Attack on Gorilla City (03 x 13)
The clock’s ticking and Iris West’s possible demise is coming up fast. With only months before she is supposed to meet her doom; Barry and the team are still trying to figuring out how to augment future events to save her. For the past few episodes, Team Flash has attempted to change the timeline (Kid Flash saving Iris last episode) only to find that the it keeps realigning itself; which has left everyone in a kerfuffle. This is especially the case when Jesse Quick shows up and informs the Team that her father was kidnapped by Grodd; a sentient gorilla banished to Earth Two by Barry Allen some seasons ago. Barry, having traveled to the future briefly to witness Iris’ death, realizes that Grodd and his fellow sentient gorillas were part of that time line, meaning that Wally saving Iris didn’t change future events.
The Team decides that the best course of action is to rescue Jesse’s father, Wells, and figure out how to stop the gorilla invasion. If they can prevent the gorilla invasion from happening, Barry believes that it’ll change Iris’ future. Besides, they have save their old friend, Wells. With their mission set, they head off to Earth Two and its African continent, which happens to be the home of Gorilla City. The city, which is found in the “heart” of the continent, is hidden away from human civilization as the gorillas live as isolationist. Julian aptly refers to the city as the Planet of the Apes (which is a fun gag for those who remember Tom Felton starred one the most recent one), and for some reason or another, decides to dress like a British Indiana Jones. Bad outfits aside, the group, which also includes Barry, Cisco, Caitlin, dimensional travel to the city without any anti-telepathic protective gear. This proves to be a dumb decision, especially when dealing with telepathic gorillas, and they are immediately captured and thrown into a super power dampening dungeon.
If you’d come with some gadgets, you might not be chilling in those cells.
With all the supposed science that Star Labs has, and the brilliant minds of Cisco Ramon and Caitlin Snow, it seems improbable that Team Flash would travel into enemy territory without the proper PPE (personal protective equipment). Yet, here they are, totally unprepared and once again trapped on Earth-Two. Damn you, Team Flash! Where’re all your gadgets?!
While the team tries to figure out ways to escape their prison, the old cranky Harrison Wells that we all love makes his entrance. Except it’s not Wells that’s come to visit, which is made evident when he starts speaking to the team in a very husky, angry Christian Bale Batman voice. While it’s enjoyable to watch Tom Cavanagh strut his stuff as Wells, this Grodd control performance is over the top, and is giggle inducing. Anyway, Wells/Grodd wants Barry and the gang to help him usurp the gorilla ruler of the City; Solovar, who he talks all sorts of shade about.
Team Flash is a great crew of heroes, but dang, are they gullible! Why would they ever fall for anything coming out of Wells’ Grodd-controlled mouth? Haven’t past interactions with the sentient gorilla proven his villainhood? Sure, they really don’t have a choice when Barry is forced to fight Solovar in a colosseum setting to save his friends. Yet, no one should have been shocked when Grodd betrays Barry once Solovar is defeated, tossing the scarlet speedster back into his cell instead of granting him and his friends their freedom.
An interesting conversation occurs while the team frets in their cells and it has to do with self-sacrifice. When Grodd reveals that he wants to use Cisco to open a portal to Earth One so that he can descend on Central City with his gorilla army, Cisco suggests that his team kill him. Cisco argues that if he is killed, then Grodd won’t be able to travel to Central City and Iris West won’t die because the timeline will have drastically changed. Barry sort of agrees with him, and there were thousands of fangirl cries that cried out in opposition to Cisco’s death. Okay, it didn’t happen that way, and it’s not cool that the writer’s tried to scare us with that little sacrificial nugget. Bad, writers, bad!
Luckily, Barry uses his and Caitlin’s powers to play possum, resulting in his removal from the cells, allowing him to free his friends and make a proper escape to Earth-Two. Did this solve the gorilla problem? Nope, it did not. Grodd, being one step ahead of our protagonist has got his telepathic clutches on Gypsy — Cisco’s dimensional traveling soul mate. Dang! It’s nice to see Gypsy again, but not like this. Oh well, the damage she causes by opening a breach to Earth One is explored in the second part of the Grodd storyline, Attack on Central City.
Attack on Central City (03 x 14)
When the episode of opens, we find Team Flash celebrating the fact that they saved Central City from Grodd. Barry is being all loving and sweet to Iris; Wally and Jesse decide to move in together and tell Wells (Harry) of their plans; and the ever-affable HR over decorates Star Labs with all sorts of pink and red Valentine’s Day décor. Everyone is happy, that is until Gypsy comes through a breach and attacks the team and is taken down by one of Well’s gadgets (thank goods for the return of the gadget genius, no offense Cisco, you know we love you).
Later, after Cisco does some interrogating, Team Flash figures out that Grodd did some mind control tricks on the Gypsy, meaning that Grodd is on Earth One with his armies. Why the team didn’t think that Grodd — who needs help creating breaches to travel to the different Earths’ — wouldn’t just go and get another person with Cisco-like powers is baffling. Oh well, back to the recap.
Cisco does some flirting with Gypsy (they are so made for each other!) and the team leaves her in one of Star Lab’s dampening cells. Meanwhile, Barry is conflicted on how he should deal with Grodd. On one hand, if he were to kill the sentient gorilla, he might change the future, saving Iris’ life. On the other hand, if Barry starts killing his enemies, he might lose himself, becoming something that isn’t him, isn’t The Flash. He confides in Iris about his dilemma, basically telling her that he chooses her and plans to kill Grodd. Iris tells him that he can’t take a life to save her life; that murder is not something she wants to see her loved one commit. She encourages him to find another way of dealing with Grodd.
Barry and the team asks Cisco to vibe to the future using some of Wells’ gadgets to try and figure out where Grodd plans on attacking the city and the team plans a preemptive strike. While drama plays out between Jesse, Wally, and Wells (Wells is back to his lying self), Team Flash determines the location of Grodd’s attack on the city. When Grodd doesn’t show up — instead taking control of Joe West’s mind and almost killing him by making him shoot himself — the team figures out that it was all a distraction. Using more of Wells’ “science,” Joe is hooked up to a gadget that allows him to tap into some of Grodd’s memories and they figure out that the gorilla has gotten his hands on nuclear warhead codes!
Barry is able to disarm the warheads, and when Grodd attacks the city, Gypsy (who was hesitant to help the group) and Cisco open a breach in the middle of the fight (Jesse, Wally, and Barry fighting and losing against the gorilla army). They have Solovar, the King of Gorilla City that Grodd usurped. Solovar gives Grodd a good beating, takes his army back to Earth-Two, and Grodd is apprehended and imprisoned.
Having beat Grodd, everyone is happy again. So happy, in fact, that Barry proposes to Iris — we don’t see how she answers — and Wally and Jesse snuggle together on their couch happy with their decision to live together. But, this is The Flash, and happy moments never last for long. The episode closes with Wally getting a Big Belly Burger and running into Savitar! Oh, no Iris! The future is coming!
What’s going on here? Will Iris say yes?!
The best thing about the episode where the interactions between HR and Wells. Wells hates HR, and it’s so entertaining to watch how uncomfortable he gets around the happy go lucky HR.
There’s also a special moment between Gypsy and Cisco; and some nice scenes between Barry and Iris. It’s going to be interesting to see how the next episode plays out with the return of Savitar. It’s literally nail-biting time for Iris West.
Jahkotta Lewis is a professional archaeologist, an amateur astronomer, and an aspiring writer. When she is not documenting Pacific Island archaeology, she spends her days hiking through native forests, spelunking within the depths of an active volcano, and watching/reading all things fantasy and science fiction. Follow her on Twitter @jahkotta
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