‘The Flash’ Season 1 Recap, Episode 12, ‘Crazy For You’

Welcome back to Up To Speed, home of the the Flashest Recaps Alive. Here we’ll recap the episode, dispense some Flash Facts and talk about what works, what doesn’t and where the series might be headed, as we try and keep up with the adventures of the fastest man alive, Barry Allen, more widely known as The Flash.

This week, we’re looking at the twelfth episode of the first season, “Crazy For You,” touch us once and you'll know it's true. We've never needed anyone like this. It's so brand new. This episode has it all: drunken karaoke, teleporting metahumans, the triumphant return of Joe West's Business Beanie™, and a slightly more substantial tease for that one villain they've been teasing. You know, the one we all go APE over. *waggles eyebrows* *wiggles cigar*

FLASHBACK: What Happened This Week

The episode starts off with Barry attempting a daring rescue when two kids wind up upside-down in their car while a power line threatens to blow them the heck up, and the fire department scrambles to get to them. There's a bit where the boyfriend thinks the girlfriend blew up, but Barry saved her, so it was sad but then it was happy.

Back at S.T.A.R. Labs, everybody's stroking Barry's ego, being all, "Oh Barry, good job saving those people," and "Barry you're so fast," but Barry's like, "Meh, I can go faster, I guess." But then Science Dad Harrison Wells is like, "Okay, go to bed tho," but Barry's like, "Nah, I'm gonna go watch movies with Joe," which, let's be honest, is what we all want to do.

So Barry leaves, and Caitlin is all, "Hey Cisco, I was looking on your tablet and found…" and you can see Cisco panicking, hoping she didn't find his startlingly descriptive Sonic/Tails/Golden Girls crossover slash fiction, but it was just some info about Project FIRESTORM, which I refuse to admit is a lunkheaded acronym. Caitlin presses him on the fact that he's looking for Ronnie despite the fact that she's asked him not to, but Cisco tells her that Hartley Rathaway/The Pied Piper from last episode, who is currently locked up in their secret subterranean super-jail, told him that he knew what happened to Ronnie, but Caitlin's like, "Nope."

Meanwhile, a pretty lady is looking through an old-timey spyglass at an old building but SURPRISE! she's a teleporter, and she hops all through the building. She's Shawna Baez, aka Peek-A-Boo, and she just teleported her boyfriend out of jail. They smooch and drive off into the night.

The next morning, Joe and Barry are at the crime scene together when Barry discovers an "organic particulate residual," a phrase I am convinced was created using some sort of pseudoscience Mad Lib. Apparently, our teleporter is leaving a little bit of this trail behind her when she jumps. Henry Allen pops in the room all shackled up and is all, "Hey Slugger, how you doin', Champ?" to Barry while sad piano music plays in the background. Iron Heights has a hell of an in-house dental facility for its inmates, apparently, because for a dude doing life for murder, Henry has some pearly white chompers.

At some sort of safehouse, Peek-A-Boo and her man, Clay, have just finished a post-jailbreak visit to The Bone Zone, and decide to engage in some backstory infodump pillow talk. Peek-A-Boo wants to try and get her man to skip town, but Clay is like, "No, let's use your powers for evil," and PAB is like, "Okay. Sure."

At S.T.A.R. Labs, the Stabbers are examining the "organic particulate residual," and saying stuff that sounds smart and matching the DNA in the "organic particulate residual," with Peek-A-Boo. Joe and Barry are off to find her, while Cisco sneaks off to Metahuman Guantanamo to talk to the Pied Piper about Ronnie Raymond, the Boy Who Was On Fire.

We're treated to a Max Fischer-esque adaptation of Silence of the Lambs, with Hartley as Muppet Baby Hannibal Lecter. Hartley offers info on Ronnie if Cisco lets him out, but Cisco refuses. For now. SPOILERS: Like five minutes later, he lets him out and Hartley tells him what we all already know: that Ronnie was fused with Martin Stein when the reactor blew up and now he's Firestorm. DOUBLE SPOILERS: Hartley gets away.

At Central Perk, Barry and Iris talk about Barry seeing his dad and how Iris can't get no respect at the paper. Barry basically is like, "Hmmm, I wonder if The Flash can get you a story that your editor would be impressed by; boy, that sure would be something, right?"

Back at Iron Heights, Henry gives some info to Joe and Barry about Clay's former boss, mob guy Marcus Stockheimer. Clay owes him a lot of money, and if Clay doesn't pay up soon, Stockheimer will make him sleep with the fishes or whatever. Barry tells Henry to cool it with the detective work because he already has a Cop Dad.

At S.T.A.R. Labs, Barry and Caitlin talk about the particulates again, but then they discuss their lack of social lives. Their chat is interrupted by a police bulletin. Turns out Clay and Baez are robbing an armored car. Barry Flashes over and confronts Peek-A-Boo, which is actually a pretty interesting dynamic, as they both have similar powers. Unfortunately, Barry is so wrapped up in trying to match PAB that he doesn't see her boyfriend sneak up behind him and shoot a bullet into the back of his skull. Luckily, Barry slows the bullet down enough that his brains don't splatter everywhere, but it gives PAB and Clay enough time to BAMF! out of there.

At S.T.A.R. Labs, Barry tells Caitlin and Wells that PAB can teleport and Wells is like, "Oh yeah, I know about that," and gives them a speech about quantum entanglement that makes me want to pat the writers on their heads and say, "Okay, we get it. It's all sorta scientifically sound."

Barry excuses himself because he has to go help Iris with her news story and Caitlin rolls her eyes so hard they pop out of her damn head. Me too, Caitlin; me too. So he heads over to the Cop Shack and finds Iris and Eddie leaving. He's all, "Hey Iris, want to work on your story?" and Iris is like, "Well, no. Because I'm going to dinner with my boyfriend." Barry is all pouty and calls Caitlin, so they decide to go get drinks and do karaoke under the pretense of looking for Clay and PAB.

Caitlin meets Barry and she looks like WHOA, but Barry just talks about Iris and how it sucks to be in the Friendzone (ugh) a lot while some guy butchers "Working For the Weekend," in the background. Caitlin is like, "Yeah, that sucks, but my boyfriend is on fire, so I win." And then she proceeds to get turnt.

Meanwhile, at Barry's lab, Hartley's telling Cisco about Stein and Ronnie getting smooshed together and he shows him footage from the explosion. I'm just gonna post this screencap and then we'll move on, but it's safe to say it is the most amazing thing that has happened on this show so far:

That's some Fletcher Hanks-level amazing. More of this type of stuff, please.

At the bar, Caitlin talks Barry into singing with her and there's a scene where Grant Gustin has to pretend he hasn't had a career in musical theater before donning the red leather and Danielle Panabaker has to sing bad on purpose to make him look even better. It's … whatever. After their number, Barry heads to the bar where he gets picked up on by Linda Park, but then he has to flash Caitlin out to the curb so she can puke.

At one of Central City's many abandoned warehouses, Clay and PAB are meeting with Stockheimer to pay off Clay's debt, but once he sees Peek-A-Boo do her thing, he's all "Stop the presses! Who's that?!" while his eyes turn into dollar signs. Just then, the cops raid the place, Clay gets shot and PAB BAMF!s them out of there. Also, Joe is there, wearing the character find of 2015: Business Beanie™.

Meanwhile, Barry's making sure Caitlin gets home okay, and she is all drunk and talking about how Barry deserves to take a peek at her boobs while she talks him into calling Linda Park. I … don't know about that part.

The next morning at S.T.A.R. Labs, Caitlin comes in hell of hungover while Wells herds them all into the main lab so he can publicly castigate Cisco for letting the Pied Piper out of lockdown. Cisco apologizes and explains that he did it because he felt guilty about letting Ronnie get atomized in the explosion, but Caitlin shuts that down, pointing out that Cisco saved a lot of lives by doing what he did.

She also says that Ronnie would say that the explosion wasn't anybody's fault and I was praying to Zorp that they would cut to Wells whistling all nonchalantly and trying hard not to make eye contact with anybody, but he just wheels over to the computer and does the usual Third Act Science Solution Reveal.

Barry gets a call and he rushes over to Iron Heights cuz his dad got a beatdown for trying to do more junior detective work from inside the Big House. They have their typical sad piano music talk and then he gives Joe some info on Stockheimer's upcoming job that he got from the inmate who beat him up. Barry finds that guy, which I swear was in Warrant, and drops him outside the prison fence, threatening to leave the guy out there unless he gives up more info. The guy panics, cuz it'll mean an extra decade on his sentence if he's caught trying to escape, so he gives up the info, but Barry leaves him out there anyway cuz they're hitting an armored car like right that second.

Peek-A-Boo BAMFs into the back of the armored car, grabbing a bunch of money before teleporting back out. Barry catches them as they try to get away, stopping them in a tunnel. PAB poofs out of the car and starts beating Barry pretty mercilessly with a baton before heading back to the car to try to get away again. Wells reminds Barry about the Third Act Science Solution Reveal, that Peek-A-Boo's powers only work when she has line-of-sight on her destination, so he knock out all the lights and their car's headlights and she's trapped. Barry grabs her out of the car, but her boyfriend bails, leaving her there to face the music. Or in this case, to face being locked up in a small room in a secret super-prison.

Barry and Caitlin have a chat in the hallway about how they both need to get over their former flames and move on to somebody new. Barry's obviously thinking Linda, but it's pretty clear that Caitlin's for a bad case of the Barrys.

In an alley, the Flash lures Iris in with a folder about Clay Parker, but it's a little unclear at first, so when he points and says, "That's for you," it looks like he's pointing at a dumpster and I was like, "Damn, Barry, that is cold." Anyway, so Barry gives her the lead so she can turn in a meaty story to her editor about something that's not the Flash because Barry Allen is the patron saint of Long-Suffering Nice Guys. But WHAT'S THIS? Looks like Iris snapped a pic of the Flash as he was running off, so it doesn't look like she'll need to do real journalism after all! Yay!

Immediately after, at the paper, Barry runs into Iris and Iris is all, "Oh, hi Barry; listen I guess I don't need your help on my--" but Barry practically cuts her off to say that he's actually here to take Linda out on a date, thankyouverymuch Little Miss Too Good To Date The Guy Who Is Essentially Your Brother.

At the Iron Heights infirmary, which bears a striking resemblance to both the hospital rooms in Central and Starling Cities, Barry and his dad have yet another heart-to-heart, with Barry's dad doing that thing where he knows his son is the Flash, but is pretending like he doesn't know even though it's obvious he knows, and is saying stuff like, "I sure do hope that the Flash is careful out there because he probably has a dad in–I dunno–prison, maybe, that worries about his Little Slugger."

Finally, we get the epilogue. Down in the sewers, two poor civil servants are investigating some sensors or whatever when they see a bunch of writing on a wall and hear an animal noise. Rather than run out of there saying, "This is definitely an Animal Control issue," they both decide to go check out where the sound came from. GUESS WHERE IT CAME FROM YUP IT CAME FROM GORILLA GRODD who grabs them both and pulls them into his underground lair.

FLASH FACTS: Random Observations

• Peek-A-Boo, aka Lashawn (not Shawna) Baez, was created by Geoff Johns and Scott Kolins, and first appeared in The Flash, vol. 2, #180. In the comics, Lashawn gets her metahuman powers activated when she tried to donate a kidney to her dad, so she uses her powers to try and find a suitable donor. She also rollerblades. TO THE EXTREME!
• The delinquent boyfriend, Clay Parker, is played by actor Micah Parker, who I guess was on a few episodes of Vampire Diaries. Whenever an actor plays a part with the same name, it's always hilarious to me. Like do they tell their agents to only accept parts that have the same name as them because it's too hard to remember another name. Acting is hard!
• I still find it hard to believe that Joe West and Barry Allen, guys whose job is to know and uphold the law and execute justice, would just be NBD about Harrison Wells keeping a bunch of metahumans locked up against their will in a pit under his lab. I get that this is a pretend show about a guy who fights crime guys by running fast, but in the US of A circa 2015, the idea of a superhero and a cop being totes cool with a black site prison operated solely by a private citizen with no clear authority to do so, is real weird.
• The Gorilla Grodd reveal was spoiled for my by some dipwad who posted GIFs of it on Tumblr like literally an hour after it aired on the East Coast. So thanks, That Person, for posting a huge spoiler on the same night a television program aired. You were the first! This is a thing you can put on a resume and on college applications! Your prize is in the mail. It is a bronzed turd with a little flag stuck in it that says, "You Suck" on it. You did bad and you should feel bad.

FLASH-FORWARD: Future Happenings

Next week's episode, "The Nuclear Man," continues the Firestorm plot, with more info on how Ronnie Raymond and Sidney Bristow's dad got fused into the super-jacked Nuclear Man, aka, FIRESTOOOOORM!

See you next week, Flashers. Same Flash-time, same Flash-website.