Season 2 Episode 12 of The Flash, titled Fast Lane, revolves around Wells and Wally, and a new Meta-Human–Tar Pit! Check out Josh’s episode recap, followed by our thoughts about the episode!
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Episode Recap of The Flash, Season 2 Episode 12: Fast Lane
Wally, Iris, and Joe
This episode of the Flash focuses on Dr. Wells and Wally for the most part, with a villain of the week–aptly named Tar Pit by Bar–oh wait, Cisco managed to get it in just in time. But let’s go over this week’s episode!
As for Joe, Wally, and Iris, they are trying to figure out how to make the new family dynamic work. Iris is upset that Wally is still street racing, while Joe seems to be taking it easy. This gets under Iris’ skin, and causes her to snap at Wally at dinner, which causes Wally to leave for the night. Joe and Iris then have a little argument, as Iris feels Joe is going to easy on Wally, while Joe feels it’s best to try to develop a relationship before getting all parental.
So Iris concedes to her dad’s wishes, sort of–she goes “undercover”, attending one of the street races. This “traumatizes” Wally as Iris is dressed a little too attractive for his liking. But she tells Wally she is working on a story about street racing. Wally warns her this could get very dangerous very quick.
The next day, Joe visits Iris at work, and Iris tries to make her case about being more parental to Wally–showing how many people have been hurt street racing. Then Iris heads back out to the races, and confronts one of the head honchos of the races–Clark Bronwen. He doesn’t like her story she is planning to publish, and threatens her. But Iris played it smart, ands recorded the conversation in case she got hurt. Clark tells her to get out.
Then we see some racing going on–Wally versus another guy. But before we continue here, we should go over some other things…
Barry and Dr. Wells
Well, we have a few things going in here. First, Barry is feeling pretty alone right now, after his break up with Patty, followed by seeing Joe getting along with Wally, which sort of leaves him out in the cold (although he doesn’t seem to be jealous at this point), so he heads to STAR Labs, where Dr. Wells is still secretly working on how to steal Barry’s speed. Barry thinks Dr. Wells is working on how to close the breaches to Earth 2, and offers to help Wells. Wells seems off put by the offer, and refuses help. Barry insists though, by speed reading some documents and books to help him gain some knowledge (short term at least, as Barry says he has about 30 minutes before what he reads will fade away).
Wells isn’t happy about the company, but agrees, worried Barry might press too hard and discover Wells’ real plan. So they begin their work. Eventually, they actually come up with a solution, and Wells and Barry are able to come up with a “bomb” of sorts, which they successfully close a breach with. But let’s get into the villain of the week, which will round out both Wally’s and Wells’ story.
Tar Pit
So back to the beginning of the episode, we see a man dumped into a vat of tar, by two men. The man (Joey Monteleone) is presumed dead, and this all went down right as the particle accelerator exploded. As expected in The Flash, he didn’t die.
Coming forward two years, Joey is inadvertently dug up as the company that was destroyed 2 years ago is preparing to get back up and running. The first thing Joey does is find one of his murderers, and takes him down. Daniel Burge is murdered by Tar Pit/Joey.
Barry and Joe investigate the murder, and discover it is probably some meta-human. Barry takes some samples back to STAR Labs, and the team discovers that this must have been caused by tar, leading to Cisco just barely eeking out the name Tar Pit before Barry is able to. In order to find meta-humans easier, Cisco has come up with a social media app which basically aggregates all discussion of meta-humans, which allows Barry to find the next attack by Tar Pit, and Barry rushes to help out. But a little while before, Wells has put his plans in motion to steal Barry’s power by putting a device in Barry’s suit, which somehow transfers the Speed Force to a vial-like device.
So, Dr. Wells presents this vial to Zoom, and demands his daughter back. Zoom isn’t too keen on this, and tells Wells to get the rest of it, or he will torture his daughter day after day. Wells heads back to STAR Labs…
But back with Barry and his interaction with Tar Pit, he finds out from Cisco and Caitlin that they should try to cool him down–so Barry uses a fire hydrant to do so. This eliminates Tar Pit from the picture–for now, and Clay Stanley is arrested–the second person involved in murdering Joey. Clay doesn’t really give up any useful information though.
Back at STAR Labs, Cisco questions Barry about his speed, as Barry was a touch slower than usual. Barry shrugs it off, saying he feels fine.
Storylines Collide
But this is where stories start to converge again. Tar Pit picks another target, the street races Clark Bronwen is running. Team Flash had also figured out Clark might be a target thanks to Iris, and Joe and Iris head to check out this lead. Tar Pit shows up at the races, and manipulates the asphalt, and puts Wally in danger. Iris calls Barry, who speeds over. He saves Wally, but in the course of the saving, the cars are wrecked, and shards of glass fly everywhere–including several directly at Iris who is just standing by watching. Barry tries to stop them all, but one fragment gets Iris in the chest. Barry speeds her to the hospital at Joe’s request.
At the hospital, Iris is shaken up, but ok. Barry, meanwhile, heads back to STAR Labs, and seems concerned about his speed, noticing it more reduced now. While Cisco and Barry discuss it, we see Wells shifting uncomfortably. Eventually he breaks down and admits what he did. Joe walks in at that moment, giving Wells a good punch to the face. Wells is then locked up in the meta-human prison.
But Barry still has to take on Tar Pit, so Clay Stanley is used as bait by Joe. Barry shows up, and uses some Nitrous Bombs to melt down Tar Pit. Joe then gets a good luck in, punching the weakened Tar Pit in the face.
Back at STAR Labs, Barry ask Wells why he did what he did. Wells said for his daughter. He asks to be sent home, and to have all of the breaches closed–and he will figure out how to deal with Zoom.
Wally and Iris have some wonderful sibling time. Wally explains that long drives with his mother as a kid is what drives Wally to race.
Meanwhile at STAR Labs, Caitlin has analyzed Barry’s DNA and what Wells was doing would have been permanent. Despite this, Barry seems to understand what Wells was doing, and says he wants to help Wells. His rousing speech manages to convince Team Flash to help, and they are going to head to Earth 2 to do it.
Josh’s Thoughts: The Flash, Season 2 Episode 12: Fast Lane
This episode of The Flash was interesting, in that we learned more about Dr. Wells. It turns out he is not so bad of a guy, at least not as bad as that of the original Dr. Wells (I guess he wasn’t even the original, given he was taken over by Eobard Thawne—maybe the original Dr. Wells was a good guy?). Either way, Dr. Wells certainly seemed broken up about his decision to steal Barry’s speed, and then finally broke down and admitted it. Given the same situation, where my daughter was kidnapped by a person so powerful, and I had no way of getting her back but to comply with this being’s wishes, I don’t know what I would do. But I can see where Wells is coming from, and I think it is admirable that Wells came clean, even though it could mean death for his daughter.
One interesting thing about going to Earth 2, is that it appears that Barry is not Zoom in Earth 2, as we caught a glimpse of him in the previews for the next episode. We also see that Caitlin is a bit of an evil-doer as well, given her appearance in the previews. I am curious to see what Earth 2 is like, and hopefully learn more about who Zoom is. So far I think I am sticking with Barry’s dad.
Violet’s Thoughts on Season 2 Episode 12 of The Flash: Fast Lane
So, I kind of felt like the whole point (or one of them) this episode was to get Wally to stop street racing. It seemed just a little too coincidental that this meta-human, Tar Pit, would come from out of nowhere just in time to mess up the road on which Wally is racing, thereby causing an accident which injured Iris, who is against Wally’s street racing. It all seemed like it came back to Iris being right about Wally needing to stop, even though something extremely out of the ordinary happened to even cause the accident. But whatever, I guess it was just a way to get everyone’s stories to come together this episode.
I am glad that Dr. Wells came clean about working with Zoom in order to save his daughter. I was hoping that he would, and this seemed like a pretty good time to do so. Luckily for him, Barry was able to convince the team to help Wells out, rather than condemn him.
But anyway, I’m ready to go to Earth-2!
Scenes from The Flash, Season 2 Episode 13: Welcome to Earth-2
Here are scenes from next week’s The Flash episode titled Welcome to Earth-2:
Ok, its almost over, I can watch soon.