Things are starting to heat up in The Flash. I mean this quite literally. In an episode dedicated to everything Firestorm we learned a monumental amount about the character and how exactly the merger of two super-charged molecular beings can create a mammoth of a superhero.
Most of this season we have seen Professor Stein in pretty bad shape. After the atomic blast that hit Central City, and the death of Ronnie, he has been struggling to keep his powers harnessed due to the need for a second being to share them. This week was the search for possible candidates to perform the merge with. After a bit of research, the team at S.T.A.R LABS discovers that there are two potential matches. One of which is Dr. Henry Hewitt. Hewitt is a scientist who is of equal intelligence of Professor Stein, and a huge fan of Stein’s works. For those of you who are not in the know of comics, Hewitt is the guy that eventually becomes Tokamak. The other is Jefferson “Jax” Jackson. Jax is a meta-human who had aspirations of being a college football player, but was hit by the particle accelerator blast, thus ending all of his dreams to attend college on a scholarship. The chip on his shoulder because of the incident is totally understandable. The team approaches both and decides to attempt the merge with Hewitt after Jax denies the request, despite him being the better match.
Caitlin Snow decided to take it upon herself to implement her will on everyone as to who the new Firestorm should be. She’s so forceful with Jax that he walks out of S.T.A.R labs. I get it, your husband was the last one and he was killed. There’s some serious shoes to fill here. However, her need to be right becomes a bit of a problem when the merge with Stein and Hewitt fails. Hewitt later in his own labs becomes a super human and you can see the switch into mega evil as he starts charging up his electric powers and begins to hunt Caitlyn down. Coincidentally, he finds her when she’s apologizing to Jax, and before Hewitt can harm them, Jax throws car parts at him giving Caitlin and Jax time to escape to S.T.A.R labs.
I was a little confused that Jax went so willingly with Caitlin considering a meta-human just tried to murder them while he was screaming “this isn’t what you promised.” Maybe it was the sight of Professor Stein on what looks like a death bed that swayed his decision to merge. When they do, it is a glorious sight to behold. Flames, flight, dual personality, the whole works. Almost immediately after the first merge, Hewitt starts attacking the football field where Jax got hit by the blast, a little ironic. Hewitt uses the stadium lights to charge up his energy while Barry Allen as the Flash and now Jax/Stein as Firestorm rush to save the day.
This battle was really cool. It’s discovered that Hewitt is an egotistical maniac with anger issues. Now knowing this the team discovers that the angrier he gets, the more powerful he gets. They use this as a weapon to get him so fired up that he implodes. At the stadium we get to see Firestorm in action. He’s a little wobbly at first when he gets hit by an electric blast from Hewitt, but regains his composure with the help of the omnipresent voice of Professor Stein. I want a brilliant professor subconscious, that would be pretty fantastic. The team takes Tokamak down and goes on to see another day, with the addition of an awesome new character.
There were a lot of differences in this episode in comparison to others. Barry Allen wasn’t really featured a lot throughout this episode. I really like this dynamic because it proves that the other characters are written strongly enough to hold their own. That being said, there are some plot arcs here that I’m not really feeling. The whole relationship between Barry and Patty is beginning to get old. How much awkward flirting can one really do before someone makes a move? In this episode Patty asks Barry for help on a case that she’s looking into about a half shark, meta-human cyborg. Barry agrees to run some tests on a bag of shark teeth she hands him, and they both decide such a thing couldn’t be real. Oh boy, were they wrong. Barry was looking for Patty to make a move after a pep talk from Joe and sees her in a coffee shop across the street. The episode ended with the mammoth shark grabbing The Flash. and is there in time to use her gun to shoot the shark, which has zero effect. OH MY GOD IT’S KING SHARK! The two are saved by a shot dealt from no else than Harrison Wells.
What is going on with Harrison Wells? I need to know! This show keeps throwing his face on the screen for five second clips and it’s the biggest tease in comic show history. Hopefully now because Barry knows his identity, that we can delve more into why he’s back and what he’s doing here.
Another side plot is that Iris’ mother Francine is back. She tells Joe that she’s dying from MacGregor’s disease and she wants Iris back in her life for her final years. Iris’ denies her and discovers through Investigative journalism that she has a bother that she never knew about. WHO COULD IT BE?
This week was a pretty solid episode. There were fantastic cameos and highlighting to characters that prove the depth and awesomeness of this show. This episode was also crucial for setting up Legends of Tomorrow by introducing Jax. He’s the guy to keep an eye out for in the new show, and he looks absolutely awesome. Cisco is having some inner battles about his relatively new discovery of powers. Stein gives him an adorable pep talk about how he can use them for good and that he should embrace them and tell his friends. That whole speech was comic book gold and adorable. Next week is going to be interesting and I can’t wait.
Fun Fact: This episode title was taken from multiple series of Firestorm comics.
