barry tells him that's binary thinking and it doesn't have to be that way. He says he has more faith in Wells not to betray him than Wells does.

Barry comes up with a theory on how to close the breaches -- it's based on a theory by the other Harrison Wells. Wells says he'll take a look at it. Barry says he's going to run some computer simulations on the formula.

Later, Zoom pops out of a breach and Wells gives him the vial of Barry's lightning. Zoom injects it into himself and after a cloud of blue lightning, demands more. Wells tells him he wants Jesse released, or he won't bring him the rest of Barry's speed. Zoom says he doesn't have to kill them; he can torture them up to the edge of death, and that's what he'll do if Wells doesn't cooperate with him.

Back in the lab, Team Flash is still working on the Tar Pit problem. It turns out that while the three gangsters weren't arrested together, they did serve time together at a juvenile hall. They were all connected to the same boss -- the man who Iris just confronted. She arrives in time to bring Joe to pick him up.

Outside, Wells brings Barry and a device he's created based on the other Wells's calculations to create an implosion in one of the breaches. Barry throws it, and there's a blue explosion in the air, then nothing. The breach is successfully closed. Barry hugs him enthusiastically, telling him it's the first step in getting his daughter back.

At a drag race, Wally takes off, and the man in teh car next to him is a meta. The ground under his car starts to get unstable, causing Wally to almost crash, and Barry gets a call from Iris asking for The Flash.

Barry arrives, rescues Wally and finds that the meta in question is Tar Pit; he throws a car at the guy leading the race, and while Barry saves the man, he can't save one of the shards of glass from stabbing Iris in the chest -- he's not quite fast enough to catch it. He rushes Iris to the hospital.

Later, Iris wakes up at the hospital, Joe at her bedside. The glass pierced her shoulder, but she's going to be alright. Wally comes in to visit, bringing some flowers and babbling awkwardly before he regroups a bit and leaves.

Joe follows him out, telling Wally he isn't alone, and when he gets a page, Wally tells Joe to go, that he'll stay with Iris.

At S.T.A.R., Cisco has developed a special anti-Tar Pit grenade, something that will freeze him solid. Barry tells Cisco that he feels slower -- Caitlin says it's by 2%. Barry asks Wells to theorize what might have happened, but Wells blows him off. Barry starts blaming himself for not being fast enough to save Iris tonight, and Wells starts feeling increasingly guilty.

Finally, he stands up, removes his device from the suit and admits he stole Barry's speed. Joe, who just entered the room, punches Wells out and throws him in a cell in the Pipeline, then tells the team to go find Tar Pit.

Joe heads to the police department and grabs Clay out of holding to use as bait. When Tar Pit shows up to attack, Barry launches three grenades into him, freezing Tar Pit and then exploding him. When he staggers back to his feet in a tar-covered human form, Joe punches him out.

At S.T.A.R., Wells tells Barry to send him home, to use the implosion reactors to close all the remaining breaches, and cut Zoom off from being able to attack Earth-1. Let him worry about his own daughter. Barry walks away, closing Wells's cell.

At the hospital, Iris wakes up in the morning and talks with Wally. He tells Iris that growing up, they didn't have much money for toys or movies, but that when they took long drives together, he was happy. He says racing allows him to recapture that feeling, and that's why he doesn't want to stop.

Back at S.T.A.R., Barry says they can't sentence a world to death just because Wells screwed them -- and that they can all remember times when they've betrayed the mission for their families. He talks the team into letting Wells stay. They go find him in the pipeline, and Barry tells him they're going to Earth-2 to save Jesse.

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