Recap: THE FLASH S6E5 – “Kiss Kiss Breach Breach”

Last week, Ramsey Rosso (Sendhil Ramamurthy) embraced his dark side, becoming Bloodwork! Barry Allen (Grant Gustin)’s friends adjusted to the news that The Flash is destined to die in the Crisis! Nash Wells discovered an apparent underground hideout for Mar Novu, aka The Monitor (LaMonica Garrett)! And Ralph Dibny (Hartley Sawyer) resumed work on the missing persons case of Sue Dearbon! This week, The Flash S6E5, “Kiss Kiss Breach Breach,” takes a brief break from the season’s ongoing storylines for a Flash-less episode that still packs an entertaining and emotional punch.

Trouble Is My Business

The episode opens with Cisco (Carlos Valdes) sitting alone in his workshop at S.T.A.R. Labs, monologuing to himself about the nature of truth. A holocube communication device sits on the table in front of him. He looks forlorn, and as he sits there a group of armed men in black coats enter, surrounding him. One of the men announces he’s under arrest.

From there we flashback to twelve hours earlier. With Rosso having been off the grid for two weeks, Barry and Iris (Candace Patton) are preparing to enjoy a little downtime with a trip to Tahiti. Barry asks Cisco and Ralph if they’re going to be alright while he and Iris are gone, and Cisco introduces them to B.A.R.I., the Barry Allen Replicated Intelligence, which appears on a computer screen as a small animated version of Barry. Cisco created it based on Barry’s past leadership decisions, and the group quizzes it on things only Barry would know. Barry reiterates that Cisco is in charge, not B.A.R.I., and with that he and Iris speed off. Ralph asks Cisco what their plan is, and Cisco consults B.A.R.I. and tells Ralph he and Killer Frost (Danielle Panabaker) should go stake out Rosso’s lab.

Under the streets of Central City, Joe West (Jesse L. Martin) finds Nash Wells (Tom Cavanagh) chipping away at the wall he saw the afterimage of The Monitor disappear into last week. Joe introduces himself and says he’s been keeping tabs on Nash. He asks Nash why he’s digging a hole in the wall, and Nash attacks him with his wrist gauntlet. Joe grabs Nash’s arm and deflects the attack, and the gauntlet accidentally blasts the ceiling of the tunnel they’re in, causing a cave-in.

That evening, Cisco and his girlfriend, Kamilla (Victoria Park), are settling into bed for the night. As Cisco lays there, his eyes dart open, and he rises from the bed, seemingly not of his own volition. He picks up a pair of scissors and prepares to cut his hair when suddenly he comes to his senses, dropping the scissors and yelping. This wakes Kamilla, and she says he must’ve been sleepwalking, which she says he’s done once before that week. They get back in bed, and as they do Cisco almost tells Kamila he loves her before backing off in the most uncomfortable way possible. They look at each other awkwardly before each turns over to go back to sleep. Suddenly a glowing knife appears across the room from them, cutting a vertical slit in thin air, and Breacher (Danny Trejo), a retired ‘collector’ from Earth-19 tasked with returning multiversal anomolies to their proper worlds, steps through into Cisco’s room. Cisco and Kamilla sit up, and Breacher sits on the end of the bed silently. Cisco asks what’s wrong, and after some prodding Breaching reveals that his daughter, Cynthia (Jessica Camacho), aka Gypsy—and Cisco’s ex-girlfriend—is dead.

Farewell, My Lovely

Later, at S.T.A.R. Labs, Breacher tells Cisco and Kamilla that Gypsy was killed while tracking a ‘hacker’ called Echo on Earth-1, and that her death triggered a ‘net’ to go up around the planet to keep anyone from escaping. He says Gypsy’s killer is still out there, and he wants Vibe’s help to avenge her death. Kamilla tells him Cisco isn’t Vibe anymore, having taken the metahuman cure last year. Breacher asks if Cisco was worried about something called breach psychosis, a condition where suppression of a breacher’s powers causes hallucinations and blackouts, which Cisco waves off, saying his powers aren’t suppressed but gone entirely. Kamilla says Cisco can still help without his powers, and after consulting B.A.R.I. Cisco says they should check out the crime scene, which Breacher doesn’t want to do. Kamilla offers to help with the investigation.

Back in the tunnel, Joe and Nash get up after being knocked down by the cave-in. The two snipe at each other about how to get out, Joe trying to get a signal on his cellphone and Nash pretty much ignoring everything Joe says. Nash pulls a weapon from his bag and fires it at the pile of rubble. The laser blast ricochets around the tunnel before striking a gas line, igniting a huge fireball. Joe and Nash yell at each other some more, and Nash tells Joe that the fireball used up a majority of the oxygen in the tunnel, and that they have less than an hour of air left.

Outside a downtown Central City bar, Killer Frost finds a pile of thick black goo where Rosso has claimed another victim. She’s joined by Ralph, who admonishes her for going out without backup, and Frost insists it’s her responsibility to stop Rosso. Ralph argues that she needs to have faith that people can help her, and Frost says she knows who Rosso has faith in before walking away.

Cisco and Kamilla arrive at an industrial site, the scene where Gypsy was killed. As they approach Cisco begins to try and finally tell Kamilla that he loves her, but they’re interrupted by collector agents from Earth-19, who are investigating the crime scene. The lead investigator, Zak Zeal (Matt Ellis, the agent who arrests Cisco in the cold open), greets them, and he and Cisco verbally spar about their respective relationships with Gypsy. Zeal agrees to let Cisco and Kamilla help, telling them Gypsy was killed between 2:30 and 4:30 AM the previous night with a trans-sonic demolecularizer, which vaporized her completely.

Later, as Cisco and Kamilla recover from what they’ve seen, Cisco assures her that, although he’s upset about Gypsy’s death, he’s not still hung up on her, which Kamilla understands. As Cisco again prepares to tell Kamilla he loves her, they’re again interrupted by Zeal, who tells them they need to leave, but not before getting in one last jab about taking over Gypsy’s job as a result of her death. Cisco is suspicious, and B.A.R.I. tells him he and Kamilla need to split up their investigation: Kamilla will use the S.T.A.R. Labs satellites to track the energy signature from the weapon used to kill Gypsy, while Cisco will, in his words, “do the impossible.”

The Big Sleep

Back underground, Nash is trying to find a way out, while Joe is conserving his energy. Nash yells at Joe, mocking him for thinking anyone is coming to rescue them, and then falls to the floor in exhaustion. A calm Joe tells Nash a story about his neighbors rallying to support Joe and Iris after Joe’s wife left, saying that it taught him to have faith in people.

Back at S.T.A.R. Labs, Cisco explains to Breacher that, using some truly spectacular pseudoscience, they’re going to use the object that killed Gypsy to vibe residual energy from her murder in their minds. B.A.R.I. initiates a vibrational sequence, and Cisco and Breacher join hands and close their eyes. The two witness Gypsy struggling with a hooded figure, who draws the demolecularizer on her and fires, killing her. Meanwhile, Kamilla’s trace of the weapon is complete: it’s in S.T.A.R. Labs. She races to Cisco’s workshop and finds the demolecularizer in a drawer, as Cisco and Breacher see the hooded figure pull their hood down to reveal Cisco’s face.

Coming out of the vision, Breacher attacks Cisco, who swears up and down that he didn’t kill Gypsy. Kamilla returns with the murder weapon, not really helping matters. Cisco realizes he may have done it when he sleepwalked the previous night, which Breacher chalks up to breach psychosis. He backs off from killing Cisco, telling him he has one hour to get his affairs in order and turn himself in.

Underground, Nash is rigging a bomb to destroy the rubble pile. Joe tells him that will kill them both, and Nash says if they do nothing they’ll die anyway. He questions how Joe can have so much faith that someone will come for them, and Joe tells him about The Monitor and The Flash’s impending death, and that he has to believe that Barry’s death will be for the greater good. Nash stops what he’s doing at the mention of The Monitor, and as he looks at Joe the rubble begins to move. Ralph appears, squeezing his way into the tunnel with them, and saying he tracked Joe down there after CCPD told him they hadn’t seen Joe in a few hours.

At Ramsey Rosso’s lab, Caitlin arrives, saying she got Rosso’s message. Rosso has developed thick black veins along his arms and neck, and black blood drips from his fingertips. He says he used to think of Caitlin as a sister, and asks her to join him in immortality, showing her how he can control the dark matter-infused blood. The two debate the natural order, and Caitlin tries to reason with Rosso, who grabs her by the throat, lifting her above his head. He drops her, saying next time he won’t be so lenient, and leaves her to gasp for her breath.

The Long Goodbye

At S.T.A.R. Labs, Cisco and Kamilla discuss what to do next. Kamilla insists Cisco is innocent, and says Cisco hasn’t been trusting himself since Barry picked him as the new team leader. Cisco questions whether he’ll be able to lead the team the way Barry has, and Kamilla tells him Barry picked him to lead in his own way. She calls the doubts in Cisco’s mind “noise in your head,” which gives Cisco an idea. He realizes the white noise machine he uses to sleep has been hacked and coded to mess with his mind in a way that mimics breach psychosis. Kamilla asks who would be smart enough to do that, and Cisco responds ominously that he would.

We’re back to the cold open, now, Cisco waiting for Breacher and the collector agency to come arrest him. As they surround him and Zeal pronounces him under arrest, Cisco stands and says he’s guilty, and that the holocube will tell them everything they need to know about Gypsy’s death. Zeal orders the ‘net’ around the world to come down, and once it’s off he moves to put cuffs on Cisco, but they pass right through Cisco’s hologram hands. The real Cisco appears in the doorway behind them, saying he needed them to take the net down, and trapping them in the room with a forcefield.

From there, Cisco returns to the crime scene. He finds Echo, now revealed as a Cisco from another Earth, and draws the demolecularizer on him. Cisco tells Echo how he figured out what Echo had done to frame him, planting the weapon in Cisco’s workshop and hacking the white noise machine to make him think he had breach psychosis. Echo then tells Cisco how he killed Gypsy after she hesitated in battle with him after seeing his face—Cisco’s face. Echo swats the weapon out of Cisco’s hands and the two fight, Echo eventually gaining the upperhand and grabbing the weapon. Echo pulls the trigger, but instead of firing, a forcefield appears around him. Cisco says he programmed the weapon to trap whoever fired it, and as he talks a breach opens up and Zeal, Breacher, and the rest of the agents come through.

Back at S.T.A.R. Labs, Cisco, Kamilla, and Breacher share a drink. Breacher says Echo is in jail back on Earth-19, and he apologizes to Cisco for losing faith in him. Cisco wonders aloud why Gypsy brought Echo to Earth-1 before she died, and Breacher says it’s because she knew Cisco would find her killer. He invites Cisco and Kamilla to Gypsy’s remembrance, saying she would’ve liked Kamilla, and that he does, too. Cisco rhetorically asks “what’s not to love?”, and Breacher excuses himself, using a breach device to return to Earth-19. Cisco and Kamilla both say they love each other in so many words, and the two kiss.

Later, Barry and Iris return from their vacation to find Cisco in the cortex. Barry asks how B.A.R.I. worked out, and Cisco says he had to get rid of it and make his own decisions, which Barry already knew was going to happen. Iris tells Cisco how sorry they were to hear about Gypsy, and Cisco wonders aloud if it’s wrong to feel the way he does about Kamilla in the face of what happened to Gypsy. Iris says it just shows how much he loves Kamilla, and Cisco muses that he wouldn’t be the man he is today if it weren’t for Gypsy.

Elsewhere in S.T.A.R. Labs, Frost and Ralph are making sure Joe and Nash are okay after their underground ordeal. Ralph asks what Nash was doing down there, and Joe says if he tells them they might be able to help him. Nash agrees and tells them to bring the rest of the team to the tunnels tomorrow morning. “I know how to save Barry Allen,” he says as he swaggers off.

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Overall, The Flash S6E5 was a definite change of pace from the ongoing Crisis preparations. It did a nice job of advancing the relationship between Rosso and Caitlin, and put a bow on an old relationship of Cisco’s. I’m sad that Gypsy is gone, as I was hoping she would pop up again for Crisis and we might finally get a Justice League Detroit adventure with Steel and Vixen from Legends of Tomorrow, but alas, my fan fiction will have to do for now. Come back next week to find out what Nash knows about preventing Barry’s fate, and to see just how far Ramsey Rosso will continue to fall.