‘The Flash’ Episode 2.1 “The Man Who Saved Central City (8 out of 10) Starring Grant Gustin, Candice Patton, Danielle Panabaker, Carlos Valdes, and Jesse L. Martin. Guest starring Victor Garber, Teddy Sears, Dominic Purcell, Wentworth Miller, Robbie Amell, John Wesley Shipp. First broadcast October 7, 2015.
Spoilers from the Season 1 finale are in the next paragraph. A lot.
This season premiere had a lot to live up to. “The Flash” ended with one of the most epic season finales I can remember, of any series. It was more epic than most series finales. Harrison Wells/Reverse Flash/Eobard Thawne had been defeated, but only by Eddie Thawne sacrificing himself. As Eddie died (being Eobard’s ancestor in a way that only time travel can allow), Reverse Flash disintegrated before their eyes. As this was happening, a time and space singularity erupted over Central City, and the swirling vortex was sucking up cars and buildings and people and would destroy the whole city if the Flash didn’t stop it. As the final scene, Barry Allen was racing up the pieces of debris into the singularity itself, and *freeze frame on Barry’s face*…end credits.
Now, five months later, Barry is in Central City, there’s no singularity, but things have changed. He’s closed S.T.A.R. Labs. He’s closed himself off from his friends and family. He’s still superheroing when he needs to, but without the joy he had earlier. He feels overwhelming guilt for Eddie’s death, and for some other losses on Team Flash. He spends his nights rebuilding the city where he can, wearing himself ragged. Caitlin Snow has started working at Mercury Labs, Cisco has joined the metahuman task force of the Central City Police Department. Interestingly for the CW, it’s Iris who has moved on with her life best, even though it’s her fiance Eddie who died. On some CW series, she’d be grieving for five more seasons.
Early in the episode, there’s a rally led by the mayor, presenting the key to the city to “The Man Who Saved Central City.” …it’s a title that Barry thinks belongs to other men, but he shows up at the rally anyway. This is one of the many ways Flash is different than other superheroes. Batman and (Green) Arrow live in the shadows…the Flash is finally coming into the light. He’s being photographed, he’s on the front page of newspapers, he’s accepting the key to the city. In the comic books, Central City loves the Flash. They have a huge museum in his honor. It’s nice to see the series moving in that direction as early as season two.
The festivities are broken up when a new metahuman tosses a food truck at the mayor’s podium — of course the Flash was right there, and saved him in the nick of time. Barry runs up to hit the dude, and it’s like a fly hitting a windshield. Joe West and Cisco fire a new metahuman weapon at the villain, who grows to twice his size, Apache Chief-style. Eventually we find out this is Al Rothstein, AKA Atom Smasher. He’s usually a hero in the comic books, but here he’s a giant radiation-absorbing monster. It works. It’s also the same guy who Joe and Barry found dead in a nuclear power plant…who’s still in the morgue. This mystery isn’t ever quite explained, but I imagine it’s leading up to parallel worlds, and somehow an “Earth 2” Rothstein came through that singularity to kill our Rothstein and take out the Flash. He’s not the only one.
This was a solid episode, but with so many loose threads to bring back together, it’s a bit disjointed. Each of the small storylines that comprise the episode is very good, and there are probably a dozen character moments that shine in that 44 minutes. There’s a lot of emotion going on, and, as when “The Flash” is at it’s best, it doesn’t ever seen forced or corny. Moments between Barry and Joe…okay, I was going to start listing characters, but there are enough pairings that it would take another paragraph. The emotions are high. Several characters take big leaps forward in this episode: Firestorm’s story, Henry Allen (in a completely unexpected direction), and Caitlin all have defining moments. Cisco has a moment of hesitation fighting Atom Smasher that is another mystery, but plays on what Dr. Wells told him last season–that he was attuned to the “vibrations of the universe.” So this brings him one step closer to becoming Vibe. Which will be great. We all love the Cisco (which sounded really Deep Space 9-ey).
This is a very good episode with enough going on that they could have played it out over several weeks. I like the (appropriate) fast pace that the producers keep on this show. Where “Arrow” often gets bogged down in flashbacks and an oversized roster of characters, somehow “The Flash” keeps the pace and the spark that had us fall in love with it in the first place. In the course of one episode, we go from Barry saying “I need to do this on my own” to having him smiling again and being The Real Flash again. But it feels natural and right and good. It looks like next week will be the event that we’ve been looking forward to since we saw that stupid helmet come through a time vortex–the appearance of Earth 2’s Flash, Jay Garrick. I’m ready. Bring it. See the episode 2 preview below. Drink it allll in.