This week, Caitlin finally gets to find her dad who has supposedly been dead and Team Flash catches a break with their investigation of Cicada. They might not be as right as they think they are though.
This episode starts off with a new peek at how Cicada works. He’s sitting inside Jitters with his dagger inside a bag. When a meta passes by, the dagger flashes. He dons his mask and follows this adorable, tiny girl out to her car. She’s not worried and why should she be? Her hands turn into swords. That’s pretty useful. If all women had that, we wouldn’t have to carry mace anymore.
She put up a damn good fight and even managed to disarm and injure Cicada. However, his dagger always returns. Before she can deliver the final blow, the dagger comes flying back to suck up her powers and plant itself in her back. So close random meta girl! So close! She almost ended the big bad of this season. That’s pretty amazing!
Team Flash is officially back up and running with four amazing satellites. Yes, four! Using his new toys satellites, Cisco is able to science his way to forty-six spots where pieces of Sally, their former satellite, should have landed. However, they only have to worry about where the core landed as it had the highest concentration of dark matter and they know that Cicada’s dagger has similar amounts.
Since they know he was injured during the Enlightenment, they decide to check with FEMA for any fathers who may have come into one of their sites for treatment. While Ralph goes to get Joe’s help with that, Iris and Sherloque decide to find the satellite core. Nora, who is completely in awe of her mother after watching her jump off a building, decides to go with her. Aww! Why do they keep making me flip-flop on how I feel about Nora?
This leaves Barry, Cisco, and Caitlin with nothing to do. That’s not a coincidence because the boys had been doing some digging. They found a Tannhauser black ops site at the North Pole where Caitlin’s father was the last person in and that was a week after he died. He never logged back out. They use the extrapolator to get to the site and Barry phases them all inside. After a very quick look around, they meet Caitlin’s dad, Thomas. He already knows who Barry and Cisco are due to being in contact with certain scientists in the past, including Harrison Wells. Thanks to Wells, he also had a video uplink to S.T.A.R. Labs, but it only began to work again recently. After a reboot, it only acted as a one-way video. He could see the lab, but had no way to make contact.
Thomas said he ended up there after desperately trying dangerous means to stop his ALS. He felt it wise to quarantine himself from others so he didn’t cause anyone else harm if things went wrong. He did manage to freeze the progression of his disease. Unfortunately, the black ops site was closed down and he was trapped inside, surviving only by rationing his food and water and spending months at a time in a cryogenic chamber. Caitlin tells him that he won’t need to do that anymore because she’s bringing him back to S.T.A.R. Labs.
Caitlin wants to run some tests on her father, but he’s so excited to be back in the real world that she decides to take him for a walk instead. While she may be happy about having her dad back. Cisco is wary. The story Thomas told was full of holes and has him on edge.
Ralph finds out that Joe is not home, but Cecile is and she is itching to do something, anything. When he points out that he needs someone intimidating, Cecile reminds him that she is the district attorney and that she teleported the Flash into the Thinker’s mind while giving birth. She saved the world between contractions. That’s badass. So, after she pumps some milk, they get on their way to meet with FEMA. That doesn’t go so well since Cecile doesn’t have a warrant and the assistant field manager knows that he doesn’t have to provide her with the names of those they’ve helped without one. Despite her attitude, he brushes her off, leaving her feeling like she’s lost her mojo.
At one of the forty-six debris sites, Nora and Iris are back to having trouble connecting because Nora wants to see her mom in action, but Iris is used to doing things on her own. They decide to interview the foreman of a construction site who was there the night of the Enlightenment. Sherloque is smart enough to tell that that is a horrible idea. He instructs Nora to use her speed to check the site for the core while Iris interviews the foreman and he looks for clues. It makes sense so off they go. When Nora doesn’t find anything, Sherloque suggests she check out the other sites, but she doesn’t want to go. The whole reason she wanted to go with Iris and Sherloque was so she could spend time with her mom. Sherloque has an idea.
While walking with Caitlin, Thomas suddenly has an attack of some sort and passes out. As she sits him down on a bench, she finds his skin from his wrist up looks like it’s covered in icy scales. Back at the lab, tests show that he has a cryogenic malignancy that is rewriting his genetic code. It cured his ALS, but it could also kill him.
This is when she realizes that she must have had the genetic marker for ALS, as well. Killer Frost, Khione as Thomas knew her, was created by her dad giving her the same treatment that he took. Her dual personalities somehow kept her from having the same issues that were killing her father. She decided to make a serum from her blood cells to help him. To do what is needed, they need to lower his body temperature to absolute zero. Thanks to a laser cooling device that the DOD happens to have just outside of town, Barry and Caitlin are ready to get started. Cisco is not okay with the plan, but he is outnumbered and agrees to help.
Cicada shows up at the hospital and is once again scolded by Dr. Ambres for not letting her help him. He takes a few items from the medical supply closet and leaves. As far as he’s concerned, he has a job to do and it seems that he’s going to do it until the moment he drops dead.
Sherloque takes the girls down by the waterside where he proceeds to make tea while they stand there getting annoyed. Iris finally realizes they’re next to a bulletin board where a flyer shows that there was a carnival going on the night of the Enlightenment. Together, Iris and Nora come to the conclusion that a father could have taken his child to the carnival. Since Nora wasn’t able to find the core on land, they figure it must be in the water they’re standing next to. Isn’t Sherloque a genius?
Cisco decides to go back to where they found Thomas to hack a computer there. Instead, he ends up accidentally vibing a cryogenic canister and sees Thomas putting something inside. It turns out to be skin grafts. Cisco believes that the cure did give Thomas a second personality and that alter is wearing Thomas’ skin. Thomas admits that he has used the skin graphs on himself to cover some of the crystallization that has been happening on his body, but Cisco still doesn’t believe him. Caitlin gets upset since all she can see is her father and she sends Cisco away.
Barry follows him to ask what’s going on and Cisco points out that Barry is only seeing what he wants to see – another perfect father-daughter moment like he got with Nora. If he’d look with logic, he might see what Cisco does.
After talking it out with Ralph, Cecile realizes she didn’t lose her mojo. Residual powers from her pregnancy have her being an empath now and she remembers that she felt the FEMA director’s fear. They realize he must be hiding something and they intend to find out what it is. The two of them return to the FEMA center with new information. The assistant director happens to drive a Lamborghini. That’s quite the car for a man working on a government salary. Turns out, he’s been telling citizens their claims were denied and then pocketing the money himself. No surprise that he willingly turns over the names, but Cecile turns him in anyway.
Back at Orlin’s house, he seems to be barely hanging on. The sword-hands girl did a real number on him. His vision goes blurry and he can barely stand. He ends up passing out when trying to change his bandage.
Barry tries to explain to Caitlin that Cisco was just worried about her and that there is a lot they don’t know. She refuses to believe anything other than that is her dad until she finishes the serum. She points out that if given to a human it will suppress their malignant side, but if she was to give it to a cryogenic meta, it would permanently suppress their human side. If Cisco is right, this meta side of her father could be trying to get Thomas erased completely.
It turns out that Cisco was right all along. When they confront Thomas, he shows his meta side. A blast of cold air crystallizes all the liquid in the lungs of Barry, Cisco, and Caitlin, knocking them out. This lets Meta-Thomas grab the serum and he heads to the DOD. He starts up the cold laser and the temperature starts dropping. Once it reaches negative four hundred and sixty degrees, aka absolute zero, he will be able to inject himself with the serum turning himself into a human icicle. Thus is born his meta name – Icicle.
Team Flash rushes to stop him. Unfortunately, it’s so cold that Nora and Barry are unable to run. The speed is dependent on their molecules moving. In such cold conditions, their molecules can barely move at all. Cisco, Ralph, and Caitlin use the extrapolator to breach there, but Ralph and Cisco are similarly affected. It’s so cold, they can barely move. Caitlin, on the other hand, is fine. Just as the temperature reaches absolute zero, Icicle prepares to inject himself. Out of nowhere, Caitlin knocks him back with an ice blast of her own. Just like that, Killer Frost is back! Woohoo!
He tries to talk her into joining him in erasing their human sides, but she refuses because of her friends. When he attempts to hurt them, she once again knocks him back. After a few solid punches, her actual dad came through for a brief moment, but then Icicle was back. He knocks Caitlin away and takes off through the roof. She breaks the cold laser and the room begins to instantly heat up. The team assures her that they will get her father back.
Since they now know that Killer Frost is still there, they realize that Devoe didn’t use Melting Point’s powers to take Killer Frost away. He used Brainstorm’s powers to create a mental block, one she broke through for a moment. Cisco gives her the mental activity enhancer in hopes that she will be able to hear Killer Frost. If they communicate enough and get strong enough, they won’t need the enhancer anymore. Caitlin is thrilled and for the first time, she gets to hear Killer Frost’s voice in her mind.
In the speed lab, Sally the satellite’s core sits on display after being salvaged by the mother-daughter duo of Iris and Nora. A jagged chunk missing from it matches the shape of Cicada’s dagger. In addition, Ralph and Cecile have info. They didn’t find a man matching Cicada’s injuries in their group of names, but they did find three children. There was a pair of twins with a deceased father and one Grace Gibbons. They assume this must Cicada’s daughter.
The doctor from the hospital comes to Orlin’s house to check on him. There’s a picture inside of Grace with who one would assume are her parents. It’s important to note that Orlin is not the man in the photo. She finds Orlin on the floor and wants to help him, but he refuses again and claims that it’s making him stronger. Whether he means the pain or the killing of metas, I’m not totally sure.
Chris Klein who plays Orlin Dwyer, aka Cicada, teased that we would be finding out a lot about who Orlin is and who Grace is to him in the 99th episode which will be airing next week. There’s no telling what we could be finding out. Perhaps Orlin time traveled, as well. Maybe Grace is actually his mother. Or maybe she’s just his niece. Who knows? So many possibilities!
We’ll find out on next week’s episode of The Flash. Watch it on The CW on Tuesday, December 27th, 2018 at 8/7c.