“Plastique” is episode five of season one of The Flash.
The episode opens in a bar and Barry is narrating how friends come into your life, how some stay and some don’t and how some friendships might change into something more. He’s in the bar, with Caitlin and Cisco as well as Iris and Eddie. Iris is happy that Barry became friends with Caitlin and Cisco, because they saved his life. Which makes them important to her.
Barry approaches Caitlin and Cisco with a tray of shots and says that he has a problem. Cisco says that they all doe, when guys like Eddie exist. Caitlin says that he’s so hot, before realising quite what she said. That’s not the problem Barry was talking about. He downs the entire tray of drinks and says that he feels nothing. Not because of alcohol, but because the alcohol isn’t affecting him at all. His metabolism appears to be stopping him from getting drunk. Caitlin wants to take a sample; she has a blood collection kit in her purse. As she says, Barry has his hobbies and she has hers.
Elsewhere, a window cleaner is working outside a skyscraper and inside a guard says that the 14th floor is secure. In a room someone is looking through files with a torch. Then the guard sees a damaged door and goes to investigate. A woman slams the door into the guard and tries to escape, but the guard pulls out a gun. She asks him not to come near and then throws her rucksack onto the floor. Something then explodes, damaging the window cleaner’s gantry.
Eddie gets a call about the bombing and leaves the bar. Iris also says she has a reason to leave and everyone else makes their excuses too. Barry arrives at the building and sees that the cleaner is going to fall. Caitlin tells him not to catch the man, for he has super speed not super strength. Barry’s next suggestion is to pile mattresses below the man. The response to this is that it isn’t a Road Runner cartoon.
Barry then wants to know if he can run up the side of the building. The answer is yes, if he runs fast, but he will need to maintain his velocity on the way down. Else splat. Iris arrives at the scene in the taxi to see Barry arrive on the ground with the cleaner; he shakes his head fast enough to blur his face. In the previous episode, “Going Rogue”, Iris had told Barry that she was going to start a blog about the Streak.
The next day, Barry is at the scene of the explosion with Joe. He says that normally bombs have identifying traits, and that if he is shown a bomb, Barry can usually find a clue. But he can’t find an oxidising agent. It’s as if the floor simply blew up. A small charge had been used to blow the door handle from a file room and that there is probably a file missing. Eddie says it will probably take days to look through, so Joe says to let Barry do his thing. Which is to look through the files really quickly.
When Joe and Eddie get back to the precinct, there are armed soldiers standing around. A General Eiling is there; he wants all their files because the military is taking over the investigation. Joe says that he’s never heard of the Army investigating a civilian case, and the general says it isn’t civilian – it’s one of theirs. Barry also hands over his files but uses his speed to snatch something from the box.
Joe is told that Iris was at the bomb site, and he wants to know why. Joe says that Iris can’t turn up everywhere that Eddie is, but she says she didn’t go to see Eddie but to see the Streak, for her blog. Joe says that there is no Streak, but Iris says she saw him.
At S.T.A.R. Labs Dr. Wells knows General Wade Eiling. Ten years ago, he was contracted to do some gene therapies for soldiers. Wells was interested in the civilian benefits, but it turned out that Eiling was only interested in developing mind reading capabilities for interrogations. At which point Wells quite. The split was less than amicable.
They have the VA number of the person Eiling is looking for. It’s a Sergeant Bette Sans Souci, an Army explosives expert. There’s a contact address for her, and Barry arrives to find her. Bette tells him not to touch her, but accidentally touches his suit. She tells him to take off what he’s wearing, so Barry runs away and does so. Then there’s an explosion. This is why there was no bomb signature; Bette is making things explode by touching them. She’s a meta-human too.
Cisco is not happy to find out that his suit has been destroyed. Caitlin tells him he has three more; Cisco corrects her and says it’s only two. And he loved that one. Cisco says that no-one blows his tech up and gets away with it. Until he sees Bette’s picture. Bette’s ability to blow stuff up is clearly why Eiling is interested in her.
Joe is not happy to find out about Iris’ blog, or that she saw the Streak. So he asks Barry to talk her out of it. This does not go well. In fact, it backfires quite spectacularly. Iris doesn’t believe how Barry has changed his mind over impossible things.
Bette is looking for the doctor who operated on her. She believes that he and Eiling are responsible for what she’s become. Barry arrives in time to save Bette from the general’s troops and takes her back to the lab. She had been the victim of a roadside bomb and was being operated on when the blast wave in “Pilot” hit. Bette is also the first meta-human other than Barry encountered who isn’t trying to cause death and destruction. But can the team help her.
Just what is Dr. Wells up to? He is clearly up to something and, despite his distaste for weapons, he is perhaps not quite as nice a person as he makes out. Or maybe he is just extremely focussed on something specific.