Flash: "Fallout" Review
(Full Spoilers)
After a decent first episode, the Flash’s Firestorm arc reaches its conclusion, here. Last week’s episode of the Flash was one of my least favourite episodes of the season so I was hoping that the storyline would pick up in its second episode. And, for the most part it did. While not being a mind-blowing and crazy episode, this week’s Flash proved that the Firestorm story was worthwhile. While providing a solid finish to Firestorm’s story, “Fallout” set characters into strong places and capped off the 2nd act of this show for a full storyline to conquer act 3.
The episode dealt mostly with Firestorm, like last week, but there was no shortage of sub-stories to fill-in the blanks. Joe’s investigation was built upon as he revealed to Barry that he found his adult blood at the scene of his mother's murder. This definitely serves as the introduction to the time-travel aspect of the Flash and added a few elements of mystery to this storyline. I stated last week that I thought I truly knew where this storyline was going and I’ll say I take that back now.
Barry suggested, this week that his mother still died and he failed to save her but gave himself a second chance. I’m happy that the writers have introduced a sense of doubt to how the climax of the storyline. Now, even if everything turns out the way I thought it would, there will still be a sense of melancholy that Barry failed to save his mom once again. Either, we will be surprised of Barry will get some solid character beats and either way I think I’ll be satisfied.
On the Firestorm side of things, there were two extremities for me, but I’ll get into the positive one first. Martin Stein was quite awesome in this episode. He played off Ronnie Raymond very well as they criticized each other for not being good body-mates which proved to be quite humorous. Stein was an overall very energetic personality and that’s what made him shine for me. The speech that ensued when Barry asked him about time travel was filled with zeal and enthusiasm. He was a strong bolstering point for this episode and I’m eager to see him return in further instalments of the show!
On the negative side of things, I actually didn’t find Ronnie Raymond be all that strong of a character. Robbie Amell gave a good performance and I see the potential for him to play an awesome superhero but Ronnie didn’t have that likeability that his counterpart Stein had. I say this mostly because of his talk with Catelyn about leaving the city and not needing to help people because one building took up too much of their lives and hunting meta-humans is dangerous. I’m pretty tired of these writers getting into the peril of the character’s jobs in such fashion. It’s been in Arrow since season one but has been absent for the most part in Flash. Let’s keep it that way, please.
It’s always a little difficult to go a week without talking about Iris West. Some people may argue that Iris’ new storyline has been shoehorned in to make her relevant, which I would not contradict. However, I do have a liking for the new plot. Iris is here to stay whether we like it or not. I’d prefer her being relevant to the Wells story rather than having arcs of her own. As proven in the past, she’s not a character strong enough to lead her own stories. Given her new investigation, it looks like she won’t have to, henceforth. I think this is the best place for Iris to be and despite my issues with the character, I think the direction she’s going fits.
Another weak point for me was Clancy Brown’s General Eiling. I love Clancy Brown and he did the best he could with what he had but this character fell flat for me. Throughout the episode he was mostly evil to be evil like most conventional CW villains. Maybe Harrison Wells is casting too long a shadow over the show's villains but Eiling didn’t have any compelling material until the end of this episode. Which was more about Wells and Grodd than the general.
The end of this episode was one of the best endings this series has gotten yet. Even though Wells was confirmed as being the Reverse Flash earlier this year, I still had my suspicions. Yet, the end of “Fallout” has convinced me that Wells is the Reverse Flash (which is making me question what Eddie’s going to become). Not only did this end show Wells is the suit for the first time, it gave us another short and amazing Grodd appearance. The special effects on this character were phenomenal for T.V. and I loved his voice as well. It’s been teased for a while and I’m anticipating Grodd’s episode next month!
I’m going to miss the Flash during its second month-long hiatus. Though, this episode didn’t wow me like the conclusion of this season’s first act, it left me greatly anticipating the next episode. Disregarding set-up, I did have a few problems with this episode but I always enjoy myself while watching the Flash. The Firestorm story was building to this episode and the payoff felt worthwhile. Finally, the writers have paved the way for a singular storyline, bring on the Reverse Flash!