Your friendly neighborhood producer Dayna would like to remind you all that if someone asks you not to take off their necklace, you say YES! Enjoy this recap of the CW’s The Flash.

The opening dives right into the action with Abra Kadabra introducing himself to the security guards at the soon-to-be-shuttered Stagg Industries. He’s working the magician gimmick so hard I’m surprised he didn’t appear looking like this:

Just want to add a quick “fuck you” to my brain for making me remember Phantasio.

Spoilers under the cut.

Anyway, Abra Kadabra snaps his fingers and half the universe is wiped away…wait, wrong franchise. He snaps his fingers and teleports into a clear, bulletproof box to steal a thing (and avoid bullets), then switches places with the guards so they’re now inside the box. Then the box begins filling up with water.

After the title screen, Barry and Iris are at CC Jitters with Joe and Cecile. Iris is showing off her engagement ring, which…didn’t Cecile already see this? Like, weren’t Barry and Iris engaged for a couple of weeks before breaking it off? But I digress. After Iris gives the breakdown of how Barry proposed, Cecile reveals she has Hamilton tickets…only the show date is after Iris’ death. I blame Cecile for this faux pas; she really should know better than to try and make plans for after her future daughter-in-law’s impending demise at the hands of the God of Speed.

At S.T.A.R. Labs, Cisco is vibing the future, which is still unchanged. They’re stuck in a loop of trying to change things without understanding them, but Julian, Joe and Barry have to get to Stagg Industries. Before Julian leaves, Caitlin tells him they got an envelope addressed to him. He replies that it was opera tickets for them, but now she can just have them and go with whomever she likes. Cisco tells her that Julian will come around, but Caitlin doesn’t believe that.

At the crime scene, they come up with bupkiss. Joe mentions he wishes he never learned about Iris’ fate, but they’re interrupted by Cisco, who tells them there is a break-in at Kord Industries. Barry zips over and gets to confront Abra. Abra knows both Barry’s identity and Iris’ fate, and uses that knowledge to distract Barry while he makes whatever he’s stolen disappear. Just then, Cynthia Reynolds portals in and tries to capture Abra, but he uses a card trick to hide himself and gets away.

Cynthia gives us the 411 on Mr. Kadabra (64th century thief traveling to multiple Earths to steal various bits of technology for unknown reasons and leaving a string of bodies in his wake). Barry tells Joe and Iris about his conversation with Abra, and how he might be the key to figuring out how to save Iris. Cisco tries to vibe him to no avail, but then configures the S.T.A.R. Labs satellites to search for anyone who vibrates at a different frequency. He tries to hit on Cynthia again, but she’s still not interested. The satellites ping Kadabra’s location, and the team heads out to confront him.

Unfortunately, the Kadabra the team finds is just a hologram. The real one is at S.T.A.R. Labs. Kadabra takes out Joe, but Caitlin gets an emergency signal out and Barry manages to get Kadabra in power-dampener cuffs before he can take what he was after.

Kadabra bargains for his freedom with the one thing that would work on Barry: Savitar’s secret identity. Barry knocks him out and puts him in the pipeline, which pisses off Cynthia to no end. Cynthia is super gung-ho about returning him to her Earth and having him put to death, and Cisco goes to talk to her. Kadabra continues trying to convince Barry, Joe, and Iris to let him go in exchange for Savitar’s identity.

Cisco gets a little information about Kadabra from Cynthia, who mentions he killed someone close to her. Barry and Iris argue about letting Kadabra go, and Iris won’t let Barry give in to his demands. Joe, on the other hand, isn’t about to let his daughter die and opens the door to get the information. Cynthia breaches in, and Kadabra teleports away. He goes to the time vault and steals the power source Harrison Wells kept in there. Joe, Caitlin, and Julian intercept him at the elevator, but he detonates a small explosive to get away, leaving Caitlin with a pipe firmly lodged in her torso.

They get her to the med bay, where the x-rays show multiple pieces of shrapnel in her abdomen. Because she’s a meta, she can’t go to the hospital, and she quickly asks Julian to operate on her while she supervises her own surgery. Cynthia confronts Joe, and they verbally lay into each other. After Joe leaves, Cisco confronts Cynthia, who reveals that Kadabra killed her partner/lover and that’s why she needs to capture him.

Julian starts Caitlin’s surgery, and it’s going fine until he has to remove the last piece. It’s lodged in deep, but he gets it and stitches her up successfully. Cynthia, meanwhile, has figured out that Kadabra’s building a time machine to get back to the 64th century. Barry manages to get Cynthia to realize they need each other’s help to catch Kadabra. When Kadabra opens a wormhole, the team gets there in time to force him away from it. Eventually, Barry overtakes Kadabra and phases him through the time machine just before it goes through the wormhole and into the future.

Barry makes one last plea to Kadabra, but it falls on deaf ears. Cynthia takes him back to Earth-19 for his execution. Julian is sitting with Caitlin when she wakes up, and they’re finally reconciling. Joe and Iris are having a talk when Barry comes in with a plan to go to the future and find out what he needs to know. Cisco visits Caitlin to give her some Jell-O when H.R. returns from a two-day-long love romp. They make a few jokes, but then Caitlin passes out and starts to crash. They try valiantly to save her, but Caitlin Snow dies right in front of her friends.

Julian refuses to accept this and pulls off her meta-dampening pendant. Caitlin begins to transform. Her hair goes white, her eyes turn pale blue, and an icy blast knocks the team to the ground. Killer Frost is back.

This was a good episode, which I attribute to the lack of H.R. Next time, it’s back to the future!

George Hatch can be found on Twitter at @Raeseti, desperately trying not to think about H.R. Wells having a “love romp”.