Recap: The Flash Ep. 13 – The Nuclear Man

After a number of high action episodes, ‘The Flash’ has a more subdued personal outing this week as Team Flash attempts to once and for all solve the mystery of Firestorm before he destroys Central City and Barry tries to have a date in peace.

Since basically everyone he hangs with knows his secret identity, Barry has to deal with a situation that proves more difficult than fighting The Rogues — trying to enjoy a date with Linda while Cisco alerts him to every possible incident. That’s some mighty fine c.blocking there Cisco.

If he wasn’t busy trying to ruin Barry’s date Cisco may have been able to track Ronnie Raymond aka Firestorm. As Team Flash is now aware, Ronnie merged with Prof. Martin Stein after the particle accelerator accident and Stein has emerged as the dominant personality even if he can’t control Firestorm’s flame outbursts such as the one that seriously burns one of Stein’s colleagues. Fearing for the safety of more Central City residents, Wells decides it’s time to bring Firestorm in.

While it seems like something that would have come up a lot earlier, Barry recalls actually meeting Stein en route to seeing the particle accelerator. Barry isn’t a nerd in the traditional sense so it was fun watching him share his love of all things science while Victor Garber does a terrific job of making Stein a non-pretentious genius.

We get more pairing off of the characters this week. Wells and Caitlin talking to Stein’s wife, Clarissa, and learn that RonnieStein visited her a month after the accident and has sporadically been returning ever since. This week had a bit too many easy coincidences for my liking such as Firestorm returning to the Stein household the first night Caitlin and Wells stake it out. Granted, we’ve got 44 minutes of actual show time, but spotting him on their initial attempt was way too simple.

Joe meanwhile has a secret mission for Cisco. Rightly figuring one of STAR’s brightest could find something the regular forensic teams missed and they head to the Allen’s old home in search of anything that can help identify Nora Allen’s killer. They’re greeted by a cougar named Sherri, who instantly starts hitting on Joe. Good for him. Joe could use a little romantic subplot instead of just being the show’s noble father figure.

While most of the Allen’s property has been replaced, Joe spots a mirror that was retained. Perhaps a bit too coincidentally, the mirror contains silver nitrate that Cisco is able to use to recreate a few images from the speedsters’ battle at the Allens. Even better, the ghost images tips them off to a blood splatter, which contains two different blood samples. Joe thinks one will prove a match for Wells, which angers Cisco, but as we learned last week, Cisco’s curiosity always gets the best of him and he does get a match on the blood. More on that later.

While the others are preoccupied, Barry gets to spend more time with Linda, who’s now ready to move past the getting to know you stage to the let’s get in on stage. And this time it’s Wells and Caitlin’s turn to spoil Barry’s fun. Just as well though as Barry was afraid he’d go too fast with Linda. In some cases that’s considered a massive compliment to the woman, Barry…

Flash is in the difficult position of trying to talk Firestorm down without using any physical force and that predictably doesn’t go well for our hero as he takes an unexpected flight on Firestorm Airlines. It was a neat scene, but one that had me yearning to see Firestorm’s matter transmutation powers in action instead of the Human Torch stand-in Firestorm has thus far been on the show.

Barry tries to apologize to Linda, but can’t even get through his begging attempt for a third date when Team Flash comes calling. Barry clearly needs to explore that wondrous function called ‘iDivert.’ Linda asks Iris about Barry’s dating experience and now Iris gets to sabotage things not so indirectly hinting that Barry had feelings for her and was still caught up on her. Barry sets Iris straight that he is no longer pining after her and convinces Linda to go out with him again culminating with a kiss at her office. Iris is not amused. #WhatHappensWhenYouFake

After bringing Clarissa to him, RonnieStein agrees to go with Team Flash for help. Only problem is his confrontation with Flash is sparking the Firestorm matrix to the breaking point and he could unleash a nuclear explosion that could wipe out Central City. Wells’ first idea is to simply kill RonnieStein, but Caitlin’s plea for another solution convince him to try something else — going into his secret lab and using a piece from his tachyon device to create a quantum splicer to stabilize Firestorm before he explodes.

Flash and Caitlin get to Firestorm in time to place the device, which not so slyly resembles the comic character’s chest insignia, but it may not have been soon enough as Firestorm does trigger an explosion – that was registered by Gen. Eiling (Clancy Brown), who wants Firestorm back. Uh-oh.

And that blood sample Cisco was able to identify? It was Barry’s blood — only that of a full-blown adult. Say it with me kids: time travel is real and here on ‘The Flash.’

Random DC Easter Eggs:

• Barry tells Linda he’s taking her to a Mal Duncan performance. Mal was a longtime Teen Titans member and teammate of Wally West aka Kid Flash.
• At the Stein home, Wells remarks that Martin Stein won three Conway awards, a reference to Firestorm creator Gerry Conway.