“The Runaway Dinosaur” is episode twenty-one of season two of The Flash.
In the previous episode, “Rupture”, after an attempt to stop Rupture – Dante Ramon from Earth-Two – was successful, only for almost all the police present, and Rupture, to be killed by Zoom, Barry decided he had no choice. He had to use the particle accelerator to get his powers back. Jay noticed the accelerator firing up and ran over. However, it looked like, instead of giving Barry his superspeed again, the explosion had actually vaporised him, leaving only a damaged Flash suit. So Zoom left. Wally and Jesse had got out of the time vault before this happened, and were hit by the blast wave from the accelerator. That is bound to have consequences.
The episode opens with everyone looking on at where Barry was. Wells is stuttering and essentially speechless. Cisco is sure that Barry must be somewhere in the building but can’t find him on the GPS. Then they realise there have been strikes all over the building and Wells, Joe and Iris head to look for Jesse and Wally, They find the two on the floor; Wally comes around after a few seconds but Jesse’s heart has stopped. Then it restarts, but she remains unconscious. Iris tells Wally he needs to go home to rest, and that Barry is gone. Henry is a doctor, so they decide that he should see Jesse. In the breach room, Cisco touches the remains of Barry’s suit – and vibes from it, seeing Barry in a swirling vortex, and exclaims that Barry is alive.
Barry wakes up what in what looks his bedroom of his childhood home. There is a book on a surface, and the book is called The Runaway Dinosaur. He goes downstairs and sees crime scene tape fluttering in the doorway of the room where his mother was murdered by Eobard Thawne, and Joe is crouched on the floor. Joe says that it’s good to see Barry, but Barry says he isn’t Joe, and the Joe-lookalike agrees that no, he isn’t. And that this isn’t real. ‘Joe’ asks Barry how he feels and Barry replies awful. Joe says that they thought Barry would be more comfortable about talking to someone who looked familiar in a place he knew.
Barry asks who the ‘we’ Joe referred to are. Which is a really good question. Joe says that it’s hard to explain and what does Barry know about the Speed Force. Barry replies that it’s the source of his power. It’s what makes him a speedster. Joe says both yes and no to this. He says that when the universe started in the Big Bang, they were there, and when it dies a heat death, they will be there too. Barry realises that he’s talking to the Speed Force. Which he compares to having a conversation with gravity or light. That talking to the source of his power is trippy. Barry tells Joe that they need to send him back. His friends, his city, his entire world is in danger from Zoom. Then something seems to whizz past the house. Joe tells Barry he isn’t going back. Not until he catches that. ‘That’ being a black blur that is moving at great speed and does not look entirely corporeal.
Cisco tells Wells what he saw, and Wells realises that Barry is in the Speed Force. Henry demands Wells get Barry out, but Wells isn’t sure how. Joe takes Henry aside and says that he is the only one who can help Jesse, and whilst Henry does that, Joe will sit on Wells until Wells figures something out.
Henry examines Jesse and says that everything is normal about her, and she should be waking up, but isn’t. Iris says that’s the same with Barry after the accident. So she and Cisco do a really, really bad job of explaining Wells, Eobard Thawne and the Eobard Thawne Wells before finally saying it’s complicated. They certainly didn’t simplify the matter.
Henry asks if there are any records of the Thawne/Wells treatment of Barry, because that could help him with Jesse. Cisco says there are, in the morgue. But he isn’t going there by himself. So Iris comes along. Cisco explains to Iris that they needed to keep the dead meta-humans somewhere. And that occasionally Thawne/Wells dissected them. Iris asks if that didn’t twig them to the fact that Thawne/Wells was secretly evil; Cisco says it was a crazy time with a lot going on.
Something is knocked over, and both blame the other. Then Cisco finds Barry’s records. Then a door is bashed in and Tony Woodward – Girder – is standing there. Iris, of course recognises him. Now Girder was killed in “The Flash is Born” but he is up and moving again. Not that he looks exactly alive. So, as Cisco points out, they appear to have a zombie on their hands. One that doesn’t appear to be all there – Tony isn’t saying anything beyond grunts. Then he sees his reflection, gets angry and leaves the building. Without bothering to open a door.
In the Speed Force, Barry comes to another place, this time with Iris there. She says they thought this image and place would be less upsetting, but Barry still seems upset. Barry replies that his whole world is in danger and Zoom in on a rampage with the power he took from Barry. Iris tells Barry he was given a rare and precious gift, but rejected it. Barry says he didn’t reject it, he gave it up to spare someone’s life. That is apparently not what they mean. Barry asks why they gave it to him in the first place. The answer is because he’s the Flash. Which falls into the vague, yet unhelpful, category of answers.
Back at S.T.A.R. Labs Wells says that history repeats itself. First there is tragedy, then there is farce. Joe tells Wells to let Henry care for Jesse, he and Iris will deal with Girder and Wells, as he’s the only scientist, can figure out how to get Barry back. Wells appears to have had an idea, and tells Cisco to meet him in the breach room in five minutes.
Tony, meanwhile, has seen a yellow Hummer outside a Big Belly Burger, which has attracted him. So he attacks it. The first time Tony was seen, he was driving a yellow Hummer.
Cisco is now in the breach room and Wells is wiring him up to something. This concerns Cisco enough to ask if it’s safe. Wells asks him to define safe. Safe, in this context, is Cisco’s brain not melting. According to Wells, Cisco is going to vibe on Barry, Wells will use Cisco’s brainwaves to locate where Barry is and then electrically stimulate Cisco’s brain to open a breach and act as a beacon for Barry. Cisco has a problem with the ‘electrically stimulate hi brain’ bit.
In the Speed Force, Barry is still talking to Iris, telling her to let him go back and help his friends. Then he hears Cisco’s voice, and looks around to see a swirling vortex. He asks Iris what it is, and she replies that it’s his friends. They want Barry to come back. He asks if he can and Iris tells him of course he can – but if he does, it will be without his powers. The choice is Barry’s. He chooses to stay.
Girder has, so far, smashed up a fire hydrant, smashed up a Humvee and smashed up Jitters. Jitters is the only place he went in. Henry tells a story about a prisoner who planned to escape – and actually did. But was caught because, of all the places he could have gone, he went to his girlfriend’s. People are creatures of habit. Iris says that Tony doesn’t have a girlfriend – then realises that he tried chatting her up in Jitters. So Tony is after her. Again. This time as one of the walking dead. The next place Tony originally went was Iris’ home, Which is where Wally is. Iris says they can go home and use her as bait to lure Tony back to S.T.A.R. Labs where Cisco and Wells can kill him. Again. Joe is not totally happy about this idea.
Back at their home, Joe is asking Wally how he feels. That if he has any questions about how his body is changing, he can talk to Joe. At which point Iris puts her head in her hands. Perhaps Joe could have phrased that better. Joe wants to know if Wally has been affected, and tries testing him for superspeed. Which it looks like Wally doesn’t have.
In the Speed Force, Barry keeps seeing places and people he knows. He’s also trying to catch up with the black, not-entirely-corporeal speeding blur. At regular speed. There is no way Barry is going to be able to catch it by running. So Barry needs to realise that there must be another way.
Then there’s Jesse and Wally. Were they affected by the energy discharge and, if so, what could have been done to them?