Duck Fox

The Flash is Officially on The CW!

If you want to hit the superhero sweet spot for nerds, your best bet is to depict a scrawny dude who has little luck with girls, is a little too excited by science, and whose father figure encourages him to run from fights. Let’s face it, that’s basically us, and part of the appeal of superhero fiction is being able to imagine yourself as the hero. Tonight’s episode of The Flash completes Barry’s origin story (well, it at least gives him the familiar name) and forces him to confront an old nemesis. How old can he really be after only seven weeks of show? Think back to grade school. Greg Finley’s Tony Woodward (AKA, Girder) is a slimey douche who has had eyes for Iris since he and Barry were in elementary school together. Back when he used to insult Barry’s dad, then push him around after Barry tried to fight him.

“The Flash is Born” is a lot more than just wish fulfillment. Barry spends the majority of the episode struggling to come to terms with Iris’ continued blogging about his alter ego. Now that he knows she’s writing for him, it’s much harder to take umbrage with her blog. Meanwhile Joe decides to semi-officially look into the murder of Barry’s mother now that he knows Barry wasn’t necessarily imagining things. His first lead is Harrison Wells himself—because who better to have a chat with supernatural powers than the man who started the metahuman craze?

Barry spends some time with Eddie Thawne as well, which works okay as far as Barry’s misleading his suspicions on metahumans goes, but when they start getting into Iris West I want to roll my eyes. Maybe it’s because we’ve seen this exact same beat with Tommy/Laurel/Oliver on Arrow, but I’m really hoping the show doesn’t attempt to do much with the love triangle. There also seems to be a hint that Caitlin Snow is warming up to Barry, but I might be misreading her genuine concern for a friend for jealousy when she asks him of his whereabouts. And it sucks because there’s some genuinely awesome bromance going on with Eddie and Barry. I’m sure Tumblr has already dedicated a sizable community to their “friendship.” But seriously, when Eddie, frustrated with the investigation of Tony Woodward being handed off to the state police, takes Barry to the precinct gym to work over a sandbag, it’s genuinely great to see him teach Barry how to land a punch that counts. Learning that this suave, capable detective was bullied as a kid humanizes him a great way. If he does become the Reverse Flash as everyone predicts, it’ll actually kind of suck because of how great of a guy he is.

After everyone has had their karate kid moment, Barry is ready to take his speed to the next level and actually throw a punch that matters. He has the perfect opportunity as well, as Tony has kidnapped Iris and taken them to their old school. The thing about this show is that even when everything else is pretty middling, it manages to make the final scene feel as epic as any final confrontation in various super hero films. When Barry steels himself and then turns around to gather the velocity necessary before taking the hit that matters, it’s just perfection. Cisco’s exclamation just about sums it up. We even got to see Iris standing up for herself!

“The Flash is Born” captivates by exploring the less traumatic events of Barry’s past and allowing him to finally break out of his heroic shell by learning not just how to fight, but how to win.