Recap: A poor lady becomes the embodiment of a dozen heavy metal love ballads as her touch causes things to explode – and we’re not just talking Cisco’s lustful tendencies.
Muggle Musings
So 3 big things happen overall in this episode.
1) Flash pushes the limits of his powers, learning he can run up buildings and across water. Here’s the funny part: the S.T.A.R. crew mentions that Barry must maintain his speed running up and down the building. Uh… why? Because he’ll fall? For those who have forgotten, terminal velocity at it’s max on a person is roughly 200 mph. A speed Barry’s already reached and exceeded. A speed he frequently comes to a dead stop just as if he took a dive off a building and hit the pavement. So… how is falling down a threat to him? The secondary superpowers he must have to survive running and stopping as he does means that he could probably throw himself out of an airplane without a parachute and survive the impact.
I know, I know: comics. But it is kind of funny to think about.
2) Better development between Iris & Barry. Other than the “tradition” that Iris ends up with Barry I didn’t care much about them or even her relationship with the other guy given that the comic tradition I really didn’t care about. This was the episode that Iris finally moved out from beyond the legacy of the comic book and into her own status as a character. Which I approve of. Shows and movies based on other works shouldn’t ask the audience to bring in prepackaged concepts and devotion to a character unless it’s a huge part of the cultural landscape. In the case of comics: Superman, Batman, & Spider-man. If the person on screen isn’t one of them, then you need to write like the character is completely new and seduce the audience into caring about them like you would any other.
Also in development, we got to see Wells be more of a manipulator this time and the writing/acting of that scene was VERY well done and believable. It seems rare to watch anything with a devil that actually tries tempting (usually the effort is so obvious you wonder how anyone could struggle against saying no).
3) A possible arc antagonist. Well I don’t know for sure but General Eiling and the US government could be a potent one. Even better they are my favorite kind of antagonist in that they’re not always purely wrong (or at least, shouldn’t be written as such). There does need to be some consideration with the Flash’s activities as well as adjustments made to the legal system to accommodate the new villains and unintentional criminals birthed by the accident. These are interesting and thoughtful questions a show like this could examine especially given that to do so would be low-budgeted, purely a factor in writing.
Metahuman Musings
Speaking of what I mentioned above? Dealing with the legal consequences and results of superheroes actually WAS in an issue or two of Firestorm. So all the pieces are set….
Now in the general, this was a goodie-bag of an episode!
- Plastique (though Kelly Fyre didn’t get to show off her red hair as much 🙁 the first plastique was totally maroon-locked)! She started out a Firestorm villain that was nothing special at first, then changed. I’m torn. On the one hand, it was nice to have Barry not have to fight another metahuman like all the previous episodes. On the other, we missed an opportunity where Barry could have accidentally made her a metahuman when trying to stop her bomb attack and the had to deal with the fall out. And no, I’m not going to make apologies for those Firestorm puns I just tossed out.
- General Eiling! A JLA foe that later puts his brain in a huge, indestructible body (or rather, a body that regrows faster than you can kill it) to balance the power of the JLA. His few appearances as “the General” in the comic were awesome and (as always) turned into a magnificent episode of the Timm/Dini cartoon. AND PLAYED BY CLANCY BROWN NO LESS! The man is like… the dark side Bruce Campbell of geekdom, always playing some of our favorite villains (and sometimes a hero). The guy is awesome and I am so hoping we get to see more of him! (or hear in case he lends his voice to a CGI General).
- GRODD! A gorilla. Named Grodd! If you don’t get why that’s totally awesome, then what are you down here reading this section for anyway?
My fellow comic geeks, can you remember us EVER being this spoiled?
