Barry tries to get the hang of the gadgets and features of the new suit Cisco made for him. The key word being tries. Meanwhile, there's some friction between Iris and Barry as they to try to re-adjust after Barry's absence just as a Technopath metahuman begins wreaking havoc.
- Aesop Amnesia: Caitlin hasn't told anybody about her latest Killer Frost problem; she almost comes out when the breach opens, but Caitlin is able to stop her from coming out, but she's just kicking the can down the road — after all, Keeping Secrets Sucks.
- Ambiguously Evil: The Warden of Iron Heights is apparently in cahoots with the Thinker.
- Asshole Victim: Kilg%re's hit list, as they stole his program and sold it out from under him, becoming rich and leaving him with nothing.
- Awesome, but Impractical: The new Flash suit is cutting-edge technology, but the long instruction manual and Barry's inexperience with it render this moot. Cisco ditches them at the end.
- Betrayal Insurance: Cisco has put a Babel code in the suit, which is a bomb that will kill Barry that will detonate in case he becomes evil like Savitar. Like his previous idea with the Cold Gun, it endangers Barry against the villain.
- Both Sides Have a Point: Iris and Barry are at odds over the latter's time in the Speed Force and how he acted when he got out. Barry had no choice to go into the Speed Force in order to save the world, and he understandably wants to get settled into his old life as quickly as possible. Even so, he hears an upset Iris out when she describes how she had to contend with the management of Team Flash and her own heartbreak at once for six months, and when she says that he shouldn't pretend those six months never happened.
- The Bus Came Back: Captain Singh returns to scene in this chapter.
- Comically Missing the Point: While there are some other pressing issues, and on some level she understands, when Gypsy is explaining the significance of 1-1-1 day, Cisco can only pick up on the numeral sequence needed for the anti-virus.Gypsy: [after being ignored by Cisco once again] It's like he doesn't know he's a dead man!
- Composite Character: Barry's smarmy behavior in this episode is a lot like Wally in his early years as the Flash.
- Continuity Nod:
- Barry sees a newspaper with the front page headline "Mayor Queen is Green Arrow".
- While in Couples' Therapy together, Iris mentions that both she and Barry have lost many friends, listing off Eddie, Ronnie, Francine, Snart, Laurel and H.R. as examples.Barry: [with a tinge of sadness] We've been to quite a few funerals.
- Costume Evolution: After three seasons of maroon, Barry's suit is finally scarlet — meaning he truly is the Scarlet Speedster.
- Crazy-Prepared: Deconstructed. All of the helpful gadgets that Cisco put in the new suit ended being used against Barry.
- "Eureka!" Moment:
- To override the suit's technology, Iris suggests Barry throw a lightning bolt at himself. Though both Caitlin and Cisco point out the risks of her idea, she counters they're running out of time.
- Likewise, Cisco is able to unravel the formula on the anti-virus against Kilg%re after Gypsy mentions 1-1-1.
- Everyone Has Standards: Though she basically admits to having no qualms about stealing from Kilg%re, Sheila's first thoughts after being saved by Wally is that Deacon made off with Tim, which she informs him with mounting concern.
- Flat "What": Barry drops one after Iris convinces him to do Couples Therapy to hash out their lingering issues, only for her to reveal she's already signed the two up for an appointment...in 30 minutes.
- Forgot About His Powers: Barry apparently feels that the 5 seconds or so it would take him to read that instruction manual could be better spent doing anything else at all.
- Gory Discretion Shot: The one co-worker that Kilg%re actually kills gets brutally slammed up and down in a hacked elevator, so much that he is apparently everywhere in it afterwards, as Barry puts it. Thankfully, we only see the characters' reactions.
- Half the Man He Used to Be: Tim Kwon almost ends up this way vertically, courtesy of Kilg%re.
- Innocently Insensitive: Barry's actions like finishing the wedding plans and canceling training for a romantic dinner probably seem like sweet romantic gestures, but Iris is hurt that he didn't ask her first.
- It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time: Cisco's explanation for pretty much all the tech he put in Barry's suit.Joe: What does he need a raft for?
Cisco: He runs on water, what if his speed ran out? He could drown!
Caitlin: Did you ever consider an oxygen tank?!? - Laser-Guided Karma: After Barry does things like finishing the wedding plans and canceling a training session without consulting Iris, she gets back at him by booking them for couples' therapy.
- Long-Distance Relationship: Though the two still love each other dearly, Barry and Iris were forced apart by rather traumatic circumstances for over 6 months and they simply can't just ignore this fact will have some serious repercussions, Iris acknowledges this, Barry however doesn't want to at first.
- Ludicrous Gibs: Implied with Kilgore's elevator victim.
- Man of Wealth and Taste: The Thinker is shown having finished Schubert's 8th Symphony. This is by extrapolating how he would have finished it after digesting his 600 other works.
- Mythology Gag:
- The hero's high-tech suit going rogue on its own may be a reference to "Lost Soul", an episode of Batman Beyond where a rogue A.I. hijacks Terry's suit.
- The Flash's suit inflating is reminiscent of the cover to The Flash #115, where Flash is struck with a ray that makes him get fatter. That issue was resolved by Barry keeping up the ruse he's still affected by inflating his suit.
- The name and purpose of the Babel protocol call to mind Justice League: Tower of Babel (adapted into an animated film as Justice League: Doom), where Batman created plans to take out his fellow superheroes should they ever turn evil but had said plans stolen by supervillains.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Cisco loaded Barry's suit with technology, which nearly gets him killed when going up against a technopath villain.
- Not What It Looks Like: Gypsy walks in on Cisco while he's examining a magazine spread. He immediately shows her it isn't a model but a motherboard. Gypsy, clearly annoyed at the geekiness of her boyfriend, wishes that it was a girl on the spread.
- Now You Tell Me: A serious example. When Barry decides to divert Tim's car right instead of left, Iris tells him that they started doing construction work on that road three months ago.
- Oh, Crap!: Said by Cisco when he realizes that Barry is fighting a technopath; all the fancy gadgets in Barry's suit are getting turned against him.
- Only Sane Man: Joe thinks everyone has gone insane when he sees Caitlin chasing after Cisco who's ranting about his Gypsy problems, and Barry and Iris are acting weird around each other.
- Pragmatic Adaptation: In the comics, Kilg%re is a sentient alien techno-organic virus, not a metahuman.
- Retcon: Warden Wolfe is African-American, while when we saw him in "Tricksters", he was white. Either Iron Heights got a new warden or well...Flashpoint!
- The Reveal: Something created a whole new batch of metahumans; it's implied DeVoe was behind it.
- "Risky Business" Dance: Barry at the start of the episode.
- She Cleans Up Nicely: Gypsy ditches her usual "job uniform" for her date with Cisco at the end of the episode. Cisco didn't want to be outdone, so he shows up looking sharp in a tux.
- Shipper on Deck: Caitlin has formed into this for both Barry and Iris, and Cisco and Gypsy, offering advice to her friends on dealing with some of the issues their relationships are facing.
- Shout-Out:
- Game of Thrones is part of Barry's pop culture catch-up.
- Also, Barry and Cisco are apparently both Silicon Valley fans.
- The new Flash suit could fire very Iron Man-like repulsor blasts from the hands.
- Smug Super: Barry is rather full of himself, nearly getting someone killed due to his cockiness as well as risking his relationship with Iris. He gets better.
- The Stinger: The Thinker ordering his minion to get ready to find the rest of his "subjects". The video feed of Kilg%re in Iron Heights is then joined by several still-static video feeds.
- Technobabble: Caitlin concludes that Kilg%re's computer code is organic at a glance, manages to render the Matrix Raining Code into the shape of a DNA strand, leading the rest of Team Flash to conclude it's caused by a metahuman.
- Too Dumb to Live: The woman on Kilg%re's revenge list. Metahumans have been a thing for years now, one of her colleagues shows up to warn her that Kilg%re's out for revenge, and what does she do when he breaks into her house? Starts mouthing off to him. She only survives because Wally and Joe expected Kilg%re to target her next.
- Understanding Boyfriend:
- At least that's what Cisco wants to believe in regards to Gypsy. Caitlin warns him to the contrary.
- Iris tries her hardest to be this, but the abandonment issues she's developed in his absence, and Barry's unwillingness to even address the problems the two are facing in their relationship forces all of her negative emotions she's been bottling inside for six months to come spewing forward.
- Villains Out Shopping: DeVoe has done nothing on the season so far, and he apparently spent the entire episode studying Schubert so he can finish the musician's famous Unfinished Symphony.
- We ARE Struggling Together: Barry and Iris find themselves at odds with each other which is only put to rest when Barry finally addresses the problems. Barry explains all the hardships he has to endure as the Flash, Iris calmly reminds him that he doesn't and shouldn't do so alone, that she will always bear the burden with him, therefore they must communicate.
- Wham Line:
- Kilg%re acknowledges that there are other metahumans like him that weren't created by the Particle Accelerator.
- DeVoe's assistant telling him that Kilg%re is in Iron Heights right where they want him to be.
- Wham Shot: Alongside Kilg%re, the Thinker's screen depicts eleven blank boxes, indicating that there will be eleven more metas coming.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Cisco takes a lot of flak from the rest of the team for the unnecessary (and dangerous, in the hands of Kilg%re) features he added to the new suit, especially the Self-Destruct Mechanism.
- Why Am I Ticking?: Said word-for-word by Barry when Kilgore activates the self-destruct feature of Barry's suit.
- You Are Not Alone: As stated above, when Barry and Iris are finally putting their squabbling and bickering behind them, Iris assures Barry that no matter the circumstances, she will willingly shoulder the weight of the world with him, he just has to let her.
