“Dead or Alive” is episode eleven of season three of The Flash.
The episode opens at night and some men are doing what looks like an arms deal. H.R. is saying that one thing they never tell you about fighting villains is that the harder you work, the more they up their game. Barry arrives as the Flash and the men open fire on him. H.R. continues, saying that their team has a secret weapon, a man of science called H.R. Wells. With a vortex cannon. H.R. is actually writing his book and Cisco gets his attention, saying that Barry needs their help. Julian, who has now joined the team, hopes that all their adventures are not this disorganised. Barry is chasing after the Electric Gang, and Wally shows up as well. The gang has the same weapon that the men in H.R.’s book did. The two prevail, saving a bus full of cheerleaders. That makes Wally happy.
Back at the lab, Julian tells them he has found at least six ways of doing it more efficiently. Iris wants to know if Barry saw the gang meeting with anyone else, for there’s a new arms dealer in town, with access to sophisticated weaponry. Like Plunder’s gun. Barry wants Iris to be more careful but she tells him she’s still a journalist.
After Iris has gone, Barry wants to know if Cisco has found a way to change the future. Not as yet, but he and Caitlin gave found a way to map it. Julian suggested that they make a 3D reconstruction of the future. Out of, by the looks of it, Lego. Barry is told not to query the medium.
Barry needs to run so much faster to defeat Savitar and stop him from killing Iris. Julian tells them that he will fail. Julian may be new to multiple worlds, but he isn’t new to maths. And Barry isn’t improving fast enough at his current rate. Barry and Caitlin, despite Julian’s less than brilliant way of putting it, agree.
At the end of the previous episode, “Borrowing Problems from the Future”, a woman arrived through what looked like a breach. She had a device on her wrist that projected what looked to be a hologram of H.R. A breach opens into Jitters and, by the looks of it, the woman vibes H.R. from a coin. She easily takes out two who try to stop her and leaves via another breach.
At the scene the next day, Barry tells Joe he’s sure it’s a meta. A new and dangerous one. Joe is sure that Barry and Wally can stop them. Joe also wants to know if Iris has mentioned the arms dealer, because he wants Barry to encourage Iris to back off. Joe still hasn’t been told about the future, but he knows something is wrong.
Cisco and Caitlin are looking at the footage from Jitters. Cisco says he will clean it up and H.R. points at another screen and says how clear the picture is. That screen is their security footage. The meta is outside. She’s also looking for H.R. He says her name is Gypsy and she’s known as a Collector on his Earth. She’s come to collect him.
Gypsy breaches in and shoots H.R. although not with a lethal weapon. Cisco knocks her gun out of her hand and she says she likes it. Cisco suggests that they talk about it, like two adults. Over coffee. Perhaps over dinner? Caitlin and H.R. both ask if Cisco is really asking Gypsy out on a date. Gypsy is more proficient at vibing than Cisco and knocks him down, then stops Wally. H.R. has broken their world’s ban on interdimensional travel, and she tracked him down – because he’s beaming his book back. He has an hour to get his affairs in order.
Cisco, when Caitlin mentions Golden Glider as well, admits that he’s attracted to the sexy deadly ones. H.R.’s punishment for what he did – is death. 24 or 25 years ago, a neighbouring Earth invaded and nearly destroyed the place. To prevent this happening again, there is a strict ban on interdimensional travel, which the Collectors enforce.
Barry gets Iris to agree to leave the arms dealer story alone. Then she goes to wally to enlist his help – in the alternate timeline they were a brother-sister crime-fighting team. This gets Wally in deeper than he expected and Iris has a distracting talk with Joe that did not go the way he started to expect.
H.R. is preparing to leave. There are no options – although he mentions trial by combat. When Gypsy arrives to take him, Barry starts speaking about the trial by combat, but Cisco speaks up first and challenges her. Speaking first is apparently a real rule. He accepts the traditional 24 hours to prepare. For a combat to the death. And afterwards is sure she’s going to kill him. He should work on his flirting method. Julian needs to work on his interpersonal skills – even when he’s really trying, it doesn’t work so well. Even though Gypsy and Cisco both have the same powers, Julian and H.R. says she uses them much better than Cisco does. Julian gives him a 1 in 10 chance. Possibly because 1 was the lowest number. Otherwise Julian might have gone with zero.