The Flash Reborn

"I just... I can't tell you... how I feel, Iris. It's like... everything that was wrong in my life. The pain, my past, my mistakes, it's all just washed away, and all I see is you, and us, and our future together. Iris, it's gonna be great."

—Barry Allen to Iris West

"The Flash Reborn"
Information
Season 4 » Episode 1
Episode number	70 of 184
Original airdate	October 10, 2017
Written by	Teleplay by: Todd Helbing Eric Wallace Story by: Andrew Kreisberg
Directed by	Glen Winter
Chronology
Preceded by	"Finish Line"
Followed by	"Mixed Signals"

"The Flash Reborn" is the first episode of the fourth season of The Flash, and the seventieth episode overall. It aired on October 10, 2017.

Synopsis

With Barry in the speed force, Iris, Kid Flash, Joe and Vibe have taken over protecting Central City. However, when a powerful armored villain threatens to level the city if The Flash doesn't appear, Cisco makes a risky decision to break Barry out of the speed force. However, the Barry that comes out isn't the same Barry that went in.[src]

Cast

Starring

• Grant Gustin as Barry Allen/The Flash
• Candice Patton as Iris West
• Danielle Panabaker as Dr. Caitlin Snow/Killer Frost
• Carlos Valdes as Cisco Ramon/Vibe
• Keiynan Lonsdale as Wally West/Kid Flash
• Neil Sandilands as Professor Clifford DeVoe/The Thinker
• Tom Cavanagh (credit only)
• Jesse L. Martin as Detective Joe West

Guest starring

• Danielle Nicolet as District Attorney Cecile Horton
• Kim Engelbrecht as Dr. Marlize DeVoe
• Britne Oldford as Shawna Baez/Peek-a-Boo

Co-starring

• Nevin Burkholder as Barfly
• Michaela Chalmers as Daughter
• Adam O'Neill as Male Driver
• Scott Perrie as Husband
• Mark Sweatman as Norvok

Uncredited

• Jeffrey C. Robinson as Samuroid

Plot

Six months after Barry entered the Speed Force, Iris, Cisco, Joe and Wally have been protecting Central City. Cisco and Wally are chasing Shawna Baez with Iris monitoring in S.T.A.R. Labs, having taken the leadership of the team. The team manage to catch her, but not without trouble.

The fact that Barry is gone has taken its toll on everybody. Joe, Cisco and Wally miss him and want him back, but Iris is convinced he is gone. Iris and Joe take a family dinner with Cecile, but Iris leaves, when Joe begins to talk about Barry. As she goes home, and sits on her couch, something flies right past the apartment window. She calls Cisco, and he, Wally and Joe along with CCPD surround the thing. It seems to be a some kind of flying samurai. He demands the Flash. Wally and Cisco boast to him, but the samurai uses his sword to cause a massive blast. The samurai tells that unless he faces the Flash in 24 hours, Central City will be destroyed.

The threat of samurai causes Cisco to come up with a way to free Barry from the Speed Force. He reveals, that he consulted with all of his scientific friends to figure out a way to free Barry, which he had started ever since he left. Iris is displeased about this, and denies Cisco's attempt. However Cisco is determined to do it. He goes to a bar, where he meets with Caitlin. Cisco tells her about his plan to Barry back, but he needs her help. Caitlin accepts, but a goon in the bar seems to think differently.

The next day Iris arrives at S.T.A.R. Labs, only to find no one's there. She tracks the van to the site, where Barry's abilities were first tested. There, Cisco introduces the plan he and Caitlin worked last night, and Caitlin greets everyone, and asks Joe for forgiveness. Joe hugs her and accepts it. Cisco's plan involves using the Speed Force Bazooka to energize a quark sphere, which will trick the Speed Force into thinking Barry is still there. They fire up the Bazooka on the sphere, lock it to the Speed Force but it vanishes and computer says "system failure". Cisco thinks they failed. Iris arrives and is disappointed. However, elsewhere, a Speed Force breach opens and engulfs a bus. Barry speeds out from the breach and runs away. He nearly crashes into a pickup truck. When he stops, the people in the pickup see him naked, and he faints.

In S.T.A.R. Labs, Iris is angry at Cisco for doing it behind her back, and she is also upset with Caitlin, as she's been gone for six months. Joe breaks up the arguments and gets a call from Cecile. She says that Barry has been found. The team goes to CCPD, where Cecile takes them to him, but tells them to be ready. As they enter the room, Barry has written it's walls with strange symbols. Everyone are happy to see him, but Barry doesn't seem to recognize them, and talks nonsense. Caitlin says they need to bring him to S.T.A.R. Labs and sedates him.

In S.T.A.R. Labs Caitlin learns that Barry is very healthy. Cisco thinks that the symbols he drew, is a message he's trying to send. They wake him up, but he is still messed up. Iris tries to talk to him in private and wants him to come back. But when she comes closer, he starts to vibrate, and runs to the cortex uncontrollably. Cisco can't stop him, but suddenly, an cryo blast is shot at him. It was Caitlin, using one of Cisco's cold guns. The lock Barry into the pipeline.

The samurai appears, and with no Flash, Wally disguises himself with Barry's suit, and engages him. He manages to fight for a while, but eventually, the samurai beats him and impales his leg. Concluding that it wasn't the Flash, the samurai flees.

Caitlin treats Wally's injury and Cisco is still trying to figure out Barry's code. His algorithm can't get it, and neither does Caitlin, saying it's all Greek. Cisco then figures it out, and runs the algorithm with an update. However, all Barry was saying with the code was "This house is bitchin'", which means nothing.

Joe gives Barry a shave, but it doesn't help either. Iris comes and Joe then tells her to have faith that Barry will come back. Samurai's 24 hours are up, and Joe leaves. Iris walks to Barry's cell and tells him to come get her.

CCPD surrounds the samurai, but samurai goes with his threat. Suddenly, Iris arrives and tells him to take her, as she believes, the Flash will come for her. Samurai takes Iris and flies away.

Joe runs to S.T.A.R. Labs, but the team has no idea, how to save Iris. Desperate, Joe runs to the pipeline and bes Barry to save Iris. At first nothing happens, but Joe keeps saying Iris is going to die. This triggers something in Barry, and his eyes crackle. Suddenly, he blasts himself out from the cell and runs to where samurai is taking Iris, into a wind power park. He also took the new suit Cisco made for him, and Caitlin sees he's running faster than ever before. Barry chases the Samurai and eventually intercepts the samurai, knocks him down, and saves Iris. He goes to see the samurai and takes off it's mask: it was a machine. Barry and Iris then have a reunion.

Back in the Labs, Caitlin examines him, and Barry's all right in every way. Cisco names the robot samurai Samuroid. Barry claims he has no memory of events after he entered the Speed Force, nor has he any recollection of the nonsense he spoke. Iris thanks Cisco for believing when she didn't, and everyone go home. Caitlin says she'll be there tomorrow. She goes back to the bar and talks to the thug. She wants him to tell Amunet she's out. The thug threatens that she can't. As Caitlin tries to walk away, the thug grabs her. This causes Killer Frost to emerge and she smashes the thug to a pinball machine, and softly freezes his head, but she doesn't kill him. She walks away and claims to have some fun. But soon after, she struggles, and Caitlin resurfaces.

Barry and Iris return home, and Iris says she couldn't sleep alone in their bed, nor could she watch their picture. Barry claims that his time in the Speed Force has made him feel, that all his sins, mistakes and bad things have been washed away. All he sees now is their happy future.

In an unknown location, the creators of the Samuroid discuss how their plan to use it in order to bring the Flash back has succeeded. The woman asks what now, and the man, who sits in a highly technological chair, says he is thinking.

Video

The Flash 4x01 Sneak Peek "The Flash Reborn" (HD) Season 4 Episode 1 Sneak Peek

The Flash The Flash Reborn Scene The CW

The Flash 4x01 Sneak Peek 3 "The Flash Reborn" (HD) Season 4 Episode 1 Sneak Peek 3

Trivia

• The title of the episode is an homage to the title of the Season 1 episode "The Flash is Born".
• This is the third episode of the series not to feature Tom Cavanagh.
• This is the first episode of the series to use a new title card.
• This is the first on-screen appearance of Shawna Baez since "Rogue Air".
• Barry's spectacular return from the Speed Force and his apparent confused state of mind while reuniting with Team Flash in the CCPD precinct somewhat resembles the Season 4 premiere of Smallville, entitled "Crusade". The latter episode features the return of protagonist Clark Kent from a several-month-long imprisonment in another plane of existence, alongside some temporary personality changes.
• After Barry returns from the Speed Force, he quotes numerous lines from the past and the future:
  • When he was trying to convince Joe that his father didn't kill his mother in a flashback from "Fastest Man Alive".
  • When he reminded "Harrison Wells" that the latter said the city was safe and there was no danger, which wasn't true in "Pilot".
  • When he explained the particle accelerator to Iris in "Pilot".
  • When he told Oliver that he's not sure he can be a hero like him in "Pilot".
  • When he told his mother that he and his father are okay after he traveled back in time to save her in "Fast Enough".
  • When he told "Harrison Wells" that he doubted that restraint made him the man he was today in "Fastest Man Alive".
  • When he sang the line "Every Hour, Every Minutes" in his song to Iris in "Duet".
  • When he was trying to convince Judge Hankerson that he was innocent of Clifford DeVoe's murder in "The Trial of The Flash" (which happens in the future).
  • When he told Iris that their future daughter, Nora West-Allen, shouldn't be in this time in "Nora" (which happens in the future).
• Near the start of the episode when the Samuroid first appears, Cisco jokingly calls him "Mifune". This is a reference to the famed Japanese actor Toshiro Mifune, well-known for his work with Kurosawa (below).
  • Cisco also mockingly nicknames the Samuroid as "Samurai Jackass", before going back on his suggestion. This is a reference to the animated series Samurai Jack.
• Wally refers to the Samuroid as "Kurosawa", referencing famous Japanese film director and screenwriter, Akira Kurosawa.
• Cisco claims to have "made a few slight modifications" to the Speed Force bazooka, making note of his reference to the well-known phrase by Han Solo in the Star Wars franchise.
• When needing to wake Barry up, Cisco thinks of playing Poker Face by Lady Gaga, which was the same song Barry previously woke up to in "Pilot".
• Cisco suggests that Barry's time may have given him the answers to "life, the universe, and everything", referencing The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
  • Caitlin follows this up by joking that the symbols Barry is drawing is his way of giving "42" to the prior question, a reference to its occurrence in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
• Killer Frost references the Hulk with the phrase "Don't make me frosty. You wouldn't like me when I'm frosty."
• This is the second time that The Flash's new suit appeared in the series. The first time was in the episode "The Once and Future Flash", which is worn by Barry's future self in 2024.
• Cisco exclaims, "Great Caesar's ghost!", a phrase popularly used by DC character Perry White, and "Excelsior", the catchphrase of Marvel Comics legend Stan Lee.
  • The former phrase was used on the same night in the DC's Legends of Tomorrow episode "Aruba-Con" by Martin Stein.
• Cisco mentions that Felicity Smoak and Curtis Holt were among those who helped him modify the Speed Force bazooka. This confirms that Felicity and Curtis were among the survivors of the Lian Yu explosions in the Arrow Season 5 finale, "Lian Yu".

Goofs

• It is obvious that a stand-in was used for Cisco in the over-the-shoulder shot near the end of the episode when Iris is talking to him. The stand-in's hair is a different color than Cisco's and his shirt is gray instead of black.