The Flash “Mixed Signals” Review

Prepare yourselves, ladies and gents! The Flash that we fell in love with is back and better than ever! No dark and depressing (yet – knock on wood) Barry Allen. “Mixed Signals” gave us the light-heartedness that we all fell in love with while also having a new baddie of the week. A majority of Team Flash are faced with relationship problems while simultaneously dealing with a meta-human virus. However, while they think they resolve their meta issue, it doesn’t seem to be the end of their problems.

Let’s break down what happened.

The episode kicks off with a real estate agent showing off a penthouse suite to a billionaire. He’s arrogant and doesn’t care about the price or chivalry for that matter. He won’t even hold the elevator open for her. Shows him, though, because on the way down, the elevator gets stuck for a second before repeatedly moving up and down insanely fast and finally plummeting to the bottom floor. Yeah, he didn’t survive that… like not even a little. As the elevator doors open, an older lady sees his mutilated body and screams. Then we see a hooded guy’s eyes glow purple squares. And we have our killer meta!Meanwhile, Barry is living his best life dancing around the kitchen in his boxers, making an excellent breakfast spread at warped speed, and binging all the television shows he missed at warped speed as well. When he’s done, Iris says she needs to get caught up on the wedding planning she’s put off for the last 6 months, but Barry states that he’s already taken care of all of it. This clearly bothers her a bit, but I mean, he did it with the good intentions of her not having to stress about any of it. You can’t be mad at him for that. 🙂

Joe then calls, and Barry has to rush off to the scene of the elevator incident, and boy it’s not a pretty site. They don’t actually show it, but everyone’s reaction is pretty disturbed – Cisco’s especially. He shows up to the scene because he’s now a tech consultant for the CCPD (and darn proud of it). He plugs up his gadget and quickly learns that the elevator didn’t glitch… it was hacked.At STAR Labs, Cisco reveals Barry’s new suit even though, technically, Barry has already seen it and worn it. The suit is full of all kinds of new upgrades and tech, including a hood with super special features. I’m pretty sure Wally is jealous that he hasn’t had a suit upgrade yet, but I’m sure his time will come.

Iris gets more disappointed with Barry when he confesses to canceling an evening training session, so they can go to dinner. He doesn’t think one is necessary. It’s clear Iris is getting frustrated with him. Caitlin suggests they go to couples counseling, but Iris doesn’t think they need to. They’re Barry and Iris, after all. – I love this, but girl, you and Barry have some communication issues.

Suddenly, the breach alarm starts going off and Iris, Caitlin and Wally rush to stop whoever’s about to come through. – It should be noted that Caitlin had to take a minute to stop Killer Frost from coming out. – Anyways, as they have their weapons (idk what they’re called) drawn, Cisco rushes in and stops them just as Gypsy comes through the breach. Her and Cisco have a date – all together now: AWW! – but he asks for a couple more hours so he can crack the hacker code. She says agrees because he’s “so darn cute.” – Again, AWW!Cut to another business man driving a fancy vehicle when suddenly something starts going wrong with the radio. It keeps changing on its own even after he sets it back. The screen then starts showing the same message that the elevator displayed: KILG%RE. We then see the same hooded guy from outside the elevator. He looks right at the guy in the car as his eyes glows purple. He then causes the car to accelerate all the way up to 120 mph.

Team Flash catches this at the labs and Barry is quick to suit up by himself. He catches up to the car and Iris tells him to force the car to go a certain way so as not to hurt anyone, but Barry chooses a different direction. Unfortunately, since he’s been gone for 6 months, he didn’t know that road was closed off for construction. He then quickly disassembles the car right down to the driver seat and steering wheel right before it’s about to crash into a concrete wall. Quick thinking, Barry!

Back at STAR Labs, Cisco pulls information from the car and finds out that it was hacked by the same code from the elevator. Caitlin then notices that it’s not a hack, it’s a virus… from a human. It’s then that they realize they have a metahuman on their hands. When they see if the two victims – Kurt and Tim – have any sort of relation, they find a picture of them together with a girl and the hooded guy we’ve seen at both incidents.

Iris pulls Barry aside to talk. He apologizes for the mix-up before, but she’s still clearly upset. She mentions what Caitlin suggested about couples’ therapy. Barry is hesitant about it and worries that they’re relationship is in trouble, but Iris assures him they’re not. They just need some advice on a few things. He finally agrees to it.
In what is probably my favorite scene of the episode, Iris and Barry go to therapy and things get… awkward. Barry lies about loving therapy, which leads to acknowledgement of everyone that’s died in their lives. Barry gets self-conscious about everything the therapists writes in her notes. They struggle to cover up the fact that they’re Team Flash while trying to explain their communication issues. Before things get more awkward, Barry has to run out when he gets an alert from Joe.

At the police department, Joe bumps into KILLG%R on the way to question the guy that was in the car that got hacked, but he doesn’t know it. Just as he starts talking to him, a bomb bot roams the department before going to the office they’re in. Joe manages to get an alert out to Barry as the bot drops a grenade and Joe jumps to cover the other guy. Barry speeds in, catches every piece of shrapnel before Joe and the other guy even sees him. When it’s all done, he drops the pieces in a trashcan and asks if everyone’s okay. Joe covers the situation by saying it must have been a dud.

Back at STAR Labs, the team learn that KILLG%R – Deacon – was in a tech startup with the other three people in the picture earlier. Including the two he’s already targeted. The third girl is now a major tech guru.

Gypsy shows back up saying she’s been waiting for Cisco for hours. Unfortunately, he has to cancel it all together. She says it’s fine, but we all know what that really means, don’t we, ladies? Cisco believes everything is all good, but Caitlin has to inform him that he’s definitely in trouble. Uh oh, Cisco.Iris manages to get her and Barry back into therapy on the same day. They talk some more, but it’s a bit tenser. Barry doesn’t understand what issues they apparently have. Again, they’re Barry and Iris! In a more raw and heartbreaking moment, Iris finally breaks down and asks why he left her. Ugh. This was so heartbreaking because you could see the pain that Iris has been holding back for so long. We saw in the premiere how she was covering up the pain with work, and now she’s finally letting it out. Unfortunately, we don’t get any explanation until later.

Meanwhile, the guy from the car shows up at the girl’s (from the tech start up and the photo) house. He tries to warn her about Deacon and how they shouldn’t have done what they did. – They stole his tech company and sold it out from under him (aka how they’re so rich). – She’s not having any of it though. As if on cue, Deacon shows up and hacks her insulin pump putting her into diabetic shock. Thankfully, Wally speeds in and gives her a shot of glucose. When she comes out of the shock a little, she tells him Deacon took Tim (the other dude).Cisco tries to apologize to Gypsy for bailing on their date by offering to take her out the next night. Gypsy said it had to be that night, though. When he asks what’s going on, she admits that she wanted to spend time with him because on her Earth, it’s 1-1-1 Day. It’s basically like Valentine’s Day, but more romantic in my opinion as it celebrates when two separate souls become one soul. She didn’t want to admit it because she hates all things “shmoopy”, but she likes Cisco so much he makes her want to do “shmoopy” things. HOW FRIGGIN ADORABLE ARE THESE TWO?? Unfortunately, the moment gets cut short when Cisco has one of his light bulb moments and realizes how to stop KILG%RE. He and Caitlin need to create a compound that will essentially deactivate KILG%RE’S power.

Meanwhile, Barry and Iris finally talk about what’s going on with their relationship as well. Barry admits that he didn’t talk to her about going into the Speed Force because if he had, he wouldn’t have gone because he wouldn’t have had the strength to leave her. He says that “sometimes it’s not about us.” Iris disagrees though, “You are not the Flash, Barry. We are.” Ugh! The sweetness! Hits me right in my Westallen feels!

When Tim (the guy from the car) goes on a livestream confessing what he and the others did to KILG%RE, Cisco tracks his location so Barry and Wally can rush to save him. They get there just in time to see that KILG%RE has him strung up and is about to kill him. They manage to save him, but KILG%RE gets control of Barry’s new high-tech suit and sling Wally across the room. The rest of this sequence is quite funny as we see everything that Cisco added to the suit – like a raft, something that makes it impossible to take off, and even a self-destruct mode. Way to go, Cisco.Fortunately, Barry manages to get to a payphone (where he learns about all the features) tries to get some advice since KILG%RE cut his comms. Iris tells him that he’s going to have to throw a lightning bolt at himself. There’s some hesitation (as there should be), but Barry ultimately states that he trusts Iris. He does it and it knocks him unconscious. This gives KILG%RE the opportunity to find Tim and fire a gun at him, but thankfully Barry comes to and catches the bullet while simultaneously injecting the vaccine into KILG%RE. The Flash saves the day once again!

Cisco sets up a romantic date (suit and all) for Gypsy to make up for having to bail before. – I’m seriously loving these two! 😊

KILG%RE gets thrown into a jail cell where he’s so far underground (I think) that he won’t be able to hack anyone’s technology. It’s revealed that he wasn’t in Central City the night of the accelerator explosion, leaving us wondering how he got his powers. However, he’s apparently not the only one who got some.

Checking in with the baddie that was revealed at the end of the premiere, they’ve been watching KILG%RE for a while and he’s right where they want him. They then decided to find the others that have powers – I’m assuming the one’s KILG%RE was referring to. COOL! – sigh.

The Flash airs Tuesdays at 8/7c on The CW!

GIF credit: dailycisco, flashallens,westallengifs, ramonindustries