On Tuesday, October 4, 2015, The Flash premiered its second season on the CW Network. This episode picks up where the cliffhanger from the end of the first season left off with Barry Allen/The Flash racing off to save Central City from being swallowed up by a monstrous black hole. This episode also serves as the official debut of Atom-Smasher to the Arrowverse as former WWE Superstar Edge/Adam Copeland portrays the character in this episode.
Plot: (FULL Spoilers - Credit from Comicbook.com)
The episode opens on The Flash battling Captain Cold and Heat Wave. He dispatches the Rogues quickly, with a little last-minute help from Firestorm.The pair head back to S.T.A.R. Labs, where everyone is delighted by their performance. Iris and Joe are there…but then so is Eddie, and even Wells. He isn’t evil, but he gets out of the wheelchair and praises Barry.
Of course, its’ all in Barry’s imagination. In reality, he’s alone in S.T.A.R. when an alarm goes off and he gets into costume and heads off to work…alone. Along the way, you see signs for Flash Day, celebrating the man who saved Central City.
At a murder scene, Barry meets Joe. Al Rothstein has been murdered. He’s a welder at the nuclear plant, and it looks like he was strangled by someone very strong and very large — but Barry’s sure it wasn’t Grodd.
Joe asks Barry if he’s going to go to Flash Day, where the mayor wants to give him a key to the city, but Barry is reluctant, suggesting he doesn’t deserve it.
Behind a wall, a mysterious man takes a photo of Barry.
At Central City PD, Cisco is helping Joe put together tech for a task force to take down metahumans. Try as he might, though, he can’t convince Captain Singh to give him a badge.
After the Captain leaves, Cisco and Joe talk about how weird Barry is being, and Joe suggests that Iris should talk him into going to Flash Day.
That night, Barry is using his super-speed to rebuild Jitters, one of a number roof local businesses damaged during the singularity event. This is something he’s been doing a lot, as Iris has heard about it and figured it out. She tells him that even though Eddie had to sacrifice that day, Barry was still a hero, and he should go to the event. She says she believes in The Flash.
Cut to a flashback, when Barry manages to stabilize the singularity but can’t close it. Professor Stein tells Ronnie that the only way to save the world is for Firestorm to fly up into the eye of the singularity and separate. Ronnie kisses Caitlin, saying he has to try, and then Firestorm merges, flies up and separates. On his way down from the Singularity, Barry manages to rescue Professor Stein but can’t see Ronnie anywhere. Both Caitlin and Stein look around for him, but all Barry can do is tell them he’s sorry.
At the Flash Day event, Cisco is surprised to see Caitlin. The mayor presents the key to the city to an (absent) Flash, with Barry showing up a little late. Shortly after he does, a man shows up and starts throwing large objects around. Cisco tries to use his “boot” on the metahuman, but the masked man just grows out of it, breaking the device. Before he does, though, Cisco has a quick vision of the villain standing in a large room with blue lightning around him.
Barry and Joe manage to turn the man back, but not stop or capture him. Before he goes, though, he briefly unmasks and Joe recognizes him as Al Rothstein.
After Rothstein makes his escape, Cisco confirms that the body remains in the coroner’s office — and that he wasn’t even in town when the particle accelerator went off.
Iris comes to ask Cisco whether anything he did might have taken out a number of machines at the hospital nearby where the fight happened. Cisco leaves to be sure he didn’t do it, and Iris tells Joe that they need to stop letting Barry push them away.
Cisco goes to visit Caitlin at her new job at Mercury Labs; he wants her to rejoin Team Flash, but she’s not up for it. He asks her instead to at least look at some evidence from the murder scene of Al Rothstein — an ID badge that appears to have no data on it.
At the police department, a lawyer comes to see Barry. He gives him a thumb drive with a video message from Dr. Wells, and says that Barry will lose S.T.A.R. (which was willed to him by Wells) if he doesn’t watch it. Barry says he won’t, and the lawyer leaves. An alarm goes off at S.T.A.R., attracting Barry. Iris, Stein and Cisco are there figuring out how the villain’s power works when Stein names the baddie Atom-Smasher.
The team uses traces ofradiactive energy to find Atom-Smasher. Barry suits up and heads out, leaving his communicator behind so they can’t reach him.
At the building where they expected to find Atom-Smasher, there he is — soaking in radiation from barrels of waste. Flash asks why he killed Rothstein, and why he looks like him, and Atom-Smasher tells him he wouldn’t believe him. The two fight briefly and when Barry starts to lose, Cisco manages to hack into the building’s systems and create a diversion to get Barry away.
He runs to S.T.A.R. and collapses, where he dreams about his childhood. Joe tries to get Barry to eat, and to deal with his emotions in a productive way. The two hug.
When Barry regains consciousness, Joe is there. He tells Barry that he needs to stop blaming himself for what happened — that everything that happened was Wells’ doing, and that both Eddie and Ronnie understood the choices they were making to help. He tells Barry that he needs to focus his late-night rebuilding on things that matter.
Barry heads to Mercury Labs to see Caitlin; they have a brief conversation, and Caitlin reinforces that Barry is a hero, that she doesn’t blame him for Ronnie’s death. She blames herself for not going away with him months before, when he wanted to. She couldn’t be around S.T.A.R. because those memories tortured her. Barry pulls out a handkerchief for her when she starts to cry and the jump drive of Wells’ message falls out. They decide to watch it together so they can face it.
On the message, Wells, tells Barry that he’s going to give him what he wants, but it won’t matter because Barry is never really happy. He gives Barry a video confession that he killed Nora Allen.
Barry calls Joe and tells him to assemble Team Flash at S.T.A.R. Shortly after that, Joe is on the phone with the district attorney, who thinks it’s enough to get Henry out of jail.
Barry turns to the team, asking them how to deal with Atom-Smasher. Caitlin suggests they try to overload Atom-Smasher with radiation.
In order to lure him out, Team Flash shines a Bat Signal-style light against the clouds. Barry runs and Atom-Smasher chases; eventually they come to a facility where Barry lures Atom-Smasher into a radiation chamber and then blows past him and out of the reactor core as Cisco fills it. Atom-Smasher can’t absorb all the radiation and eventually collapses, now at normal size. Barry goes in to check on him, apologizing for the seemingly-lethal force, and Atom-Smasher tells him that someone named Zoom had sent him after Barry, promising to let him go home if he killed The Flash. He succumbs to the radiation.
At Iron Heights, Barry walks Henry to the car; his father is a free man. They head home, where Team Flash is having a welcome home party for Henry. Cisco even gets his honorary badge, before Stein makes a touching toast.
The joy is short-lived as Henry tells Barry he plans to leave town rather than trying to resume his life in Central City. He says that Team Flash needs Barry and the city needs The Flash, not Henry Allen’s son.
Back at S.T.A.R. the next day, Barry has put Henry on a train and comes to check in with the team. Cisco has upgraded the suit and Caitlin brags about the new security system and the fact that people will finally stop dropping in unexpectedly…which is proven wrong immediately when a man calling himself Jay Garrick arrives to tell Barry “your world is in danger.”
The Verdict:
First things first - welcome back Flash. I think they've made fans wait long enough for Season 2 when Arrow has already started it's new season a few weeks ago. I don't dick-ride off of everything the CW does with DC Comics' characters, nor am I overly excited about Gotham nor Supergirl (especially if you've read my review on the pilot for that...), but the charm of this show hooked me enough to draw me back in for Season 2. I have my fingers crossed that the writing doesn't deteriorate like how Smallville did in later seasons, but I guess we'll have to wait and see don't we?
We start this episode off with a fun, action-packed romp between Captain Cold and Heat Wave trying to kill the Flash, only for Firestorm to help out at the last second to put an end to their piss poor attempt to stop the Scarlet Speedster. Things quickly switch back to present day (approximately 6 months after the finale of last season) where we're stuck with an angst-filled Barry Allen, moping around and fighting crime on his own without the aid of "Team Flash" - claiming that he doesn't want to endanger the well-being of his loved ones with his crime-fighting. Yeah, we've been here before, haven't we?
Central City is having Flash Day and Barry's not in a celebrating mood. Watching this I felt like I was watching a Bizarro World version of Spider-Man 3 (Sam Raimi version) where they were celebrating Spider-Man but Peter's loved ones (namely Mary Jane) wasn't into it. In this version, Barry's playing the part of the buzzkill. To be fair, Barry's got a good reason to be down in the dumps as he blames Ronnie's death (or what we're thought to believe as his demise...) on himself during the black hole event during the finale that was conveniently explained in a short flashback. To be honest, I think the only reason that they had Ronnie be written off as "dead" was to act as the catalyst to drive Caitlin Snow to become Killer Frost later in the series. The writers are making that a little TOO predictable in the foretelling with this show, especially after the teaser of her in full costume as Killer Frost during the Season 1 finale as well as dropping hints that Cisco will become Vibe at some point too.
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| Cool, it's good to see that DC kept some of those extra Bane outfits from Batman & Robin laying around... |
The celebration ends up having more than one buzzkills, with the second being Atomsmasher, played by former WWE Superstar, "Rated R Superstar" Edge/Adam Copeland. I made some people upset on social media when I said that he looked fucking stupid in costume. I'm not kidding. They made him look as lame as Bane in the Batman & Robin film. Once again, I don't dick-ride off of the CW's costume designs for these superhero TV dramas as I personally see their work is hit-or-miss at best in my eyes and this one was a major miss.
What pissed me off more about Atomsmasher being in this premiere episode was that he was a disposable "villain of the week" character that continues the trend of changing villains weekly like a pair of socks. I'm dying to wonder when people are going to get sick of this Power Rangers-esque style writing for these superhero dramas, especially from DC Comics (Josh Whedon was good for this when he was doing Buffy and Angel regularly too...), where you have the Scooby Doo gang (Team Flash, Team Arrow, and I'm sure that Supergirl is going to have her own support group as well...) that acts as the "support group" for the token hero (or heroine) that helps the hero along with their ongoing angst and trauma with dealing with having powers and special abilities, all while the token "villain of the week" shows up to ruin their day and everything is smiles and ice cream after they are disposed of. Wake up, people, you're literally watching an adult/mature edition of Power Rangers with slightly better special effects and costumes. Well, not so much better special effects on this episode when it came to Atomsmasher's powers as that looked as bad as the Supergirl pilot.
The entire episode is more focused on Barry's personal melodrama than Atomsmasher's motivations and backstory. In the end, we're left with the clue of "Zoom" was the one who sent him to kill the Flash before Atomsmasher's untimely demise.
Spoiler alert - Eobard Thawne isn't dead as we thought. Professor Zoom is another name for the Reverse Flash. I'm sure what Eddie Thawne did to erase Eobard Thawne from existence did nothing but create a time paradox due to their tampering with time travel and alternate timelines/realities from Season 1, so I'm guessing that Eobard still exists in another reality who still wants the Flash or rather ALL users of the Speed Force (wait I'm getting to that...) dead. I came to this conclusion after noticing that Cisco is still suffering the effects of the "bleeding effect" from seeing events from other timelines/realities. This could be an after-effect of Cisco's "powers" manifesting as his abilities are known in the DC Comics universe as one of the only major threats to the Speed Force, so there's that too to consider.
Now while we're talking about users of the Speed Force, I bet you're wondering who is that Jay Garrick character who showed up at Star Labs at the end of the episode. Garrick is the "original" Flash that was created by DC Comics, but Barry Allen is always the more "popular" one as Garrick was written off out of continuity or killed off on multiple occasions. I'm anxious to see what they are going to do with him in this season, but I wouldn't be surprised that this leads into adventures into alternate realities and what not.
Watch it or Don't Bother?
Fans of the first season don't have to be told to check this out, but as for sticking around for the long haul? That's up in the air, but there's nothing really bad that stinks to high hell on this premiere. I merely had a lot to rant about in terms of writing and how this stuff was presented. Sue me, I'm a bit more nit-picky on this superhero stuff than most people.
I want more backstory on Atomsmasher here, but whatever... I do appreciate how they laid out everything for the rest of the season with the foreshadowing of things to come and hints scattered around here and there. I just hope and fear that this isn't as predictable and bloody obvious as most of what was presented in the first season.
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