Warning: spoilers for next week’s episode of The Flash are ahead!
After getting a major beatdown from the demonic Zoom this past Tuesday, Barry Allen will be in no condition to fight next week on The Flash. Unfortunately, this comes at a bad time, as the telepathic, super intelligent gorilla Grodd is back in town and ready to cause trouble. We still don’t know how Barry will get back into action during “Gorilla Warfare,” but the S.T.A.R. Labs group already has a plan to deal with Grodd, and it involves the return of an old foe…or at least that’s what it looks like on the surface.
Before anyone gets excited, no, this isn’t Eobard Thawne, the man who killed Barry’s mother and was erased from existence in the The Flash Season 1 finale. What we have in this official CW image is the Earth 2 Harrison Wells wearing a Reverse-Flash suit that has presumably been sitting in a corner at S.T.A.R. Labs with the rest of Thawne’s possessions. Lack of super speed aside (as far as we know), Earth 2 Wells obviously resembles his Earth 1 counterpart perfectly, though he doesn’t look like he’s enjoying dressing as a speedster. Man, cowl hair looks way worse than average hat hair.
So why is Earth 2 Wells wearing this Reverse-Flash suit? Well, fans of The Flash will remember that years before the particle accelerator exploded, Thawne as Harrison Wells stopped General Wade Eiling’s experiments on Grodd. Viewers later heard him telepathically call Wells “father,” making it clear he felt affection for the man. He may not know that his “dad” is gone, and as seen in the New Zealand promo for “Gorilla Warfare” below, Team Flash is going use that to their advantage. By disguising Earth 2 Wells as the Reverse-Flash, they’ll use him as bait in order to stop Grodd, though as is often the case, it’ll probably backfire.
The last time we saw Grodd in Season 1’s “Grodd Lives,” he was following Thawne’s orders and distracting Flash in the Central City sewers. Barry managed to break free of Grodd’s mental control, and when the gorilla tried to take him out the old fashioned way, he was struck by a train. He survived, but has been in hiding since then. When he returns next week, he’ll be kidnapping Caitlin Snow, with whom he has some “unfinished business.” Think of her as the Fay Wray to his King Kong.
New episodes of The Flash air Tuesdays at 8 p.m. EST on The CW.
