Barry and Cisco suspect that the new Dr. Wells has a dark secret. Caitlin seeks help from her long-distant mother.
Tropes:
- Actor Allusion: Julian mentions he's the heir to a rich, old family from England. Just like Draco Malfoy, Tom Felton's most famous role.
- Antagonist Title: Referring to the holographic Monster of the Week...and possibly Caitlin
- Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Caitlin and her mom.
- Battle Couple: The first real time since they started dating, we see Barry and Iris working together to evacuate people from the "monster's" path.
- Being Tortured Makes You Evil: The teenaged boy who created and unleashed the monster hologram is routinely bullied by the kids at his school. He didn't want to hurt people, but he wanted to be the one instilling fear for a change.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Nigel who first appears as a Nice Guy turns out to be a dick who plans on experimenting on Caitlin to make a name for himself.
- Bittersweet Ending: The teenager behind the attacks is stopped before he can do more damage and although he's taken into custody, Joe encourages him to turn his life around. Also, Barry and Julian finally found a common ground. But while Caitlin and her mother finally start patching things up, the former is in more danger of becoming Killer Frost every time she uses her powers....and they kick in anytime she becomes emotional.
- Break the Haughty: Julian finds his viewpoints turned upside down and becomes a better person because of it.
- Bullet Catch: Barry does this when a police sniper's bullet goes right through the "monster" and almost hits a bystander in the head.
- Bullying a Dragon: Nigel tries to imprison Caitlin with the intent to experiment on her...not too long after finding about the extent of her ice powers.
- The Bus Came Back: Cap. Singh finally appears for the first time this season.
- Con Man: What Wally calls H.R. Wells. He promises to convince them otherwise.
- A Day in the Limelight: This is a very Caitlin-centric episode.
- Didn't Think This Through: Dr. Tannhauser's assistant clearly did not consider what might happen if he tried to imprison a person with the kind of powers that Caitlin has. He very nearly pays for it with his life.
- Different World, Different Movies: On Earth-19, Alfred Hitchcock directed a film called “Murder on the Titanic” and Gladiator was called “Sweaty Naked Men”, which negatively affected its recognition.
- Dramatic Irony:
- In order to snap her out of her rage, Caitlin's mom tells her that she didn't raised her to be a killer.
- Julian tells Barry that if The Flash was able to change his mind on metahumans, he can also change his opinion on Barry.
- Fake Ultimate Hero: It's revealed that H.R. is not a scientist.
- Foreshadowing: H.R. has trouble turning on an audio recording Caitlin left, indicating he's not as scientific as he claims.
- Freudian Excuse: The teen behind the holographic monster created it just to cope with the bullying he received.
- Good All Along: While it first seems like he has a dark secret, H.R. only records messages because he is a novelist.
- The Ghost: H.R. mentions a partner back on his Earth who was the real scientific brains behind S.T.A.R. Labs (with H.R. being the businessman/industrial designer), but his name is not given. He also mentions that his Earth has a Flash.
- Icy Blue Eyes: Whenever Killer Frost overtakes Caitlin's mind, her eyes change colors.
- Idiot Ball: Caitlin may be scared of out her mind, but refusing to tell Team Flash about her powers can't end well.
- I Have This Friend: Caitlin approached her mother for help regarding her metahuman powers saying it's for a patient of hers. When her mom tries to brush her off, Caitlin accidentally freezes her mom's desk revealing she's the patient.
- In Spite of a Nail: Despite Barry "repairing" the Flashpoint timeline, Ronnie still died in his Heroic Sacrifice and Eobard still killed and replaced the Earth-1 Harrison Wells, suggesting that Season 1 still played as we saw it, albeit with Thawne returning to his own time and/or that Thawne being a time remnant, created by the Thawne that took Barry back to the present.
- Jerkass: Julian tries to get Barry fired or severely reprimand for his "infractions" and is quite vocal in his disappointment how Singh only gives him a warning.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Julian does have a legitimate point that Barry appears to recklessly disregard the rules, though he doesn't realize it's because of his double life as the Flash.
- The Load: After an entire episode of doing nothing but repeating sentences, H.R. Wells is revealed to be completely untalented in science, only giving people ideas. He begs them to let him prove otherwise.
- Locked Out of the Loop: Caitlin still refuses to tell Barry and Cisco about her powers.
- Motor Mouth: H.R. Wells, to such an extent that he gets on everyone's nerves, even Cisco's. Keep in mind, the cast is used to people like Felicity Smoak or Ray Palmer, so that's quite an accomplishment.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Julian when he finds out he nearly killed a misguided teenager.
- Mythology Gag:
- H.R. calls Wally "Walter", which was the name of the Dark Flash, Wally's Anti-Hero doppelgänger, in the comics.
- Like in the comics, it seems Caitlin's powers have less to do with projecting "cold", and more to do with sucking out heat from objects. Also like in the comics, the visual representation of the powers doesn't really reflect this.
- No Name Given: The teenager who created the monster hologram is not named at all in the episode.
- Pet the Dog: Near the end of the episode, Julian legitimately thanks the Flash for saving the day and is also grateful that the Flash stopped him from killing the teenager behind the monster attacks. He also admits that he was wrong about his initial thoughts about the Flash and Barry.
- Power Incontinence: Once again, Caitlin lost control over her ice powers by accidentally freezing her computer during The Stinger.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Singh knows better than to let go of a valuable CSI tech like Barry.
- The Resenter: Julian reveals he hates metas not only because most of them squander their powers by becoming criminals, but because he wishes he was one and he would use his powers to help people...while disapproving of the Flash because he believes his presence encourages the police to be lazy. The end of the episode shows he's starting to grow out of the latter part.
- Resignations Not Accepted: Just as Griffin Grey learned back in Season 2, once you become a meta you stay a meta whether you like it or not.
- Rewatch Bonus: Sharp-eyed viewers might notice early on that in all of the "monster's" rampages, there is a lot of mayhem and property damage but none of it comes from the monster itself - it all comes from people reacting to the monster, or exploding transformers.
- Shipper on Deck: Iris really wants her dad and the District Attorney to get together.
- Shout-Out: The monster in this episode bears a resemblance to Clover from Cloverfield.
- Slowly Slipping Into Evil: Caitlin is doing this involuntarily by using her power.
- Start of Darkness: Caitlin shows her first real sign of becoming Killer Frost, personality-wise. When Nigel tries to stop Caitlin from leaving, she gets angry as she frostbites his arms. Her eyes then become exactly like Killer Frost's until her mom gives her a Cooldown Hug, and she snaps back to her old self.
- Sympathy for the Devil: Julian of all people feels sorry for the teen, as he wanted to feel powerful.
- Tastes Like Friendship: At the end of the episode Barry asks Julian if he wants a drink and he says yes.
- Teen Genius: A fifteen year-old boy was able to create a hologram of a monster that "rampages" through Central City and sap power from nearby generators to power the hidden projectors (and presumably sound systems), all remotely.
