Season 2 of The Flash has been quite different from its freshman year. In Season 1, the main arc was all about Barry finding his mother’s killer and his transition becoming The Flash. They did dabble in various other characters but nothing like in this season thus far. In this episode, “The Fury of Firestorm,” we are given a fantastic in-depth look into various characters in The Flash Universe. While a new half of Firestorm and Firestorm Villain were unearthed, I’m going to focus on Iris’s arc.
Iris was a pretty one dimensional character up until the ending of last season. She was a decent enough character that wasn’t necessarily grating, nor was she spectacular. However, with the reveal of her mother, the Wests were set for a nice big family reunion. But, as we learned, Iris’s mom left them after becoming addicted to drugs. With this new information, wiill Iris find it in herself to forgive her mother?
Throughout the episode, Joe and Iris have back and forth conversations as to whether or not she should meet with her mom. Joe seems quite adamant that Iris doesn’t need to see Francine, but Iris is leaning toward meeting her mother anyway. Iris does meet with her mother but only to tell her to stay out of their lives.
Once Francine tells Joe that she has only one year left to live, Iris decides to meet with Francine once more. I assumed Iris would fall for it, which is very typical of most tv shows. But Iris is an investigative journalist and turns the whole meeting upside down. She finds that even though Francine was telling the truth about her illness, but she was still lying to Iris. Iris found out that Francine had a son just 8 months after leaving Central City. Iris insists that they don’t tell Joe because it would kill him if he found out he had a son and wasn’t his father for so many years.
Wow! I absolutely love the fact that they didn’t diminish her character and have her just go along with the charade. These scenes perfectly cemented what Iris is all about, and I’m interested in how this will allow her and Joe’s relationship to further grow.
Now, onto the namesake of the episode! As we all know, Ronnie is either dead or possibly on Earth 2. Ever since Ronnie went supernova, Stein has been unable to stabilize his molecules, but help is on the way! Conveniently, there were two people that were affected by the particle accelerator that exhibited the same symptoms. Henry Hewitt, of course, being basically a younger Professor Stein. The other candidate is Jefferson Jackson, a football jock that has his dreams dashed because he saved others during the particle accelerator explosion. It was pretty easy to see which candidate would work and which would not. Caitlin nearly forces them to go with Hewitt because he’s a “perfect match.†Of course, instead of turning him into a superhero, we get a supervillain named Tokamak. After Jax sees what Tokamak can do, he unquestionably decides to become a hero and is the new half of Firestorm. They have a brief battle with Tokamak and send Stein and Jax on their way, for now.
I generally dislike when characters just get replaced, but I am really liking Jax. He has this sort of swagger, while still clearly being a team first type of person. His first scene clearly displayed this when he single-handedly seemed to win a football game. He kept trying to say that without the others he wouldn’t be here. My only gripe is how obvious it was that Hewitt was definitely not going to work out as a part of Firestorm.
Of course, we can’t talk about The Flash without, well, The Flash. He had very few scenes of note, but they did a great job of furthering the Patty Spivot relationship. It’s clear how much they like each other, and everyone can see it. Joe jokes with Barry about it, and he has a unique take on the situation since Patty is his partner. In one scene, Joe tells Patty that she has to keep Wells’ return (more on this later) a secret, and as you would expect, she is awful (yet cute) at trying to keep the secret from Barry. A shark that can walk on land is hinted at earlier in the episode and man does it actually happen. The Flash is checking in on Patty at Jitters and out of nowhere comes a huge hand. We just got our first glimpse of King Shark.
I generally thought that Grodd looked fine, but King Shark takes it to a whole new level. He looks terrifyingly creepy and menacing. Patty tries to shoot him and all it does is make King Shark mad. When that doesn’t work, who would come to save the day? It would have to be none other than Harrison Wells from Earth 2. The Flash catches up with him and end scene. It’s going to be crazy with Wells back in the picture.
