Catching Up: The Flash Episode 411, "The Elongated Knight Rises"

With Barry passing time in Iron Heights Prison, the city is without its hero, The Flash. Inside, Barry (GRANT GUSTIN) runs into Axel Walker (DEVON GRAYE), the son of the original Trickster. The meeting is brief, because later that night Axel is taken to the infirmary, as part of a plan to bust him out of prison by his mother, Zoey Clark (CORINNE BOHRER, reprising her role as Prank from the 1990 THE FLASH series).

But Zoey's plans do not include Axel resuming his life of crime as The Trickster as he continues his attempts to garner his father's attention. But when she's unable to stop him, he runs afoul of the city's newest superhero -- the stretchy man! Ralph (HARTLEY SAWYER) thinks he's indestructible, having already stopped bullets and bombs with his elastic body. But when Trickster pulls out his special acid, he discovers Ralph's kryptonite: he can be melted!

Suddenly Ralph is no longer feeling very heroic. And when Trickster's mom decides to stop taking her medications, she falls right back into her Prank persona -- a delightfully manic sidekick much more in line with the original Harley Quinn than what the SUICIDE SQUAD offered up. The Trickster's not done with Ralph, since he got away (thanks to a quick rescue from Cisco (CARLOS VALDES), so he orchestrates a new trap, complete with hostages.

Ralph can't work up the nerve to go. But he does have a plan. Sneaking into Iron Heights, he talks with Barry and offers to break him out. As though Barry couldn't just vibrate through the walls himself. Barry gives Ralph some insights as to what courage means, leaving Ralph with the inspiration needed to do what needs to be done -- and in a new costume, to boot! Cisco has miniaturized the Elongated Man costume into a matchbook -- can a miniaturized Flash outfit that can fit into a ring be far behind?

Barry's got issues of his own within Iron Heights. Being a former cop, he's marked by the inmates. But he's also found himself a guardian angel in the form of Big Sir (BILL GOLDBERG), who owes Barry's dad a favor. But when Big Sir saves Barry from a beat-down, he puts a target on himself, and now Barry has to watch out for him, without revealing his super-speed powers.

What's really going to get the Flash fans talking, however, is the reappearance of our mystery girl, played by JESSICA PARKER KENNEDY. We first saw her at the botched wedding of Barry and Iris (CANDICE PATTON) during the SUPERGIRL chapter of the CRISIS ON EARTH-X crossover event. There were veiled references that she was a time-traveler, there to witness an historic event. Tonight, she is at Jitters, when neither Cisco nor Ralph can pay for their coffee, and pays the bill for them. "Paying things forward," as she puts it. Cisco compliments her on her Oregon Trail t-shirt, and they part ways. But as they leave, we see her at her table, writing in a notebook -- and the characters she uses are identical to those Barry was scribbling all over the walls when he was pulled from the Speed Force at the beginning of this season. Is it possible that Kennedy is playing Dawn Allen, one half of the Tornado Twins? (Twins would play into Barry's statement "We're going to need more diapers," which he uttered during that same aforementioned time when his mind was a bit shattered.) Or, since there's a Legion of Super-Heroes arc happening in SUPERGIRL right now, might she be Barry and Iris's granddaughter, Jenni Ognatz, the Legionnaire speedster known as XS? It's going to be pretty exciting to find out! I love a good mystery, and this one has my nose twitching!