Posted in: Movies, TV | Tagged: entertainment, The Flash, tv, WB

Spicing Up A Personal Life – Recapping The Flash 1.13: 'The Nuclear Man'

By Dan Lloyd

[*BEWARE OF SPOILERS! It's all this article features]

We open with the ever apparent reality that being a superhero sometimes means it is hard to run a regular life. Barry is on a date with new love interest Linda (played by newcomer Malese Jow), but finds that his colleagues down at S.T.A.R. Labs have more important things for him to be doing. He skilfully finds a way to fight crime while on his date, however there are unforeseen bumps along the way with his new (first?) girlfriend.

After meeting up with Cisco and Kaitlyn, who are understandably excited that their friend has someone new and exciting in his life, they are just wondering how … *ahem*… excited Barry may get. We all know The Flash is fast, but is he fast in every feature of his life. That could cause some problems.

In fact, after having such a great time before, Linda agrees to go out and meet Barry once again. Even though Barry has a wonderful night planned with the likes of a jazz bar and mini golf, Linda seems like she might prefer to have a night in, if you catch my drift. A short while later, while making on out Barry's couch, he does his really fast vibration thing (Let's leave this alone guys), and gets yet another message from Kaitlyn, detailing that Firestorm (played by Arrow's cousin Ronnie Amell) has been found once again.

Firestorm is certainly a complicated character, and while he may look like one man, as technically he is two people who have been unfortunately morphed together – Ronnie Raymond plays the host body, while Dr. Martin Stein controls the mind – so he appears to have somewhat of a split personality disorder, combined with something else that wouldn't usually happen; Firestorm has the ability to turn himself into a human torch.

With two combustable elements (..people?) sharing one body though, there's only so much that body can take. As Dan Dorian, sorry, Dr. Harrison Wells discovers, Ronnie and Martin sharing the same body is causing the atoms in their body to stir up and mix up a dangerous cocktail; one that is probably going to turn nuclear any time now. Obviously Kaitlyn finds this hard to deal with and wants to try everything they can to save Ronnie's life, but on the flip side, Wells wants to put an end to Ronnie/Martin's misery and kill them before they have a chance to kill millions. To appease his colleague, Wells delays his tacheon device to form a quantum splicer, living in hope that it may work and separate Ronnie and Martin.

During this problem, we go back and forth to Barry's personal life. Linda was left utterly confused after Barry left during their make out session, causing her to turn to Barry's BFF and Linda's colleague, Iris. Iris is seemingly uncomfortable with the way that Barry is now not hanging off her every word and while potentially not doing so maliciously, she hints that Barry was formerly heavily interested in someone else and with Linda being the clever girl she is, figures out that Barry had feelings for Iris.

Once Barry finds out that Iris tried to push Linda away from him, he is fairly confused and confronts her. Throughout this episode it seems like she is slowly realising that she may feel the same for Barry as he once did for her and is left a bit blue that he has found somebody else; this is made worse by him saying that he doesn't feel like he did for her any more.

In a bid to prove how much he wants to carry on seeing Linda, Barry consumes a ghost pepper in front of her news team as a reference to their first date eating the spiciest tacos in the city and then proceeds to have this reaction:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tRq8ExAHzk[/youtube]

Linda appears to forgive Barry for his earlier mistakes and gives him another chance to impress her after he did so well on their first date. While everybody gathers round to see Barry's romantic gesture, Iris is found looking on from the back of the room and does not look happy that Barry has moved on.

Elsewhere, Joe and Cisco have been doing their own investigation after Joe reopens the case for Nora Allen's murder. They go back to Barry's childhood house and have a look around while a flirty divorcee tries to tempt Joe into spending time with her. After not having any luck with the house seeing as it has been redecorated, they notice that the mirror is still the exact same one that they used to have when Barry was a child. After further examination, Cisco manages to use the mirror to uncover images and something else…

Cisco and Joe find that in one section of the house, their is blood underneath the wallpaper and take a sample to take back to the CSI lab. As Cisco gets close to Joe and starts to feel excited about helping find Nora's killer, Joe asks Cisco to test the blood found at the scene with one specific target – Dr. Harrison Wells. After all Wells has done for Cisco, he refutes the idea that Wells could be a killer and storms out of the lab.

Cisco later calls Joe and tells him a startling announcement – the blood that was found at Barry's childhood house was not that of Wells, but of Barry. Joe then tries to point out why that would be feasible, before Cisco explains in scientific terms that the Barry that was there could not have been Barry as a child, but it was Barry as an adult! This proves that somehow Barry is going to time travel in search of his mother's killer.

We also find out that Ronnie has left S.T.A.R. Labs and has made his way to the badlands, as he also knows he is set to explode and wants to be at a minimum safe distance before he goes off. Kaitlyn and Barry chase after him and attach the quantum splicer to him, but it is too late and we see Ronnie start to engulf in flames before Barry picks up Kaitlyn and dashes back towards the city; seconds later he finds himself being followed by a mushroom cloud but it looks like he will make it.

To round off an exciting episode, General Eiling is informed of Firestorm's explosion and demands his men to bring him Firestorm right away – leading us to believe that he knows more than he is letting on.

Dan Lloyd (@DRL_1990) is an aspiring writer who loves everything nerdy. He got into gaming and watching wrestling at an early age and has never looked back. He is a resident wrestling fan as well as covering some gaming and TV pieces. 

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