The Flash - 'The Nuclear Man' and 'Fallout'

"So, you can teleport?"
"No; they cancelled that series. I just catch fire."

When Firestorm apparently attacks a physicist, Team Flash is on the case. It soon emerges that Ronnie and Stein are seeking to be separated, unable to truly control their powers, but there may be a very short window before they go nuclear.

The A plot of the week focuses on Caitlin and her desire to get Ronnie back now that a chance has emerged. It also provides a touching motive for Stein, whose enforced separation from his wife has made him appreciate her all the more. Despite having caused some harm, the cliffhanger ending leaves the audience concerned for both halves of Firestorm, as they release a nuclear explosion, as well as Barry and Caitlin.

Over in the B plot, Joe gets Cisco to help him re-examine the murder scene and try to identify the two speedsters. Using some dodgy science to develop images from the silver nitrate backing of a mirror into holograms, they locate surviving blood-splatter under the wallpaper and identify one of the speedsters not as Harrison Wells, but the adult Barry Allen.

The C plot is less interesting. Barry's first date with Linda Park goes well. There are some puns about moving too fast - there is some concern that consummation may be deeply disappointing - but when Barry is called out of the second date while Linda is trying to move things to the next level and Iris suddenly goes all stalker on him... Not impressed with Iris, and in all honesty I wasn't that taken with Linda, who apparently literally has no time for a man who won't put out on the second date, because she's a busy, important sports reporter.

In 'Fallout', we follow through these three strands. Ronnie and Stein are very pleased to be apart, but soon begin to display sympathetic connections, especially when Stein is kidnapped by General Eiling (who also demonstrates a rather nasty anti-Flash grenade.) Barry's attempts to rescue Stein are thwarted by another anti-Flash weapon, but Stein and Ronnie voluntarily rejoin into a more controlled, more powerful incarnation of the Firestorm entity before heading off on the Littlest Hobo/Fugitive/Incredible Hulk bit. Caitlin and Mrs Stein are surprisingly cool about this.

Barry patches things up with Linda (yay?) and tells Iris he no longer has feelings for her (yay!) I'm not sure my reactions are what the makers were after. Iris agrees to get inside dirt on STAR Labs.

In case you still had any doubts.

Cisco and Joe tell Barry what they found - in a priceless scene in which Wells expounds time travel theories and Cisco translates into movie references for Joe - and he immediately assumes that he's going to go back in time and save his mother, because the glass is mostly half full for Barry; it's why we keep wincing when life punches him in the gut.

Speaking of coming disappointments, Wells initially hands Stein over to Eiling to protect Barry, and on learning that Eiling knows the Flash's secret identity, abducts him - in his Reverse-Flash persona - and takes him into the sewers. He announces that yes, he is 'one of them', and he protects his own, before introducing Eiling to an old friend.

"My God!"
"Not god... GRODD!"

The Firestorm two-parter is A-list Flash, and in particular props for another sympathetic metahuman with problems. Much like Plastique, Firestorm is destructive by nature more than intention, and I'm glad they didn't just kill him off. Eiling's weapons, however, once more makes it clear that Barry needs to stop standing still during a fight. It never helps.

There's a lot of good movement on the Reverse-Flash arc, and Grodd, which is all to the good. Man, I am going to be sad if Grodd turns out to be rubbish.