THE FLASH Goes to the Multiplex

Episode 102 “Fastest Man Alive”

[Photos: Cate Cameron/The CW]

So, Barry and Cisco have decided that “the Flash” is going to be a superhero. And it seems Dr. Catilin Snow has a problem with that. And it seems that there are small lapses in Barry’s power, which come at very inopportune moments throughout the first third of the hour.

We begin with a building on fire, with Fire Station 52 responding (of course it’s 52). Flash manages to get the remaining residents out just before almost dropping to the ground. But he recovers and speeds away, no big deal. He and Team Flash aren’t quite sure what’s going on, but Barry isn’t too concerned about it because he’s the hero saving people, and that’s a good thing. Wells cautions restraint, because his own lack of it caused the explosion that created this whole mess in the first place.

From there, we have a dead body at Hex’s gun shop (is Jonah moonlighting?), where it seems a gang of robbers made off with quite a haul. Herein lies the meat of the episode: the introduction of Multiplex, Simon Stagg, and the conflict between Joe West and Barry Allen.

Simon Stagg — big-time corporate CEO with a high degree of skill in the bio-sciences, making his fortune on medical technology. His advances in cloning could revolutionize medicine, and Barry accompanies Iris in her new maybe-hobby, journalism, as she covers the speech — with the understanding that Barry will explain the science. The cloning research, turns out, was stolen from one Danton Black, who got caught in the supercollider explosion and now has the ability to “clone” himself, allowing for multiple copies to exist at one time. Thus making him a pretty good one-man gang. So when he shows up at Stagg’s party (sorry, couldn’t resist), he manages to steal everyone’s valuables before the security guard shows up. And said security guard would have been plugged full of lead from Black’s multiple gun-toting selves if it weren’t for Barry saving him. Of course, this causes Barry to black out.

Turns out, the show is lifting a Wally West element, just as the 1990 show did. Barry’s metabolism is running so high, his blood sugar is off. So he’s got to start eating for twelve, which won’t be noticeable at all, right? Especially around Iris, his best friend and the one person he’s supposed to not tell.

But the method they use to figure this out — is a treadmill. And I’m sure there were multiple squees when it showed up, because of course it’s been tricked out by Cisco so it can withstand the high speeds Barry can run. The cosmic treadmill, ladies and gentlemen. This is the means by which Barry can travel through time. Now, it’s not in that state yet, but it’s just one more piece in a very complicated puzzle that started to unfold last week with the surprise ending.

So, now armed with high-protein bars, Barry goes off to confront Multiplex one last time. Caitlin has figured out that Black-Prime will be showing signs of stress from controlling all of his duplicates, so all Barry has to do is figure out which one is the real Danton Black and take him out. Piece of cake, right? Just wade through how many hundred duplicates all over Stagg’s office tower? But this is Barry Allen, forensic scientist and the fastest man alive, so he manages to find the one Danton Black with sweat on his brow.

Here’s where it starts to unravel a bit for me: Danton Black was only doing his research in cloning so he could grow a new heart for “Jennifer” — and Stagg stole the data. Not sure I need my villains to be sympathetic, especially given the tone of the rest of the show. The Flash is a pure comic book TV show, very much like the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and we don’t necessarily have to have bad guys we “understand”. Nor do we need to go the route of the 1990s Batman movies and kill off every villain, either. Mardon last week, Black this week.

And Wells standing up and stabbing Stagg to protect Barry? Sure, it would be a bad thing if Stagg got his hands on Barry to try to replicate his powers, but what is Wells trying to do? And does this put the kibosh on the speculation that Wells is Old Barry? Maybe it’s more support for the theory that he’s Hunter Zolomon? Still too early to tell, but let’s hope Simon Stagg isn’t all dead. Just mostly dead.

And then we have the “You’re not my dad” flashbacks that play into the b-story this week. Barry and Joe butt heads over Barry wanting to go out and save people with his power. To Joe, this is a kid playing dress up in a very dangerous real-world game of cops and robbers, and Joe worries that Barry won’t be able to handle it. But after seeing Danton Black split into three Danton Blacks, Joe realizes that regular cops aren’t equipped to handle this kind of thing, and after a tough conversation with Wells (who “cares about Barry, too”), Joe manages to set aside his worry and encourage Barry to do this Flash thing. And after finding Barry’s “wall of weird”, he decides to throw in whole hog, and the two of them are going to figure out just what really happened the night Barry’s mother was killed.

Now, this is two weeks in a row where we’ve had Harrison Wells (let’s just assume his middle initial is G) stands up out of his wheelchair to surprise someone and take a bold action of some sort that leaves the audience saying, “What the wha?” In this case, it’s fair to assume that Wells has just killed Simon Stagg, because otherwise Stagg would be able to blow Wells’ cover story about being bound to the wheelchair. But why even go that route at all? Why not just do some STAR Labs sciencey science and make it near impossible for Stagg to get his hands on Barry? Last time I checked, Barry was a person, not property, so the ways you get Barry to be a guinea pig are 1. kidnap him, 2. pay him, 3. appeal to his good nature, or 4. make it seem like his idea. Wells has already done that.

This is why I’m rejecting the notion that Wells is Older Barry Allen. Yes, they look similar, but in temperament and priorities, Wells just doesn’t strike me as anything like his protégé, and his motivation for killing Stagg seems to point more directly to Hunter Zolomon. So I’m calling it now: Harrison Wells is Hunter Zolomon, the third Reverse-Flash, who decided to make Wally West a better Flash by giving him a more challenging villain, Zoom. This is not the Reverse-Flash who killed Barry’s mother. That’s Thawne, either Eddie or a descendant.

It’s just too bad Stagg is dead. Hopefully not all dead. Just mostly dead. Because we really don’t need a repeat of Smallville, where everyone who learned Clark’s secret ended up either dead or in the looney bin. I mentioned the Batman films earlier. Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man series of films did the same thing. We don’t need to be killing off our villains. Especially since we haven’t seen the Metamorpho story play out yet.

On a side note: I noticed the map of Central City showed Leawood, Kansas in the top left corner, putting Central City just about where south Kansas City actually stands. So I expect to see the production crew coming out to shoot some background plates sometime soon? We can help. Call me.

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