Previously on THE FLASH…
With all the focus on the West-Allen clan and their troubles down through the centuries, it’s easy to forget that there are other people on this show that have families. In this episode, the spotlight shifts (ever so slightly) to Caitlin Snow and her dysfunctional relationship with her parents.
On the one hand, she has a mother with whom she was never really able to connect. They bicker over every little thing and they both feel the other abandoned them over various things. On the other hand, her father has been taken over by the metahuman criminal The Icicle. Caitlin has thankfully made amends with her alter ego Killer Frost, but the Icicle wants to bring out the worst in her and then give his wife a cold-related alter ego so they can be a happy little family committing cold-related crimes and making puns that would make Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Mr. Freeze cringe.
Thankfully, despite Barry Allen and the rest of Team Flash being preoccupied with the Nora problem (more on that later), The Flash manages to save Caitlin’s mother from The Icicle’s machinations while Caitlin battles the villain, who is eventually defeated by Caitlin’s father, who manages to ward off the evil personality before Icicle plunges an icicle into Caitlin’s heart.
I understand this show can be confusing if you aren’t fully paying attention.
Everything should have wrapped up nicely for the “Snow Pack,” but life is tough in Central City (and on the CW), so Cicada II – the adult future Grace – comes in, knocks Barry out and tries to kill Caitlin only to stab her dad instead. Chilling.
Oh, and Barry seemingly wasn’t fast enough to spare Caitlin’s mom from being turned into a meta, so we should look forward to that biting them in the ass at some point, too.
There’s a lot going on in the present with the Snow family, but of course we can’t forget about the West-Allen drama. Iris mad at Barry for banishing Nora to the future, so Iris steals the Time Sphere so she and Ralph can go see Nora. Iris finds her daughter in the prison talking to Eobard Thawne after he tried to teach her how to use the Negative Speed Force to get back to the past.
Nora couldn’t manage to gather the anger to get there on her own, but an argument with Iris gave her the emotion she needed to access Thawne’s own force to get back to our present. Team Flash already has the future Cicada II trying to kill them, and now an angry Nora is back. Nothing can be easy for the Flashes.