The Flash: “The Fury of Firestorm” Review

A new Firestorm is born.

Tonight’s episode of Flash set a lot of wheels in motion. It introduced the new half of team Firestorm and even gave the Nuclear Man his first villain. It paved the way for the debut of King Shark (who is looking mighty sharky, by the way). It followed the clandestine exploits of Earth-2’s Harrison Wells. And it continued exploring the turmoil caused by the return of Francine West. This was an eventful episode, but these various pieces didn’t necessarily combine to form a cohesive package.

As with last week’s “Family of Rogues,” this episode focused a lot of energy on building towards the upcoming Legends of Tomorrow. I’m starting to worry both The Flash and Arrow are becoming too concerned with setting up that spinoff at the expense of their own storylines. Hopefully the emergence of both Wells and King Shark at the end means this show will be turning its focus inward again.

In any case, the search for Professor Stein’s new partner made for an entertaining conflict. The highlight of the evening came early on, as Cisco compared it to hunting for a date on Tinder and described being obliterated by an atomic meltdown as “the ultimate swipe left.” It’s good to know that even when Stein is facing certain doom, this show can keeps things lighthearted and fun.

Given that the Jason Rusch character was already introduced last season, I was a little surprised that the writers elected to bring in another character from the Firestorm mythos to join with Stein. This week we met both Jefferson “Jax” Jackson (played by Attack the Block’s Franz Drameh) and Henry Hewitt (played by The Unit’s Demore Barnes). Drameh definitely impressed as Jax. The opening flashback established everything viewers needed to know about the character – he’s athletically gifted, ambitious, a little flamboyant and brave enough to throw down his own life in defense of others. Drameh brought a likable charm to the role while also channeling the sadness and frustration Jax felt at being denied a life of greatness. Which, of course, paid off nicely when he agreed to team up with Stein and found his dreams once again within reach.

Franz Drameh debuts as Jefferson “Jax” Jackson.

Barnes didn’t impress quite as much, though that was mainly due to a lack of good material for his character. As usual, the show didn’t spend enough time developing this week’s villain. Hewitt went from being the brash, overconfident science whiz to vengeful supervillain in the span of two scenes. With a lack of any real, defined motivations, it was hard to buy into Hewitt’s vendetta against Caitlin and the STAR Labs crew. If nothing else, we got a good, solid superhero team-up as Flash and Firestorm took on Tokamak. The combination of Barry’s speed and Jax’s flame made for some memorable visuals. I found myself wishing once again that the show would become more ambitious in how it portrays Firestorm’s abilities. He’s not meant to be a simple Human Torch clone. Luckily, Stein’s offhand reference to certain “abilities” he and Ronnie never mastered suggests this will be happening soon enough.

I haven’t been a fan of the Francine storyline so far. As I’ve noted in past reviews, the show seems to be treading too closely to Arrow in how it handled the estranged marriage between Quentin and Dinah Lance. The whole thing is a little too melodramatic, and the fact that Francine revealed she’s suffering from a terminal illness (MacGregor’s Syndrome, no less) only makes it that much more soap opera-worthy. This dark cloud of a subplot did have a couple silver linings, though. For one, it was nice to see Iris take her mother to task for being a horrible person rather than simply welcoming her back with open arms. For another, the revelation that Francine has another son is probably how the writers plan on introducing Wally West into the mix [edit – there’s no “probably” about it, as you can see from our post-episode interview with Andrew Kreisberg].

It was definitely fun seeing Wells skulking about while our heroes were busy dealing with the Firestorm situation. He’s not exactly doing himself any favor by going out of his way to look like a shadowy villain, but he’s probably aware that he doesn’t have a lot of fans in this universe. The show has gone out of its way to make Wells look like an antagonist, but the fact that he saved Barry from King Shark means he’ll probably become an ally to Team Flash. After the requisite period of shunning and atonement, of course.

While this episode had a fairly disjointed feel, it did end on a pretty strong note as Team Flash said their farewells to Stein and Jax. Cisco’s emotional goodbye to Stein was especially heartfelt. Those two have developed such a strong rapport these past few weeks that it’s almost a shame to see Stein being shuffled off to a different series. The ending and Barry’s monologue offered a nice sentiment – that it’s important to embrace the opportunities around you and not be afraid to change. It’s true for Barry as he struggles with his attraction to Patty. It’s true for Caitlin as she accepts her life without Ronnie. And it’s true for Cisco, who really needs to let his friends in on that little secret of his.