Harrison Wells is Up to No Good and a New Metahuman Emerges in Our The Flash Recap

Two years ago, there was this thing called the Particle Accelerator explosion, maybe you’ve heard of it. That night, a lot of normal people became metahumans and one of them was a young man being threatened by two overzealous goons that dropped him in a vat of tar. Now though, he’s finally free. Barry runs around town as he does and stops by the West house to see Joe, Iris and Wally all enjoying dinner together. As they talk, Iris makes things awkward by hounding Wally for his drag racing. Wally gets frustrated and leaves. At STAR Labs, Harry has created a device to siphon Barry’s speed which he can hand over to Zoom. Barry enters to work on the breach problem with him and does some speed reading on Earth-2 text books to help out.

In the Fast & Furious corner of Central City, Wally is hanging out with his car buddies when Iris appears and reveals she’s writing a story about all this for the paper. Once Wally is racing she sneaks a photo of the guy running it all, Clark Bronwen. On the other side of town, one of the goons from the beginning of the episode hangs out in a garage only to be attacked by the now free metahuman. The next day Barry and Joe investigate the crime and paint a nice picture in all our heads by saying he “looked like he was dipped in a volcano.” Barry heads back to STAR Labs with a sample and while there, Cisco shows him his latest invention, an app cross referencing social media posts about metahumans and providing locations. While they goof around, Harry takes the siphoning device and plants it in Barry’s suit.

Joe goes to see Iris at CCPN where she tells him about her new story, on the growing drag racing scene in Central City. She tells him about all the different ways they’ve been injured and killed and Joe confides that he doesn’t want Wally to reject him, but maybe he can get him to trust him. Back at STAR, Barry and Harry work on closing the breach but Harry’s guilt manifests itself and he lashes out at Barry and asks him to leave. Cisco updates Barry on his tests and they reveal the murder victim wasn’t burned to death but died by suffocation, and coins the metahuman’s nickname, Tar Pit. On cue his app alerts him to an attack and Barry finds Tar Pit going after Goon #2. He manages to save the Goon and shower Tar Pit in water, leaving him as a little brown puddle. All the while as Barry runs though, he’s charging up Harry’s invention and having his power drained. Later, the team identifies the victims and the metahuman, giving them a little more to work with. When Barry leaves, Cisco asks if he’s all right since he could tell he was moving slower.

Racer man Clark Bronwen watches racing in his messy office when he gets a surprise visit from Iris. She tells him to cancel the races and offers a preview of the piece she’s working on. When he threatens her, she reveals their entire conversation has been taped. Wally comes to see her that night and when asked why, since it’s not to pay Francine’s hospital bills, is he still going on with this, he doesn’t have an answer. Iris reiterates that she and Joe care about him, but Wally still doesn’t see it. That night, Harry attempts to reconnect with Barry, telling him he reminds him of his daughter. He goes on to confess, albeit without Barry knowing, that Zoom will make him choose between Barry and Jesse, and he’s always going to pick Jesse. Barry brushes it off and shows him a plan to close the breaches, which Harry finds extraordinary. Who wrote it though? He did, the Earth-1 version of him that is. Harry leaves to read the paper and that night offers up the first of Barry’s speed to Zoom. When he tries to get the demon to let Jesse go, he refuses and says he might torture her instead.

Team Flash figures out that none of the records for Tar Pit and his victims were available because they were all juveniles. After some handy hacking work, they see Tar Pit was cellmates with Goon #1 in the Hall and the Goon #2’s roommate was none other than Clark Bronwen, bringing this episode full circle. Harry enters and reveals he’s completed the Breach Implosion Reactor. He and Barry go outside to test it and fling the device into the portal. Good news, it worked. Back in the Fast & Furious corner of the world, Iris and Joe show up and watch as Wally gets in another race, only for Tar Pit to appear and send his car flying through the air. Barry speeds to the track and rescues Wally just in time but his car manages to flip and send parts flying, including glass. Though he tries to snatch the shard, Barry can’t catch the glass before it hits Iris in the shoulder. He races her to the hospital just as Joe and Wally make eye contact.

Iris is feeling better later that night and Wally brings her some flowers, though unsure if she’s allergic or even likes them. Joe walks him out and reminds him that he’s not alone in the world anymore, people care about him. When Barry calls, Wally offers to stay with Iris so Joe can leave. At STAR Labs, they’ve created a way to stop Tar Pit, nitrous grenades to freeze him. Barry confides in Cisco that he does feel slower and Caitlin backs it up with data. As Joe enters the room, Harry stands up and confesses. He shows them the device he made and reveals he’s been working with Zoom. Joe runs over and slugs him before dragging him to the basement and throwing him in the particle accelerator prison.

Later that night they use Goon #2 to catch Tar Pit, and it works, but the metahuman has changed. Now he’s giant, sludgy, and looks a lot like a certain Batman villain. Barry throws the grenades at him, which work like a charm, and Joe delivers the knockout punch. Why are you punching everyone, Joe? Back at STAR Labs, Barry talks to Harry who says he told him he would betray him and asks for one thing, just send him back to Earth-2. They can close the breaches and not worry about Zoom anymore. Barry takes this to the team who are all ready to push Harry out the door, but Barry has a different idea. They can’t blame him for looking after his own family, no one blamed Cisco when he worked with Captain Cold after all, but if this is going to be fair as a team vote. They all go to the basement and let Harry free but reveal he’s not going alone, they’re going with him, because he’s part of the team now.

You can watch a preview for next week’s episode, titled “Welcome to Earth-2,” in the player below.