We’ve been away from the Flash for a few weeks, and it’s good to have Barry & company back at work. Season 2, episode 10 opens with Barry and Patty being all lovey-dovey and supercute together, and then SWOOSH, Zoom blasts through the scene, makes off with Patty, and drops her off the top of a building. Of course, Barry wakes up, it was only a nightmare.

Next we join Joe West as he’s showing newly-discovered son Wally around the police station with Iris. Wally disses Joe in front of the captain, and then a perpetrator brought into the station in cuffs seems to know Wally. Wally denies this, and then splits. Something is up with Wally.

Patty takes Iris out to coffee to get some inside info about Barry. She can’t figure out why he’s not sharing more or telling her more. Iris doesn’t have much to tell her. Come on ladies, he’s a guy.

Back at Star Labs, Wells is trying to figure out how to make Barry faster. We know he’s also (seemingly) planning to help Zoom steal any speed that Barry gains. Cisco offers another perspective, and gathers to the teams to explain that he’s found a metahuman who isn’t fast, but is able to slow everything down around himself. Cisco calls him “The Turtle”. Thanks to some quick thinking and Barry’s superfast computer operation, they figure out where this “Turtle” will strike next, and it happens to be just at that same moment, and, believe it or not, at the Central City police station. Barry zips over there, and witnesses the Turtle at work, but is powerless to stop him.

Back at Star Labs, Barry explains to the team how he was caught in “turtle time”. At least the team has gained some security footage, and they determine that The Turtle is one Russell Glosson, a “small-time thief” who seemed to have stopped thieving after the particle accelerator explosion. Everything in this show, if you haven’t noticed, seems to harken back to that particle accelerator explosion. If you ever watched Smallville, this may be starting to remind you of the oft-recalled meteor rocks.

Joe, Barry, and Iris wait at the house for Wally to join them for dinner, but he doesn’t show. Iris and Barry have a chat about Patty, and Iris tells him that if he’s serious, he’ll tell her the truth. Barry plans on doing this. Come on, Barry. Patty is nice and all, but Iris is right in front of you, she knows you, clearly cares, and well, she’s beautiful.

Next, the team thinks they know when The Turtle will strike next – at a black tie art exhibit. Barry decides to invite Patty, and he tells Cisco and Caitlyn that he’s going to reveal to Patty that he’s the Flash. Cisco is supportive. Caitlyn clearly is conflicted about this. Wells catches Barry on the way out and tells him that if he really cares about Patty, he’ll keep her at a safe distance. They go to the art opening, and sure enough, the Turtle shows up. Patty recognizes him and pulls her gun. The Turtle slows everyone down, and to get away, shoots down a chandelier right above Patty, and he sees Barry save her. The Turrle gets away, and now he can see that there’s someone that The Flash cares about.

Of course, Barry did not get around to telling Patty that he’s the Flash. He meets up with her at her place later, and she is not thrilled that he apparently ditched her at the art opening, where she was almost killed (though saved, ironically, by Barry, unbeknownst to her). She tells Barry that he’d better figure out what he wants in their relationship, “fast”.

Cut to the mean streets of Central City, where Wally West is drag racing, and wins easily. Joe witness this. Wally is not apologetic and tells Joe that drag racing is the only way he can pay his mother’s hospital bills. When Joe offers to help, Wally says he’s the man of the house in his family, and that Joe should go back to his own family.

Back to Patty’s place. We don’t know how he tracks her down so quickly, but the Turtle shows up and abducts Patty. He tells her that he’s not going to kill her, but that he wants her “to stop moving … forever.” Mr. Creepyface Turtle shows Patty exactly what he means, revealing his wife in a glass display case, and if she’s not dead, she sure looks it. And he’s got another empty glass case next to this one, with Patty’s name on it.

Barry and the team deduce that The Turtle is keeping all the things he takes, and they figure this out quickly enough for Barry to save Patty, who is clearly terrified. Meanwhile, Wally stops by Joe’s house, apparently to pick up a sweater that he left behind. Wally and Joe manage to bury the hatchet over Chinese take-out.

The next day, Barry seeks out Patty and tells her he’s ready to be honest with her. Before he can, though, she tells him that she’s leaving Central City. That she’s moving on. “From the job?” he asks. “From everything.” Ouch. He calls after her but she walks off.

As the episode closes, we’re with Wells as he’s making a voice journal entry, speaking in effect to his daughter, about how he felt when he was taken, about the fear he felt, but also the “dark instinct” that would lead him to do “unspeakable things” to get her back. And as he’s doing this, he opens the Turtle’s cell and jams some kind of metal medical pistol into the Turtle’s nose to either inject something into his brain, or more likely, extract something. Remember the scene in Total Recall when Arnold Schwarzenegger has to pull a tracker out of his own head through his nose? This is like that, but much quicker.

In one final scene, we see a Reverse Flash blast onto a suburban street. We don’t know where or when this is. This Reverse Flash is Eobard Thawne, and he’s got advanced future tech, and he’s as clueless as his whereabouts as we are.

We expect to see more of this guy in next week’s episode, which is titled “The Reverse-Flash Returns”. Stay tuned, and let us know what you thought of this episode by leaving us a comment. Thanks for reading.