“To understand what I’m about to tell you, you need to do something first: you need to believe in the impossible. Can you do that? Good…because all of us, we’ve forgot what miracles look like.”

And so begins. In Iris’s latest blog on the Streak, she offers him thanks for what he’s done. He surprises her again when he shows up though his song remains the same. Stop writing about him but she can’t. “You’re giving hope to a lot of people,” she says, “so I’m doing this for them.” When the call comes in about a stolen hummer and police chase, Barry makes his way to the crime. West and Thawne are at the scene and the latter gets his first taste of the meta-human world, with several of his shots bouncing off the suspect. Barry heads the perp off and goes toe to toe with the mystery man. It doesn’t go too well. Thirteen fractures, a concussion, three cracked ribs and a bruised spleen later, Barry’s filling the gang in on his latest encounter.

The next morning he pays West a visit, interrupting the detective as he watches Barry’s old testimony. He asks Barry to work with Eddie since the detective has been introduced to something he can’t understand. When Barry arrives at the briefing, he gets the name of the perp. Tony Woodward.

Barry and Iris walking through the halls of elementary school when Tony the bully pushes him down. “Looks like you were born to take a beating, Allen.”

To Barry’s shock, the newly minted steel colossus just so happens to be the bane of Barry’s childhood years. Thawne and Barry chat about the man of metal when Iris stops by. Thawne wouldn’t have to be a detective to recognize the discomfort between the two best friends though Barry tries to dismiss his inquiries. After going a few rounds with Cisco’s training bot ‘Girder’, a dislocated shoulder and Caitlin openly wondering if Barry’s been “busy” seeing Iris as the Streak, Barry’s called to the scene with Thawne to go over the forensics of the stolen Hummer. While he does his thing, Thawne brings up Barry’s impasse with Iris. He knows how tight the two of them are, even admitting to feeling threatened by their relationship. They head to Keystone Brewery to check out the stolen kegs in the car and Barry’s able to steal a few metal shavings. When they mention Tony, one of the guy’s runs but the two nab him. He spills his guts about Tony’s rage when he was fired and falling over the railing and into a vat of molten scrap.

The Streak gets splattered…or close to it

Things hit a bit close to home when the cocky bully pays a visit to Iris. He talks her up pretty hard, though much of his conversation is probing Iris about the Streak, fleeing when his picture shows up on television. Using the metal shavings found in the Hummer, Cisco pinpoints the shutdown Keystone Ironworks as Woodward’s possible location. When he gets word on Woodward’s visit to Iris, the pissed off Streak faces off against the baddie for a second time with similar results. He’s pulled from the rubble, bleeding and battered, by Caitlin and Cisco. Wells reads the him the riot act and Barry nearly explodes. “I couldn’t stop him then,” he rages, “I can’t stop him now. Even with my powers, I’m powerless against him.” But au contrere; Cisco’s research and calculations offer the solution. He only needs to hit Woodward at Mach 1.1 (837 MPH). “I’ve never gone that fast,” Barry says. “Yet,” Wells provides. Caitlin is not so certain, pointing out what will happen if he doesn’t hit the metal man just right.

When he sees West at the station, Barry fills him in on the situation with Iris. The detective reads the frustration in Barry’s voice and reminds him about keeping his emotions in check. Barry finds he’s not the only one that wants to take down Woodward. He and Thawne spend some quality time wailing on a heavy bag. “The key to fighting,” he tells Barry, “is patience.” Their bonding is interrupted when the call comes about Woodward takes Iris. He takes her back to the elementary school where she pulls the fire alarm to alert the police of her location. Barry arrives and, for the first few seconds, is holding his own against his nemesis but Woodward eventually gets the upper hand. Barry remembers West’s words to him years ago. “If you come up against somebody you know you can’t beat, be smart. It’s okay to run the other way.” And Barry does just that…

Barry hits Mach 1.1…sans the super cool special effects

Until he gets 5.3 miles away, the distance Cisco said he’d need to hit Mach 1.1. Windows break and alarms blare as he breaks the sound barrier and delivers a supersonic punch that floors Woodward and compromises his metal exterior. Dazed, the lifelong bully gets to his feet only to be KO’d by Iris. Tony wakes up in his new home and comes face-to-face with the guy he bullied all through school and now the Central City Streak. “You used your gift to hurt people,” he says to the imprisoned rogue, “but not anymore.” A weight off his shoulders, Barry thanks his scientific duo and eventually pays a visit to Iris. The two besties make up with Iris talking about her blog and others out there like him, including “a guy on fire that doesn’t burn up” (Firestorm?) She gushes about the Streak…”he comes and goes in the blink of an eye, in a…”

“Flash?”

“Today I was saved by the impossible. A mystery man, the fastest man alive. Then a friend gave me an idea for a new name. And something tells me, it’s gonna catch on.”

Epilogue…

West is going through the evidence when a red and yellow blur visits him, taking everything on Nora Allen’s murder but not without leaving a warning. “STOP…or else” is carved on the wall, just above a picture of Iris with a knife shoved in the center of it.

What’s in a Name?

  • We’ve all known it would come and have patiently waited for that moment when the ‘Streak’ was retired in favor of Barry Allen’s truly heroic name: The Flash. The reveal was superbly crafted, revisiting Barry’s conversation on a Starling City rooftop with Oliver Queen’s Arrow earlier in the year. Now, Barry not only has his true Name, but he’s slowly but steadily coming into his powers, finding out how to do more week after week. He will need to keep getting better as the meta-humans become stronger and weirder.
  • Not mentioned above were the scenes between West and Wells as it pertained to the detective’s inquiries into Nora Allen’s murder. Though his questions about there being a Particle Accelerator prior to Wells’s appearance in Central City, it’s also West’s way of probing Wells on his motives for coming to Central City. Though hurt by the detective’s accusations, the two men make up at the end when West gains an understanding of the scientist’s need to start over after the loss of his wife/research partner Tess Morgan. Of course, we all know Wells has his own hidden agenda but what we don’t know is how much it has to do with Nora Allen’s murder and the mysterious streak of red and yellow responsible. Only time will tell…