“The Trap” is episode twenty of season one of The Flash.
In the previous episode, “Who is Harrison Wells”, Cisco and Joe had gone to Starling City to investigate Harrison Wells’ accident. At the scene of the accident, Cisco had tracked tachyons – it seems that these are what have been making liquids float – and found a body buried nearby, where presumably Eobard Thawne had buried the real Harrison Wells after sucking out his… whatever in “Tricksters”. The police had never found the grave, because why would they have looked? The driver of the car was there and said he lost control, and there was only one passenger, so there would be no reason to go looking for anything else.
Back in Central City, the remains had been analysed and revealed that this was the real Harrison Wells. Barry, Cisco and Caitlin had then found Wells’ secret room, along with the yellow suit and a hologram of a paper saying ‘Flash Missing Vanishes in Crisis.’
The episode opens with them still looking at what they have found. The paper, which Wells’ has used on multiple occasions to check that the future remains intact, says that after an epic street battle with the Reverse-Flash, the Scarlet Speedster had vanished in an explosion of light. The date of the article is pointed out – April 25th, 2024. In “The Man in the Yellow Suit” the Reverse-Flash had told Barry that they had been fighting for centuries, so they wonder if this means that Wells is also from the future.
Cisco likes the suit Barry is wearing in the article, then starts wondering if he alters Barry’s suit after seeing the picture and starts talking about a causal nexus. Caitlin points out the by-line of the article – Iris West-Allen. Then a voice sounds from nowhere and Gideon appears. She says that she knows who Barry Allen is, the director of Central City Police, CSI Division. And the Flash. Gideon says that she is an interactive artificial consciousness.
They start questioning Gideon about Dr Wells, and she says that he came back to kill Barry Allen. Then Cisco gets notified that Wells has arrived – because he put a tracker on his wheelchair. They only have a limited amount of time to question Gideon, and she tells them that Wells wants Barry to become the Flash. Cisco worries that Gideon will tell Wells that they have been in the room, but altering her programming is clearly beyond him. Barry asks Gideon if she will not tell wells, and she assents. She will accept any command from Barry. Because he created her.
Eddie corners Joe, because he wants to speak to him alone. With everything going on, Eddie has decided that he wants to propose to Iris and wants Joe’s blessing. Which Joe doesn’t give. Eddie points out that he doesn’t actually need Joe’s permission; he asked as a courtesy. Later, Eddie corners Barry and asks him to speak to Joe about it; Eddie then talks about Iris becoming Iris Thawne. After Eddie leaves, Barry says that he thinks she is going to want to hyphenate.
Back at Joe’s, the subject of time travel is brought up. Barry says that he’s already done it and Cisco says that, the night that Barry’s mother was murdered, Barry, or future Barry, was also there. Barry was not talking about that, though; he was talking about what happened in “Out of Time”. Which happened just before Cisco started having dreams about Wells being the Reverse-Flash and killing him. Barry says that they are not dreams but memories of what happened before Barry changed the timeline. Joe wants to know if Barry changed the timeline, how can Cisco remember it. Which is a good question, but one without an equally good answer. Then Barry says he has a very bad idea.
Joe is in a hospital room dozing with the news on in the background about more robberies in Starling City. Barry is in a hospital bed unconscious, and Iris comes in. Joe has been there for three weeks. Barry then starts seizing and they leave the room as the doctors enter. Harrison Wells is outside, and says that the doctors can’t help Barry, but he can. This is actually from just after the particle accelerator accident.
What Barry actually wants to do is to access Cisco’s memories, so that they can get Wells to confess to murdering Nora Allen. They need to build a device to induce this in Cisco, but there is a problem in communicating with him. Which Wells helps with. So a trap is then set to get Harrison Wells to confess and things start getting really complicated.