TV REVIEW: Bullies, Secrets & Foreshadowing in “The Flash is Born”

By Justin Carter

Bullies are just the worst. In elementary, middle, or high school, they can make your life a living hell and not many will be given a chance to get some sort of payback. Barry Allen is one of the lucky, if fictional, few. His old elementary school bully, Tony Woodward, is hijacking Hummers and keggers of beer and happens to have super strength and a resistance to harm that makes punching him break Barry’s arm. Barry gets over that pretty quickly, but what he doesn’t get over is how much of a pain Tony was. His anger clouds his judgment, and when Iris gets involved, things don’t get much better.

Iris has been a fairly divisive character as far as fans are concerned. That trend may continue here, because while she is still justified in how she treats Barry, her primary role in this episode is to fawn over the Streak and get kidnapped by Tony. I read an article over the weekend about how Smallville, Arrow, and The Flash all suffer from what the writer calls ‘Lois Lane Syndrome’– where in this case, Iris’ entire arc is based on being ignorant of things that everyone else in her life is aware of. With Iris, it’s even more baffling because not only does she interact with the Streak on a consistent basis, she writes a blog about him with her name on it and her father is helping him. Even with the preceding logic Barry and Joe shared about not putting her in danger, Iris has already done that herself to the extent that they may as well just tell her. She and Barry make up at the end, but it still feels like one step forward, two steps back with Iris.

With her father, however, things seem to have taken five steps forward. Jesse L. Martin continues to be one of the show’s best assets, as he does some actual detective work and focuses on Barry’s mother’s killer. His world has been expanded since coming across meta-humans, and since Harrison Wells’ particle accelerator led to meta-humans being created, he targets the STAR Lab’s head. Tom Cavanaugh is having fun dancing around the subject of other speedsters with Joe, particularly during their scene in the restaurant. He manages to throw Joe off his trail, but the fact that Joe receives a threat from the red and yellow lightning that killed Barry’s mom just hours after talking with Wells definitely links the two together.

The producers of The Flash have gone on record as saying that upcoming winter episodes will deal with time travel, if that wasn’t made clear by the post-credit tease in the pilot. The real mystery is just in what capacity it will be involved and how Wells is involved. Fans have speculated that he’s classic Flash villain Professor Zoom (he also goes by Reverse Flash, depending on the comic), and that Rick Cosnett’s Eddie Thawne is just a red herring. When the identity of the lightning is revealed, it’s going to be quite a battle for Barry.

This episode continues the gradual evolution of Barry’s abilities, as he learns to up his speed and make quick jabs at enemies to compensate for his lack of super strength. After all, fighting a guy who can turn his body into steel requires more than a plain old punch. To truly get a good hit on Tony, Barry has to run 837 miles and reach mach 1.1. This is definitely the visual highlight of the show–the way the lightning crackles in Barry’s eyes before he runs and him running to punch Tony in slow-motion are amazing. Everything ends on a good note for Barry; his powers are growing, he’s mended things with Iris, he’s finally given the title of the Flash, and Tony is safely locked away behind bars. But as Newton says, for every action, there’s an equal or opposite reaction. He and Tony are aware of each other’s powers, but there’s always the possibility of Team Flash’s prison shutting down and the villains they’ve gathered escaping. With Tony aware of his identity and Iris’ connection to his alter ego, karma could come back to bite him. But until that happens, Barry should focus on learning to not break his arm when punching things.

Additional Notes:

• Barry and Caitlin debate how many flies Barry swallows when he runs. I wanna say….4.

• The superhero references this week range between eye-rollingly obvious and subtle. A man on fire but not burning is fine, but Wells calling Tony a “man of steel”? Yeesh.

• Cisco actually doesn’t directly name the villain this week, though his Girder practice robot for Barry takes that title instead. Also, pretty sure you can’t reference Iron Fist.

• Iris handles narration this week, but it’s more or less exactly what Barry’s narration was in the pilot. Bit of a waste, honestly.