This week, the team searches for another half for Dr. Stein while the already established secondary plots continued to thicken.
SPOILERS AHEAD
The episode starts with a flashback where we discover how yet another citizen of Central City was effected by the explosion at STAR Labs. This time, it’s Jefferson Jackson someone who is going to be important this episode.
We cut back to find Dr. Stein burning uncontrollably and the team has to stabilize him. The stabilizer that Cisco has cooked up is on its last legs and the team is in desperate need to find another partner to counterbalance the Firestorm matrix. Luckily, Caitlin has been doing some research and she has some candidates in mind.
While Iris prepares to meet her mother and the Barry/Patty connection progresses at a snail’s pace, the team has found two candidates. One is a scientist, which Caitlyn supports, and the other is an auto mechanic who just may be more compatible with Dr. Stein. You’ll never guess who the mechanic is. And, just for good measure, the alter Dr. Wells is just sort of creeping around the Labs.
The meetings begin and they go expectedly. Iris meets her mother and has zero sympathy for her, wishing her mother the best of luck but not wanting to see her. Jefferson, better known as Jax (again with the terrible names!), politely declines the team’s effort to reach out to him as he tries to put that night out of his mind. However, when Barry leaves a number, he’s certainly more interested then he let on. The final meeting with Dr. Hewitt, the scientist, is exactly the opposite as Hewitt turns out to be a pretentious snob.
With Hewitt the only one willing to go through it, they try to merge him with Stein which doesn’t work as Firestorm won’t merge the pair. But (obviously there’s a but) as Hewitt goes to leave, it seems he’s taking a little bit of Firestorm with him for the road!
Wells has made his first play and stolen some fancy tech which brings Joe and Patty to the scene since, you know, Wells is dead and all. While Patty wants to bring Barry in, Joe wisely wants to keep him out of it. As they settle this matter, Francine hits Joe with the bomb that she’s dying and just wants to get to know her daughter. This plot is taking some twists and turns! Telegraphed a mile away twists and turns, but still!
But it looks like Dr. Stein is in a bit of a pickle when they can’t even convince Jax to become a superhero. Not only that, but Hewitt is beginning to manifest his powers and it looks like he’s more of a villain than the hero the team was looking for.
When Caitlin goes to talk to Jax about being a hero, low and behold, here comes Hewitt all ablaze and complaining about the team not delivering what they promised. A well thrown wrench gives them the opportunity to escape and this week’s battle is geared up to go.
It turns out that Caitlin’s talk hit home as Jax is willing to merge with Stein just as Stein is beginning to lose complete control. The merge goes off without a hitch and Firestorm is reborn… just as Hewitt starts to attack the high school stadium that we opened on. Flash and the new Firestorm take on a rage filled Hewitt who gets overwhelmed in a completely underwhelming battle.
The episode wraps up as Iris confronts her mom over her mystery brother that discovered while digging into Francine’s past demanding that she leave for good. Stein and Jax depart the city because you can’t have two heroes in one town, but not before Stein tells Cisco to open up about his powers.
And no episode would complete without a cliff hanger! Barry gets by a meta that was comically referenced all episode and is bailed out as the alternate Dr. Wells reveals himself to the speedster.
This episode was certainly a bit of a sleepy episode in comparison to how the seasons started. There were no surprises, relationships grew exactly as much as you thought they would and it stuck religiously to the formula. While they did use it to get Firestorm back together (and then out of town), this one felt like an extraneous episode for sure. Hopefully, with Wells back in the picture, next week can get back to quality superhero TV.
P.S. Am I the only one who misses Season 1’s stinger scenes?