Well I was hoping the infamous Shag of Firestorm Fan could join me for another round table discussion of this episode, but alas, our schedules couldn’t mesh. But this being a 2 parter episode, I’ll review both at once together in this review.
Recap: Victor and Robbie show up and prove to have explosive chemistry.
Muggle Musings: Beyond my fanboyishness, I do like that these two episodes expanded the world a little beyond the core Flash/Arrow and opens up new possibilities. Heck I know several fans were starting to wonder if all metahumans would end being villains so it was nice to confirm that no, some can be heroes, and might be.
We also saw that the government (or muggles in general) are preparing for this new world and won’t be caught off guard completely. Ordinary man still has a place in this extraordinary world. Though that 3D look for imaging stuff? … Look in my day job I’ve seen that kind of thing and what shows like this and Agents of SHIELD do with it is funnier than what CSI has ever done with “zoom and enhance.” We won’t even get into how much you can gleam from DNA.
Character wise I would have of course liked to have seen more from the 2 guest stars to get a better sense of their personalities and the change/impact this traumatic merging had had on them. In truth I was far more invested in watching the relationships between Martin & Ronnie with their significant others than Barry’s date with Linda (even though she is quite charming).
It was interesting to learn that though Wells has a future viewing machine, he’s apparently not omniscient since it seemingly had no info on Firestorm. Could be very interesting to see the limits of his time sight and how that will play into the confrontation between him and Barry. Though at the end, we learn that Wells definitely has a bit of the Magneto motivation going for him in this story arc so I’m anxious to see where the writers go with that.
Metahuman Musings: As a big firestorm fan, what can I say other than
Almost everything was as perfect as could be for a live action TV show with current special effects save the giant floating head (and they can save that for match-head’s own show). I’m certainly thrilled with their choice of actor. Robbie fits with the overall basics of Ronnie (besides the name) quite well and Ronnie was always a bit of a malleable character, so I appreciate that the writers kept the character recognizable while expanding and making him their own.
The REAL question will be Martin Stein. Stein’s a little known, but surprisingly deep comic book character (and Victor is definitely one of my top 3 picks to play him, that guy’s good). See, both parts of Firestorm occupied a kind of gray area as far as comic plots go, and Stein’s was that had things changed just a little, one could easily see him being a supervillain (there is a case to be made that while he made Ronnie smarter, Ronnie made him gooder). He very much could skate that moral line at times and in these two episodes, we can see a hint of that. That Martin could be just a bit shady… maybe not entirely trustworthy… Indeed some of his earlier actions are debatable on how villainous they were (rather him acting out or him lacking control). What would cinch it, is never really clarifying, but always letting us wonder.
Still what I’ve always loved about Firestorm (besides the usual comic book goodies) are the characters and their interactions and if a live action series is going to happen, I do hope they keep those two actors and get a good set of writers. Because the exploration of learning to live with someone who you MUST live with, no matter how much you might love or loathe them…
Well that’s just a big part of the human condition. And it’s a rich vein to mine stories from.
You can check out Shag’s reviews of these two episodes at part 1 and part 2.