Image Credit: The CW
Welcome back! Last week we saw our hero Barry Allen convicted of murdering Clifford DeVoe/The Thinker and sentenced to life in Iron Heights. Last night, we saw Barry try to adjust to his new normal even as Team Flash learned how to keep Central City safe without him. As always there are spoilers from here out.
We start with a riot at Iron Heights. Guards are in trouble, there’s total chaos and after a moment of consideration Barry decides to use his powers to set things right and get back into his own cell without be noticed. Meanwhile outside prison walls, Joe and the police are in a stand off with a non-meta criminal who has hostages and a bomb at a local bank. Joe distracts the bomber while Ralph stretches in, gets the hostages out, and then even uses his own body to keep the bomb from being an issue. The day is saved! Ralph is really over his costume, though.
Back at STAR, everyone watches news reports of the event and, well, Ralph likes to chat about his exploits to reporters and it’s funny, but he doesn’t really have a name for his superheroic identity. He asks the team to help him find a good name. Iris tells everyone that she and Joe are going to be looking into Barry’s appeal process.
In jail, Barry is talking to Axel Walker, aka Trickster Jr., in the prison yard. Axel is all about some pudding but it doesn’t make him feel very good. Barry walks away, is promptly tripped, and gets mud on another inmate’s shoes. That guy is just looking to start a fight, but the warden lets Barry know that his visitor is here, thus preventing the altercation. Barry goes inside and his visitor? It’s Iris. They talk about the case and Iris bemoans that she can’t touch Barry.
Axel, still sick, is taken to the infirmary where it turns out the nurse isn’t a nurse. It’s Axel’s mom, Zoey Clark. She breaks him out after knocking out a guard. With Trickster, Jr. escaped, Joe investigates at the prison. He sees Barry mopping he hall and says a few words to his son. Eventually, Team Flash figures out who Zoey is and her connection to Mark Hamill’s original Trickster and realize this is not good. At the prison again, Big Sir (guest star Bill Goldberg from the WWE) steps in and rescues Barry when the inmates who tried to fight with him earlier try to start stuff again.
Trickster, Jr. hacks communications in Central City and calls out Ralph. He wants a fight because he wants to prove himself to his absentee father. Dibny gets Cisco vibe him to the scene and the fight goes well for Dibny at first, but Trickster, Jr. squirts him with acid and that requires Cisco to rescue him. It turns out that while Dibny is pretty much indestrcutible, whatever that acid is is new and special and is dangerous to Dibny.
Back at Iron Heights, Iris hasn’t shown up for her daily visit. He approaches Big Sir and asks why he helped him. Big Sir tells Barry that, once upon a time, Barry’s dad helped him. He owed him one.
Trickster is disappointed that things didn’t go as planned, but this time instead of discouraging him Zoey is suddenly all in. Turns out, she had been taking meds to be normal and not diabolical. When she was with the original Trickster, she served as his sidekick, Prank. Side note: for those who think Prank seems very Harley Quinn like, you’re not wrong. Prank was a character created for the 90s Flash series and she predates Harley Quinn by at least a year. The two characters have similar vibes, as we quickly see. Trickster, Jr. and Prank go on TV again, this time with a demented game show, hostages, and a grand prize of an acid bath, which they demonstrate by destroying a Beebo (the cuddly blue creature last seen on Legends of Tomorrow.) Dibny has an hour to turn himself over. If he doesn’t? The hostages get it.
Dibny, however, wants none of this. He only did things when he thought he couldn’t get hurt but now that he knows he can, nope. Bye. Caitlin and Cisco go to deal with Trickster, Jr. and Prank themselves with Harry going along to try to neutralize the acid. Dibny then visits Barry in prison (the stretchy way) and says he is there to bust him out to stop the bad guy. But Barry ends up giving Dibny a pep talk which convinces Dibny to suit up.
Big Sir reveals to Barry how Henry Allen saved him via emergency appendectomy. Big Sir then walks away and ends up being jumped by that same pesky inmate and his henchmen. Barry arrives and subtly uses his powers to kick their butts and save Big Sir.
Iris gives Dibny his new suit. Caitlin (now Killer Frost) get to the Trickster lair and are quickly captured. Dibny shows up just as the villains are about to acid them. Dibny takes down Trickster, Jr. but throws himself over his friends to shield them from the acid. He’s prepared to suffer and even die for them, but fortunately Harry was able to neutralize the substance just in time. The bad guys are taken away and Dibny is dubbed The Elongated Man.
At the prison, Iris visits and Barry phases through the glass to hold her hand.
And, at the end, Cisco and Dibny get coffee, squabbling over who is paying when someone comes from behind and pays for them. Who? It’s the mystery girl from Barry’s wedding! And as the episode ends we see her happily writing in her journal…in the same symbol language Barry was scribbling during the season premiere.
Who is she? Keep tuning in to find out! Until next week!
The Hudsucker 
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