Tonight on the CW The Flash premieres for its first season, with an all new Tuesday October 7, season 1 premiere episode called “Pilot.” Tonight, scientist Barry Allen [Grant Gustin] acquires super speed through a freak accident and becomes known as the Fastest Man Alive. In the opener, Barry, a CSI investigator, is struck by lightning and awakens from a coma nine months later with the gift of super speed. Barry puts his new powers to work when another meta-human attacks the city.
For those of you who don’t know, The Flash is an American television series developed by writer/producers Greg Berlanti, Andrew Kreisberg and Geoff Johns, to air on The CW. It will be based on the DC Comics character Flash (Barry Allen), a costumed superhero crime-fighter who was created by Robert Kanigher, John Broome and Carmine Infantino. It is a spin-off to Arrow, existing in the same universe.
On tonight’s episode, Barry Allen (Grant Gustin) was just 11 years old when his mother was killed in a bizarre and terrifying incident and his father (John Wesley Shipp) was falsely convicted of the murder. With his life changed forever by the tragedy, Barry was taken in and raised by Detective Joe West (Jesse L. Martin), the father of Barry’s best friend, Iris (Candice Patton). Now, Barry has become a brilliant, driven and endearingly geeky CSI investigator, whose determination to uncover the truth about his mother’s strange death leads him to follow up on every unexplained urban legend and scientific advancement that comes along. Barry’s latest obsession is a cutting edge particle accelerator, created by visionary physicist Harrison Wells (Tom Cavanagh) and his S.T.A.R. Labs team members, Caitlin Snow (Danielle Panabaker) and Cisco Ramon (Carlos Valdes), who claim that this invention will bring about unimaginable advancements in power and medicine. However, something goes horribly wrong during the public unveiling, and when the devastating explosion causes a freak storm, many lives are lost and Barry is struck by lightning. After nine months in a coma, Barry awakens to find his life has changed once again – the accident has given him the power of super speed. Thrilled with his new powers, Barry learns how to control them with the help of Dr. Wells and his team. However, keeping his secret from his best friend Iris (Candice Patton) is proving to be harder than he thought, especially when Joe’s new partner, Eddie Thawne (Rick Cosnett), catches her eye. When another meta-human attacks the city, it’s time to put Barry’s new powers, and himself, to the test.
Tonight’s episode looks like it is going to be great and you won’t want to miss it, so be sure to tune in for our live coverage of CW’s The Flash at 8:00 PM EST! While you wait for our recap hit the comments and let us know how excited you are about the new season?
Tonight’s episode begins now – Refresh Page for Updates
The Flash is running through the streets – his name is Barry Allen and he’s the fastest man alive. He talks about running from bullies as a kid and sometimes getting caught. We see him getting beat up when he was chased down by bullies after stopping them from picking on other kids. His mom nurses his wounds and tells his dad he got into a fight and won. A young Barry wakes up and sees water rising in his aquarium. He goes downstairs and sees colored lightning flashing around the room and his mom, Nora, caught in the middle. His dad tells Barry to run. He does and is outside in a flash but his parents didn’t make it.
In the present, we see him jogging toward a crime scene. There’s a bank robbery – looks like a job by the Mardon brothers. Barry is a crime scene tech and he jogs up to the scene with an apology for being late. Detective Joe West covers for him and says he asked him to run an errand. Barry lies down on the ground and looks at the tire tracks. At a glance he knows it was a Mustang Shelby and the year. He also finds some poop and lifts it with one of the cop’s pens. The guy is made because his dad gave him the pen.
Iris shows up to head to see a demonstration but he tells her that he’s got a crime to work. She’s West’s daughter. He tells her she looks amazing. She asks about the particle accelerator they’re supposed to see and he explains that Harrison Wells’ design is even better than the one at CERN. He says it will change the way they think about everything. Her dad comes in as the computer beeps. He says the poop was cow’s and it had a certain component in it. He says only four farms that use it and hands it to the cop. He excuses Barry and his daughter to head to Star Labs.
Iris asks him about is recent trip and he awkwardly tries to tell her that he really likes her. She misunderstands and says she wants him to meet the right person – but she kind of makes it clear inadvertently that it’s not her. They applaud as Wells takes the stage. He says the future begins tonight and it will be here faster than you think.
A purse snatcher takes Iris’ bag and she tells Barry it has her laptop with her dissertation on it. He gives chase and finds the guy who slams her computer into his stomach and takes off. A cop nabs him – Eddie Thawne – and Iris says her dad calls him Detective Pretty Boy and says he keeps score when it comes to arrests.
West and his partner are at the last farm and his partner doesn’t think Barry got it right but West says he has faith in it. Barry comes back to his lab in a downpour and turns on the news where they are covering Wells’ machines debut. He uncovers a white board and we see it has clippings about how his dad murdered his mom.
West and his partner find the Shelby and then someone takes shots at them. They take cover and then the Mardons run out but then shoot Chyre and hop in a small plane they had there and take off. The news shows that the storm may have caused a malfunction with the particle accelerator. Barry looks out his window and sees an explosion and an energy bubble from the lab. It spirals outward and hits the plane taking it down.
Barry sees the water rise in his chemical vats like it did the night his mother died. The colored lightning swirls around him and then his skylight breaks dousing him in rain water and effectively electrocuting him. We next see him in the emergency room, flat lining and them trying to shock him back to life while Iris screams his name.
Nine months later, the lab is closed and Barry is still in a coma. He’s in a high tech lab type place and the tech plays Poker Face. He sits up with a gasp and the tech calls for Dr Wells. Cisco Ramon and Caitlin Snow are the two people there and they work for Well and he’s at Star Labs. He sees a reflection of himself and asks how lightning gave him abs.
Harrison comes in confined to a wheel chair and they tell Barry he’s been in a coma for nine months. He tells Barry that 17 people died and more were injured including himself and FEMA shut down the lab. Barry says he’s always wanted to meet him. Well says the accelerator worked fine for 45 minutes and then there was an anomaly.
It created a storm cloud and then a lightning bolt that struck Barry. They had to take him out of the hospital because he was shutting down their equipment. They thought he was flatlining, but his heart beat was just going too fast to be registered. They tell him that West and Iris gave them permission to move them to the facility.
Barry says he has to go but asks if he can keep the Star Labs sweatshirt. They try to get him to stay but he won’t. He heads into the diner where Iris works and she’s in shock. She runs to him and jumps into his arms. She asks why the lab didn’t call and he says he just woke up and he’s fine. She says she watched him die and says his heart kept stopping.
A waitress starts to drop her tray and it seems to Barry like everything moved into slow motion then corrects back to normal. Iris says she’s going to grab her stuff and then they can go. The Mardons are robbing a new bank. They’re not dead from the plane explosion. One generates a wind cloud type of thing and busts the stained glass out of the bank’s portico. West is hugging Barry when he hears about the robbery and that there’s a storm brewing.
Detective Pretty Boy is his new partner. Eddie tells Barry he’s glad she’s back. Iris tells him that Chyre died the night of the explosion. A perp tries to go for one of the cops guns. Barry zooms over, knocks the guy down and he curses and the cops haul him away. Barry is stunned at what he did. He walks outside and his hand is jittering like crazy. He zooms into a car and cracks his head into the back window, shattering it. He asks what’s happening to him.
He takes off at a run that seems sonic boom fast. He hits the back of a laundry van and lands in a pile of fluffy laundry. He sits up, smiles and says – awesome. Out in the desert on an airstrip, Wells, Caitlin and Cisco have Barry ready to run some tests – literally. They have him in a tight onesie thing and are going to see how fast he goes. Cisco puts a camera and mic device on his helmet and then Caitlin adjusts his measuring equipment.
Barry asks why she doesn’t smile. She says the explosion killed her fiancee, put her boss in a wheelchair and ruined her career. Wells tells Barry he advises restraint even though they want to fully test his abilities. He takes off with a zoom so formidable it almost knocks the science geeks over. He’s gone and they clock him at greater than 200 miles per hour.
As he speeds, he thinks about his mom saying, while she was trapped by the lightning – don’t let him touch you. Barry crashes into some water barrels and it looks like he broke his arm. The teller tells Thawne about the storm in the bank. Thawne says it’s the third robbery that was like a storm. West gets a partial plate from out front of one of the banks and they call out an APB.
Caitlin tells Barry his arm was fractured but healed in three hours. Wells asks what happened, why he lost focus. He says he recovered a memory. He says his mom was murdered when he was 11. He says it was late at night and a sound woke him. Barry says he saw a ball of lightning and inside it was a man. He says that man killed his mom but his dad was arrested and is still in Iron Heights, convicted of her murder.
He says no one would believe him. Barry asks what if that man was like him but Wells says he’s one of a kind. Iris greets Thawne with a kiss and Barry sees it. She was pretending not to like him because of her dad. Barry is crestfallen and she asks him not to tell her dad about Eddie. She says that things happened when he helped out after Barry was hospitalized. Barry asks if it’s against regulations to date your partner’s daughter.
A police car pursuing the Mardons skids toward them and he yanks her out of the way. He sees the guy and gives chase then pops through the window into the car. The guy tries to pull a gun and Barry grabs the wheel. The car goes end over end and then Mardon gets out. Barry calls to him and the guy raises a cloud of dust with his arms and Barry is surrounded and can’t see. A car doesn’t see the wreck and hits it then almost plows Barry done. He leaps out of the way as the car crashes where he was. Mardon is gone.
Iris says she never saw fog like that before. West rolls up and yells at Barry for exposing her to danger. Barry says it was Clyde Mardon and that he must not have died in the crash. Barry says he thinks the guy can control the weather. Barry says he confronted him and the street was enveloped in fog. He tells West he never believes him. West says Mardon is there and no one controls the weather and he didn’t see lightning the light his mom died.
West says everyone knows his dad killed his mom and everyone knows it. West says he’s always taken care of Barry since then but he needs to see things as they are. Barry shakes his head and walks away from them. Eddie comes up and shows him a sketch from the robbery and it’s a perfect match for Clyde! Barry comes to confront the lab geeks and asks if anyone else was affected by the accelerator accident.
Wells shows him a schematic of how energy, dark matter, x elements and other unknown particles were released on the city. They tell him they’ve been searching for other meta humans like them. He tells them about Clyde and says he’s robbing banks. Cisco says it’s cool but Barry yells at him and says the guy is killing people. Wells says to leave it to the police. Barry reminds him that he works for the cops. Wells tells Barry they can’t risk losing him and his miraculous DNA because he wants to go play hero.
Wells tells him he’s not a hero, just a young kid struck by lightning. Barry speeds away from them. We see a flashback to Barry’s dad being hauled away by the cops and telling his son not to go near the house. We see West looking at his mom’s body and then Barry uncovering her to look at her face. West pulls him away from her.
Barry runs and runs and races the 600 miles to Starling City. He’s talking to Arrow (aka Oliver) who asks why he ran 600 miles to talk to him. Barry says he’s always wanted to do more and be more and now he is but the first chance he got to help, he screwed up. He asks what if Wells is right. Oliver says he thinks the lightning didn’t strike him, but chose him. Barry tells Oliver he doesn’t know if he can be a vigilante like him. Oliver says he can be different – he can inspire people in a way he can’t. He tells him to take some advice and wear a mask.
Barry tells the lab geeks he’s been looking through police files and says the meta humans have been busy. He asks for their help to catch Clyde. Cisco says he has something that might help. He shows him a uniform he was working on for firefighters. He says it’s heat and abrasive resistant so it should help him move at high speed. He says they can use it to communicate and track him.
Caitlin says she was tracking weather and thinks she’s pinpointed Mardon. He’s at a farm west of the city. Coincidentally, West and Eddie are at the barn, the same place where his partner was killed years ago. They corner Mardon and he tells them their plane went down and then he saw what he could do and he understands now that he’s God.
Eddie tells him to shut up and turn around. He sends them flying with wind and West asks why God would need to rob banks. Clyde tells him he’s right, he’s been thinking too small. He starts up a cyclone that blows the roof of the barn. West pulls Eddie out of harm’s way. The cyclone comes toward them and Barry zooms in and throws an obstacle in the way to block it.
Cisco radios him and says it’s getting worse and could become an F5 tornado. He tells them he’s going to try to unravel it by running around it in the other direction. Caitlin says the speed he needs will kill him but Barry says he has to try. They watch it go down. Cisco is thrilled his suit is holding up. Barry is tossed from the cyclone and tells them it’s too strong. Wells is there and tells him he was right and can do this. Wells says he created the madness but Barry can stop it.
Wells tells him to run. He does – back into the cyclone and walks through it. Clyde is furious. West watches this in shock. Barry goes faster and faster. They watch the cyclone he creates overtakes the one Clyde created. There’s a blast and both funnels disrupt. Clyde screams. It stops and Clyde says he didn’t think there was anyone like him. Barry says he’s not like him and calls him a murderer. Clyde pulls a gun but is shot himself.
West takes the guy down then comes walking over to Barry. At the wrecked barn, West talks to Barry as other cops swarm and work the scene. West asks if it was the lightning bolt that did this and tells him he’s sorry he didn’t believe him and calling him crazy. West now also believes that he saw something the night his mom died and that his dad is innocent. West makes him promise not to tell Iris about his new powers or any of this so she will stay safe. Barry promises.
Barry goes to the prison to visit his dad Henry. He calls him slugger and he laughs and says he’s been calling him that since he was 11. His tells his dad he was in his first fight today and his dad reminds him he just got out of a coma and asks if he won. He says he did. Barry tells his dad that he knows he didn’t kill his mom and says he’s going to get him out.
Barry says he has a way to find who or what killed his mom. Henry tells him to stop worrying about him and let it go. Barry says since the night his mom died, he’s missed out on a lot but he’s different now. He says he has new friends now. We see the lab geeks putting the Flash symbol on his uniform. Barry says he’s glad he didn’t change his name like his dad wanted and tells him he’s so proud to be his son.
His dad tells him he loves him. Barry narrates and says he’s the fastest man alive. We see him zooming through the streets and saving a bike messenger just before he’s splattered by a cab. We see Well roll into a secret room in his new lab. He stands up out of his wheelchair, tosses his glasses aside and touches a screen. We see him reading a newspaper headline from 10 years in the future. Somehow he can see into the future or has a program that will. The headline says the Flash is missing and West smiles.
THE END!
