BWW Recap: THE FLASH Unleashes Fury of Firestorm

As the health of Dr. Stein (Broadway vet Victor Garber) continues to worsen, Barry (Grant Gustin) and the rest of Team Flash race to find a match for Stein's other half of Firestorm. We've got our running shoes on, we'll get you caught up in a flash.

We open with a flashback to two years ago. Jefferson "Jax" Jackson (Franz Drameh) has just scored the winning touchdown. The coach tells him scouts were in the stands and impressed with his performance. He's going to have his pick of college scholarhips. That is, until the nearby S.T.A.R. Lab particle accelerator blows up. Jax sees the shockwave heading their way, alerts everyone to outrun the blast, stops to pick up a team mate with crutches that fell over, carries him to safety and then is hit with the full blast of energy. We get it. Jax is a hero. It doesn't mean we still don't miss Ronnie (Robbie Amell).

Flashing forward, Stein's condition has worsened. He is trashing in the hospital bed at the Lab; blue energy flames shoot from his head. Cisco (Carlos Valdes) places the Firestorm stabilizer on Stein's chest. It stablizes him for the time being, but Caitlin (Danielle Panabaker) notes without Ronnie to merge with Stein to form the full Firestorm, Stein is getting worse. Good thing she's identified two potential candidates. Henry Hewitt (Demore Barnes; the character of Hewitt is also known as the villain Tokamak in the comic books and I'm thinking this won't end well) and Jax. Barry zips off to quickly grab blood samples so they can pick the finalist.

Det. Joe West (Jesse L. Martin) and his daughter Iris (Candice Patton) are looking at family photos in preparation for Iris meeting her prodigal mom, Francine (Vanessa Williams). Meanwhile Barry and Patty (Shantel VanSanten) flirt while discussing a possible meta-human sighting of a man-shark. Det. West arrives in time to call out the flirtation ("What is it with you, my daughter Iris and my partners," he asks Barry).

At the Lab, Stein is up and walking around courtesy of a special cane that Cisco developed that keeps his jumbling atoms from, well jumbling. Caitlin has poured over the blood samples and is pushing for Hewitt to be the replacment (he's a scientist). Barry points out that Jax is actually the better DNA match. Caitlin goes off to meet with Hewitt, Barry and Stein visit Jax. Cisco heads back into his lab to work on something else to stablize Stein. He's followed by the Earth-2 version of Dr. Harrison Wells (Tom Cavanagh) who teleported to Earth-1 last episode. Is friend or foe? And just how good is the "new" security they installed at S.T.A.R. (seeing as Wells is the second person to waltz in undetected)?

Turns out, the exposion cause a torn ACL, ending Jax's pro-football dreams. He's working as a mechanic and quite bitter about the whole thing. Barry gives him the Lab's number just in case.

At Jitters (where else), Iris meets up with her mom. It does not go well. Iris wants to know why mom waiting two decades before showing up. She calls her Francine (not mom) and tells her they've led seperate lives up until this point and she wants to keep it that way. Ouch.

Back at the Lab, Stein and Barry return to find that Caitlin has already moved Hewitt to the final round and invited him to the lab. He's a bit too eager to embrace his meta-human self. Caitlin is horrible at reading people. She's blurted out the entire Firestorm backstory to him.

Hewit dons the Firestorm stabilizer and attempts to merge with Stein. The pair fail to merge. Hewitt leaves in a huff.

At Mercury Labs, Dr. Tina McGee (Amanda Pays, who played a similarly named character in the original THE FLASH TV series) is shocked to find the guy breaking into the Applied Sciences wing of her lab is none other than Wells. She calls Det. West and Patty down to her Lab to tell them this. Patty informs her it isn't possible seeing as Wells in most assuredly dead. McGee is insistant, though. It was Wells with one difference: he's walking again.

Francine is waiting for Joe back at the precinct. He is less than thrilled to find her there and tells her to leave. She finally reveals why she's back: she has MacGregor's Syndrome (the same disease the Clock King had on ARROW and Mr. Freeze's wife and Batman's butler Alfred had in BATMAN & ROBIN). It's terminal. She has until the end of the year if she is lucky.

Jax shows up to the Lab expecting them to fix his knee so he can resume his football career. He's not thrilled to find out he might be one of the meta-humans he keeps hearing about. Superhero is not his kind of thing.

Barry gives Patty the results from his testing. It's not a man shark or even a landshark (nice nerd reference to SNL). Patty has another case anyway. Joe told her not to tell Barry about it. Never play Bridge with Patty; she has a horrible poker face. Barry heads into Joe's office to confront him. Joe is shaken up and he comes clean about Francine's condition. Joe again tries to get Barry to realize he has feelings for Patty. Date already.

Back whereever Hewitt works, his manager is riding him for some test results tat Hewitt tells him he'll get tomorrow. The guy keeps riding him. Hewitt gets so made, he ignites into flames.

He literally has a meltdown in the lab. It's on the news. Team FLASH realizes they have to stabilize him. He has a history of anger management issues (Cisco found numerous police reports; way to screen your candidate, Caitlin).

Joe delivers the bad news about Francine to Iris. Iris still isn't sure if she wants to have any relationship with her.

Caitlin goes to the garage where Jax works. She lays on the guilt about her husband Ronnie, how he used to be Stein's other half and how it was him who flew into the black hole and died saving the city. The recruitment chat is interrupted. Hewitt has followed Caitlin there. He blasts Jax with some atomic energy. He threatens Caitlin. Jax proves he still has a good throwing arm and lobbies a car part at Hewitt's head, knocking him out.

The pair arrive at the Lab in the nick of time. Stein is fading quick. Jax dones the Firestorm jacket and the two merge. Hewitt, in one heck of a coincidence, is using the high school football stadium to refuel. Firestorm races over to stop him along with THE FLASH.

Cisco names Hewitt "Tokamak" for his ability to regulate his own power. Caitlin tells Barry and Jax to taunt Hewitt until he blows his fuse. Jax lands the finishing blow and thanks his new coach, Stein.

Back at Jitters, Iris meets with Francine one more time. After she sourced out Francine's story about her illness, of course (Iris just might be a journalist afterall). Oh, and her research uncovered a brother born eight months after Francine left Det. West. She asks Francine to reveal who is the father and then changes her mind. She wants Francine to stay away and not mention to Joe the existance of a possible son.

Back at Stein's house, Jax and Stein say goodbye to Team FLASH (the pair is off to Pittsburgh to train with a colleague of Stein's who originally helped Ronnie and Stein). Stein does give Cisco some parting advice about his own emerging superpowers, though. We may just see Cisco as Vibe just yet.

Barry closes out the ep narrating about second chances. In full FLASH costume, he speeds over to Jitters to watch Patty...as a giant hand slowly enters the frame and grabs him. Yep, turns out those reports of a shark were true (and Barry's lab work was wrong). King Shark has entered the picture.

Patty hears the comotion and rushes out side. She draws her gun and fires the entire chamber at him. He continues to walk towards her. There is a shot from some laser behind him. He falls. Barry races after the hooded stranger who just saved them both. He catches up to him. The stranger slowly lowers his hood. It's Earth-2 Wells.

Easter eggs galore for comic book fans in this one. Your thoughts? Comment below and follow me @triggercric and follow @BWWTVWorld for all the latest updates, scoops and recaps.

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