The Fury of Firestorm Plot:
Barry (Grant Gustin) and the team look for another Firestorm match for Dr. Stein (Victor Garber). When the team meets Jefferson Jackson (Franz Drameh), Caitlin (Danielle Panabaker) has her reservations about whether Jax is the right match for Dr. Stein. Iris (Candice Patton) surprises Joe (Jesse L Martin) while Barry and Patty (Shantel VanSanten) grow closer.
The Flash has spent the first three episodes of Season 2 asking a lot of big questions. Who is Zoom? What’s the deal with Earth-2 Wells? Will Jay be able to get his speed back? I think the last question anyone wanted answered during Episode 4 was “What’s going to happen to Firestorm?” Well too bad kids. Robbie Ammell wanted to be on the X-Files show so The Flash needs to take an episode to introduce yet another side character from Spin Offs of Tomorrow that will only show up on The Flash whenever the effects budget can afford it.
The Fury of Firestorm is Flash paint by numbers. The gang has a problem and they immediately figure out a science thing that presents them with two approaches to solve the problem. The first approach backfires spectacularly and they are forced to do the second thing which makes them better friends in the end. This week’s problem is Martin Stein not having a buddy to fly around with. The first approach created a villain who is essentially Diet Firestorm. The new friend is Jefferson Jackson, a mechanic with a tragic past that does not include going to college.
Jackson is clearly the bright spot of the episode. Martin Stein’s upgraded role is my favorite part of Season 2. He had great chemistry with Ronnie. He had great chemistry with Cisco. Now he has great chemistry with Jackson. The man could act against a corpse and make it work. Not to knock Franz Drameh. He fits very nicely into the cast and should work well with a bigger role in Legends. Also, the Celine Dion line was a nice nod to Victor Garber being in Titanic. All in all, Jax Jackson’s addition was (as his incredibly generic football backstory would describe) a real touchdown.
This week’s villain did certainly exist. Henry Hewitt (Demora Barnes) isn’t a character any fans of the comics were clamoring for, but that’s not always the worst move. Sometimes you’ve gotta zig when they expect you to zag. Hewitt, or as he is apparently called in the comics Tokamak, is also so unimportant that you could do whatever you want with the character and no hardcore fans would complain, which is nice. I think the best move of the night was how he was not, like every other villain this season, immediately executed. He may even be able to show up in the future during Season 2’s inevitable metahuman break-out episode.
I want to give some special recognition to the West family this week for getting through the Iris and her mother drama without being particularly cringe worthy. I’ve said it before and Ill say it again. If this were on Arrow instead of Flash, Thea would be mad at Joe and her mom and everyone for an entire season and it would be miserable. We don’t know that she wont go down that route in the future but I’m getting the feeling after the reveal at the end of the end of the episode that all of this unpleasantness exists exclusively to facilitate the introduction of another West who everyone will be happy to see. Also the fact that her mother has McGregor’s, the fictional disease that Nora Fries and Alfred got in Batman and Robin, is a great reference.
Well that wraps up this recap. Overall, a pretty uneventful episode that will only slightly change the status quo. Nothing more to see here…Oh My God is that King f@#king Shark!? Patty teasing that earlier in the episode wasn’t just fanservice? He’s actually here!? Good lord. Forget everything I just said about this episode. King Shark is great. Wells killing his is also great. I have a small problem with him being able to exist in Central City at all but now I want nothing more than an episode devoted solely to King Shark wearing a fedora and a trench coat just trying to blend in until Flash shows up.
Rating 7/10
Matthew Nando Kelly is an incredibly cool and handsome staff writer for Pop-Break who was allowed to write his own bio. Besides weekly Flash recaps, he focuses on film, television, music, and video games. Matthew also has a podcast called Mad Bracket Status where he discusses pop culture related brackets with fellow Pop-Break writer DJ Chapman. He has an unshakable love for U2, cats, and the New Orleans Saints. His twitter handle is @NationofNando. Did we mention how handsome he was?
