'The Flash' Season 1 Episode 6 recap: 'The Flash is Born'

A bully from Barry Allen’s (Grant Gustin) past is this week’s impossible force on The Flash, and the fastest man alive must come face to face with a man made of steel. With S.T.A.R. Labs friends Cisco Ramon (Carlos Valdes) and Caitlin Snow (Danielle Panabaker) in tow, Barry must break the sound barrier in order to defeat this high-school nemesis.

Irish West (Candice Patton) also has not stopped writing about “The Streak,” the strain of this still affecting the friendship between her and Barry, but we soon see how this relationship is tested when the metal man Tony Woodward (The Secret Life of the American Teenager’s Greg Finley) targets her due to her relationship with The Flash.

Detective Joe West () also implores Dr. Harrison Wells’ help with finding information on the death of Barry’s mother, questioning if his work had anything to do with the yellow man in the lightning storm.

The beginning of the episode opens up with Iris narrating her current blog post, a deviation from the current format of Barry’s inner thoughts of the story’s plot to be presented to the audience. While talking about how she is experiencing the impossible, The Flash pulls her up to the roof of the coffee shop again, asking why she continues to write about him when it could put her life in danger. Irish expresses that people need to believe in the impossible and believe in him.

A call is then made of a carjacking somewhere in the city. Speeding through the city, Tony stands for nothing in his way, almost running over a kid before The Flash saves him. The Central City police, along with Detective Eddie Thawne (Rick Cosnett) open fires on Tony, the bullets to ricochet when contacting his skin which turns into metal. The Flash then tells Tony to get out of the car, Tony to do so by throwing the car’s door at him. They scuffle, Tony to instantly take The Flash done with his metallic hands. He says Barry looks like he was “born to take a beating,” a phrase he used as a child when he bullied Barry in school.

Barry then comes to Cisco and Caitlin for help, Cisco to devise a device that allows Barry to use his speed to take down Tony a la Karate Kid-style. His novice moves dislocates his shoulder and while Caitlin fixes it and lectures him about meeting with Iris, a call is made from Eddie that they have found the vehicle Tony stole.

Inspecting the vehicle, Barry finds stolen kegs that leads the two of them to a distillery, as well as grabbing a sample of metal from Tony’s foot. Upon reaching the distillery, Eddie asks two workers if they have seen Tony, one to run from questioning. After confronting him, the worker reveals an incident Tony was involved with him falling and allegedly dying in a vat of liquid metal. This incident of course happened at the moment the particle accelerator exploded, thus enabling Tony to survive the fall by changing him into a meta-human in the process.

Across town, Iris is working at the coffee shop, her co-worker to ask where Barry is. She is then confronted by Tony, who asks if she knows who “The Streak” is. Tony then tells her he has a place on the west side and that she should visit, Iris’ co-worker to indicate to the television at the shop of a news brief on Tony. Iris then gets out her phone, acting as if she needed to call her boyfriend (who is Eddie) about a police ball, but before she can reach her contacts, Tony takes her phone and crushes it. He then puts a wad of cash in the tip jar, saying the next phone was on him.

Iris then takes to her blog to get the word out to “The Streak,” Barry to see the alert while at S.T.A.R. Labs, who races to Iris to see what’s happened. Iris tells him that Tony was in the shop and saying he had a place on the west side, but did not know where it was exactly. Remembering the place where Tony was turned into a meta-human, The Flash goes there in a fit of anger, seeing the aftermath of Tony’s accident. He is then confronted by Tony, who defeats him yet again and traps him underneath a large shelf.

Cisco and Caitlin arrive on the scene, pulling Barry from the rubble. After getting a lecture from Dr. Wells back at S.T.A.R. Labs, they discuss of the potential of Barry being able to defeat Tony. Barry, who currently feels helpless like he did as a kid, learns he must hit Tony at a certain speed in order to cause damage to his metal skin, Cisco to figure out that he has to travel so fast that he has to break the sound barrier to defeat him. Conflict rises when it is learned that Barry must start 5.3 miles away from the target in order to defeat them, which is something they can’t plan around doing with Tony being a moving target.

Barry goes back to the police station, where he learns that Tony has stolen a car and has fled the city, causing the case to be turned over to the state. Frustrated, Eddie takes Barry to a room with a punching bag to let off steam, Eddie to teach Barry that a person wastes energy by throwing numerous punches, but if you plan it out accordingly, you can defeat someone with the right punch. It’s here that Barry learns that Eddie was too bullied in school, but that he learned patience when it came to fighting. Testing the punching bag a few times, Barry breaks it on the final punch, sending Eddie backwards and breaking the bag.

This bonding moment is soon interrupted when it is reported that Iris has been kidnapped by Eddie, who has taken her to their former elementary school. While there, Tony says that Iris should be writing about him instead of “The Streak,” since he is now the big man on campus. Iris pulls a fire alarm at building, alerting Barry to her location. Arriving on the scene, The Flash uses his speed to move around Tony. Once caught in a crossfire, Tony tries to land the final blow, Barry to run away from the scene – exactly 5.3 miles away. Taking this opportunity, Barry speeds to the scene, causing damage as he passes by buildings and cars. He then returns to the elementary school, punching Tony in the jaw even with his metal skin. Knocking him off of his game, Tony stands up delirious, Iris then to strike him in the face, knocking him out.

Tony is then taken to The Pipeline, the place that is currently holding the captured meta-humans at S.T.A.R. Labs. Barry then reveals himself to him, saying that they both are turned into meta-humans that have heightened themselves from the past where Tony was made stronger and Barry was made faster.

Meeting up with Iris as himself, Barry comes in and apologizes for his actions in last week’s episode, Iris to do the same. They talk about the blog, Iris to talk about how she’s now interested in exploring the impossible, speaking about a man who can be on fire but cannot burn, a possible hint toward DC Comics’ hero Firestorm. While explaining how incredible “The Streak” is, Barry says he moves like a flash, Iris then to give him his name on her blog as The Flash.

Throughout the episode, Detective West questions Dr. Wells about meta-humans possibly being around during the time of Barry’s mother’s death. West then hypothesizes that Wells work back then could have led to the murder, Wells to have opened up S.T.A.R. Labs a month after. Dr. Wells then tells him of the death of his wife, saying he moved to Central City because he could not continue the work they were both doing together in the lab they shared. Apologetically, West still asks for Wells help, Wells to say that he does not give up.

West is then suspiciously visited by the yellow man in the lightning that plagued Barry’s childhood, he to steal the case file on the murder. A warning is then left on West’s wall with a picture of Iris with a knife stabbed into it, the words “STOP OR ELSE,” to be scrawled above it.

The Flash airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET on The CW.

Image courtesy of Tina Kaawaloa/INFevents.com