Forward.
[dropcap size=small]A[/dropcap]fter a long summer of waiting to find out whether Barry Allen was able to keep that hole in the sky from enveloping Central City, The Flash made us wait that bit longer to find out whether Barry Allen was able to keep that hole in the sky from enveloping Central City.
Six months down the line, Firestorm helps the Flash take down Heatwave and Captain Cold, before Barry returns to S.T.A.R. Labs to see some dead guys. Eddie and Harrison Wells are there to greet Barry, and just when you begin to think this might not be real, it turns out it isn’t real. In real life, Cisco is working with Joe, Caitlin is working at Mercury Labs and Barry is alone and depressed, but we don’t know why just yet, because we still don’t know what happened with the whole sky hole thing.
Then we find out what happened with the whole sky hole thing, and it turns out that Barry isn’t the only ‘Man Who Saved Central City’. To close the wormhole, Ronnie and Martin must fuse and unfuse inside of it because science. The Flash is able to catch the falling Martin in the following explosion, but the other half of Firestorm isn’t so lucky. Ronnie doesn’t escape the hole, and Caitlin loses the love of her life for, like, the fifth time.
This leaves Barry feeling responsible for Ronnie’s death, and he ends up pushing away those closest to him, because that always works, right…?
Nope. Barry leaves his headset at the lab to take on this week’s villain alone, after Atom Smasher (how great was it to see Stein participating in Cisco’s metahuman name game?) ruins the Flash’s key-to-the-city ceremony by doubling in size and throwing some cars. Barry gets pummelled, but Cisco (or should we call him Vibe now?) is there to hack the security system and activate the alarms just long enough to distract Atom Smasher, and Barry is able to escape.
Iris learns that the city’s X-Ray machines went out the last time Atom Smasher did his thing, which plays a big role in helping Team Flash figure out that his power comes from radiation (a.k.a. science). Iris is neither a superhero nor a tech genius, but she is able to use the intel she picks up in her job as a journalist to help Barry in this episode, which is a sign that Iris is finally becoming more than just the show’s love interest character. Iris is a huge part of Team Flash in the comics, and for a while, it seemed like the show wasn’t sure how to make that happen.
And so basically Barry exposes Atom Smasher to more radiation than he knows what to do with and he pops. It’s a pretty weak arc for a villain who could literally keep up with the Flash, but Atom Smasher was only ever there for one reason. While he dies from all the poisoning, he manages to tell Barry that he tried to kill him so he would be taken home. Who promised to take him home? ‘Zoom.’
Unfortunately, we all knew this was coming, because the showrunners revealed Zoom to be the big bad well before this episode. Imagine you didn’t know that Zoom was coming. Imagine how chilling that one word would have been. For those who don’t know, Zoom (or Hunter Zolomon) is a villain more commonly associated with the third Flash, Wally West, who doesn’t exist in Barry’s timeline just yet, but he will also make an appearance or two this season. We don’t know yet what connects Zoom and Barry (the second Flash), but the first Flash does (we’ll get to that).
The team then has a party to celebrate Barry’s dad’s release from prison. Harrison Wells confesses to the murder of Barry’s mother in a video tape left for Barry, and so Henry Allen returns home, eats some cake, drinks some champagne, and then leaves again. I understand his thinking here – his sticking around will only slow down Barry’s development as the Flash – but surely, after 15 years, he could have spent a week with his son first? Even a day? At least one more slice of cake? Stein’s one-word speech (‘forward’) is conveniently placed in the midst of all this.
Back at S.T.A.R. Labs, the team is back together at last, and Cisco has already made some updates. The Flash logo has changed from red to the more traditional white, and just as Cisco tells them all about the updated security he has in place, a mysterious figure arrives to squash his dreams. Joe acts as security for now, while Barry demands to know who the stranger is. The man steps from the shadows, and it’s the first Flash himself, Jay Garrick (remember, the dude with the helmet), who sets up the Multiverse with a simple warning.
The Multiverse (multiple Earths with their own set of superheroes/villains) is going to add a whole new level of craziness to The Flash this season, but the show thrives at its most absurd. Just as in season one, Cisco is always on hand to provide a welcome quip or comic book reference (you all caught the Batman hint, right?), and Stein’s arrival at S.T.A.R. Labs means that he is always there to bail the show out of its own madness with some SCIENCE. For this season to succeed, the writers need to keep doing what they do best – go all in. Move ‘forward’.
The Flash returns to The CW next Tuesday.
