'The Flash' recap: The need for speed

Spoiler alert! the following contains spoilers for Tuesday night's episode of The Flash.

With Barry still reeling from Patty's departure last week, and Harry plotting against the team that welcomed him with open arms, it's time for another hero to step into the void -- and that would be Iris.

After being relegated to glorified team therapist for the past couple months, Iris steps up to the plate to bring her broken family together and spur Barry into action after his drive gets metaphorically zapped by Patty and literally zapped by Harry. And with a lame B-list villain that gets defeated in all of 0.5 seconds, the emotional turmoil that Iris brings forward is definitely welcome.

Like father, like son

Over a year ago, some mobsters are threatening a dude by hanging him over a pit of hot tar. They drop him in the tar just as the particle accelerator explodes, and the day after, a hand emerges from the tar amidst the debris.

In the present day, Barry monologues and watches longingly through the window at the West family bonding with Wally. Though all is not as shiny and happy as it seems -- Iris confronts Wally about his continued street racing and chides Joe when he refuses to parent the rebellious teen who just stormed out of their house. Meanwhile at S.T.A.R. Labs, Harry is also monologuing about using the Turtle's device to steal Barry's speed. But he gets interrupted by Barry, who's trying to fill his broken heart with busywork and offers to help Harry create a device to close the breaches. Harry is reticent to have any bonding time with the guy he's about to screw over, but begrudgingly lets Barry help.

At a street race, Iris saunters in to Wally's drag racing party in booty shorts, extensions and a fur coat that she was definitely hiding in the closet somewhere. She taunts Wally and argues against his life choices, but Wally turns a deaf ear to her. Unable to get through to Wally directly, Iris uses her investigative journalism skills to take a stealth pic of the guy in charge of the races.

Oh and hey, remember our monster of the week? He's back to kill one of the mobsters who dropped him in the tar vat, who's now running a car garage. The morning after, Joe and Barry investigate the scene where Barry quickly concludes that the murder was at the hands of a metahuman. But you can't investigate a murder without talking about your familial problems, so Barry gives his full-hearted support for Joe's parenting techniques, but Joe gets a flicker of doubt over his lenient treatment of Wally.

In S.T.A.R. Labs, Harry's also feeling a flicker of guilt as he pauses before installing the Turtle device in Barry's Flash suit -- but proceeds to do so anyway while Barry and Cisco are distracted by Cisco's innovative metahuman-tracking app.

In the Iris of the beholder

Joe visits Iris at work (for no reason?) and Iris presents Joe with a folder full of street racing victims, urging him again to up his parenting skills and keep Wally from the dangerous and illicit activity. But Joe doesn't want to scare Wally off, admitting that he's harboring some guilt over Wally's life being turned upside down so quickly -- recently deceased mother and newfound father and sister, and all.

Speaking of harboring guilt, Harry's not doing so well with Barry's giddiness over working together and his wholehearted trust that he has for Harry. Harry lashes out at Barry, so as to stop any fondness from developing for him, but it's too late. Barry's charms are inescapable.

Cisco sciences, finding out that the metahuman is a walking tar pit whose powers suffocate his victims in addition to burning them. Thanks to Cisco's app, Team Flash locates the metahuman's next target right away: Clay, the mobster who gave the word to kill him in the first place. Barry successfully distracts the metahuman and douses him with water from the fire hydrant, but in the process Harry successfully bottles some of Barry's speed. Team Flash dubs the metahuman, Joseph Monteleone, Tar Pit and proceed to get cracking on the case. Meanwhile, Cisco notices that Barry's running a little slower but Barry's not bothered about it.

In what can only be presumed to be the skeazy part of town, Iris enters street racing bossman Clark Bronwen's office and demands that he stop holding his races. She throws down the gauntlet with a preview of her street racing expose, but he threatens her until she reveals she's been recording their entire conversation and escapes unscathed. Wally storms into Iris' newsroom to berate her for treading dangerously around the street racing people. She ignores him and tries to appeal to his better nature, but he leaves in a huff.

Catching lightning in a bottle

Harry is acting glum and distant, confiding in Barry that given the choice between his daughter Jesse and Team Flash, he'd choose his daughter anyway. Conflicted, Harry attempts to reject Barry's easy acceptance of him as part of their team, but Barry still has complete faith in him. Later that night, Harry meets with Zoom and gives him the vial of Barry's speed. Zoom injects the speed into himself (not what it sounds like) and Harry tries to negotiate, saying he'll bring him more if Zoom gives him his daughter, but Zoom refuses, wounding Harry and ordering him to get him the rest of Barry's speed.

Cisco and Caitlin are doing the detective work when Iris walks in and ties all the episode's subplots together. Her street racing bossman Bronwen is connected to the other victims and Tar Pit, having served in juvenile detention together and supposedly joining the same mob later. Team Flash correctly assume that Bronwen is the next target. While Harry and Barry are out testing their implosion reactor device to close the breaches, Iris brings Joe to the drag race where Bronwen is conducting a race that Wally's participating in. Just after the race starts, Tar Pit appears to kill Bronwen and Wally gets caught in the crossfire.

Iris calls Barry just as Harry is about to confess his betrayal to him, and Barry rushes over to the scene, saving Wally from the crashing car that is headed straight for Bronwen, and saving Bronwen in the process. But Barry's slower speed thwarts him from saving one last person, and the glass debris from the crashing car impales Iris right in the shoulder.

Thankfully, Iris is quickly taken to the hospital and in fine condition. Wally apologetically visits with a bouquet of flowers, but he flees before they can talk. Joe chases after him and offers his empathy, finally stepping up in dad role and convincing Wally to stay at Iris' bedside.

'We're a team'

At S.T.A.R. Labs, Barry, Cisco and Caitlin speculate about his slower speed. Caitlin sees that his speed has diminished by 2% and Barry beats himself up over Iris getting hurt. With the guilt too much to bear, Harry finally confesses that he stole Barry's speed and gave it to Zoom. The team flies in a rage at Harry, but not before Joe walks in at just the moment of Harry's confession and punches Harry out. Joe drags Harry to a cell in the particle accelerator, and Team Flash barely have time to process the betrayal before they go off to handle Tar Pit.

Joe brings Clay out as bait and Tar Pit quickly attacks. Barry runs out and throws the nitrous grenade that Cisco and Harry made at Tar Pit before he can make a move, and in about two minutes, they've neutralized Tar Pit and thrown in a punch to the face just for good measure.

At the hospital, Iris and Wally have a cute sibling moment and Wally finally opens up, confessing his need for speed is because of a childhood memory of spending days driving with his mom. And hopefully, this means Iris' part-time job as an unofficial therapist has come to an end.

Back at the particle accelerator, Barry confronts Harry and they both manfully holding back their tears as they talk about Harry's betrayal. Coming to terms with his inability to save his daughter, Harry urges him to Barry to send him back to Earth-2 and use the implosion reactor to close all the breaches so Zoom will never be able to cross over again.

Joe, Cisco and Caitlin want to send Harry back him, but Barry sides with Harry, empathizing with his predicament over his daughter and reminding everyone why he's the hero of the show. Barry persuades the team to help Harry and they agree, letting Harry out of his cell and deciding to go on a trip to Earth-2 to rescue Jesse and stop Zoom once and for all.

Flash Faves

• So did Tar Pit remind anyone else of the lava Titan from Hercules?
• "That's annoying": Barry's smug speed-reading and Harry's reaction is everything I love.
• "Who's the best hacker in the world?" "Felicity Smoak."
• As much as I love Patty, her being gone allows the show to finally start utilizing Iris right -- she can be preachy and righteous, but capable.
• All the scenes between conflicted Harry and trusting Barry made me more emotional than I should be.
• That slow-mo scene of the glass headed toward Iris was harrowing. 
• Um, where is Jay?