YOUR FAVORITE LOGO TV SHOWS ARE ON PARAMOUNT+

"The Flash" 1.14 Recap: Conscious Uncoupling

General Eiling wants Firestorm for his very own, but Barry has a thing or two to say about that.

Previously on The Flash…. Team Flash brought RonStein, a.k.a. Firestorm, in off the streets and gave him a shave and a haircut and returned him to his usual level of Robbie Amell hotness. Joe West had Cisco use some highly improbable science to discover that the Flash had been there the night Nora Allen died. And Firestorm went nuclear.

Barry Allen barely managed to outrun the blast, but he did crash and burn with Caitlin in his arms. Happily, she was protected from being smushed into chunky salsa by Barry’s cuteness aura Speed Force. And miracle of miracles, there was no radiation from the blast so Flash and Caitlin can go back to see what the heck happened.

They find Ronnie and Stein have indeed separated, which is surprising. Even more surprising, they separated into two fully clothed humans. I know, I know, it’s an 8PM show. However, I cannot imagine any censor getting grumpy over a naked Robbie Amell. I just can’t.

Back at Star Labs, Cisco gloms onto Ronnie like a koala bear to a tree. The hug goes well beyond the limits of bro hug, is what I’m saying. Then Cisco apologizes for temporarily killing Ronnie, but Ronnie’s over that. He’s just happy Stein is no longer inside him.

Hey, General Eiling is back. Seems he knows all kinds of stuff about Firestorm, like that it’s a composite of two people. I wonder if he and Amanda Waller are besties in this universe. They seem to share a certain particular lack of moral fiber.

Ronnie and Stein are given clean bills of health, save for the fact that they’re both running a little hot. Speaking of running hot, tempers flare as the two snipe at each other over Stein’s management of their shared personal space. Seems that their time together didn’t make them BFFs.

Joe takes Barry back to the old homestead to share with him the news that Barry can/will time travel. And once that news is broken, they go back to the Nerd Squad to discuss just how possible time travel really is. And Wells is like, “Sure, it’s no prob.”

Cisco has to translate science speak into English, which he does with a great big grin on his face. I think he may be the biggest geek on the whole show. He also knows who maybe could help them with time travel theories—and hey it’s Professor Stein.

Isn’t that convenient?

Barry pops over to the Stein house to ask some questions, but first he has to retrieve a pizza. So apparently Mrs. Stein knows his secret identity now too? Barry really needs to review the whole “secret identity” concept.

Stein babbles to Barry about how time isn’t static, it’s this wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey thing. And when he hears that Barry actually can/will time travel, he geeks out even harder.

Meanwhile, Caitlin and Ronnie are catching up on old times. And then Ronnie has a swell idea about getting the heck out of that crazy town and maybe going somewhere quiet and safe—basically anywhere but Star City.

“I hear Gotham’s nice this time of year. A new club just opened, the Eagle’s…. No, the Parrot’s. Mmm, something bird-like.”

Their coffee date is interrupted by an attack squad. An attack squad with truly terrible aim, fortunately, as they hit everyone and everything but Ronnie. But they corner him outside and Eiling is about to start monologuing when Barry shows up and beats up all the army people. Except for some reason he doesn’t knock out Eiling.

Bad planning, that. Eiling has a doohickey that immobilizes Barry. Our hero really needs to learn to suppress his urge to gloat. Just take the bad guys down and gloat in private. Standing in front of them just begs to have karma kick your butt.

But Caitlin is there to save the day, so it’s all good. Nice that she gets to rescue the boys for a change.

Stein shows up to inform them all that he’s still inside Ronald.

“There has to be a better way to phrase that,” says Cisco.

Are we jealous, Cisco?

When Caitlin says that what’s happening is more or less impossible, Barry says, “Yeah, but impossible is just another Tuesday for us.”

And the meta just keeps on rolling.

Wells goes to suggest to Eiling that he back the heck off. But Eiling isn’t in the mood to be reasonable, and he’s pretty sure Wells is just as evil as he is so he says that instead of him not trying to catch Firestorm, how about he does try and catch Firestorm and Wells helps out.

Joe and Barry have one of their heartwarming moments. It concludes with Barry kind of wanting to know how Joe knew to look for Barry’s blood and Joe having to fess up that he’s still trying to prove that Wells is guilty of all the things.

“Oh, Joe, Dr. Wells is totally not evil.”

Then we move to Star Labs where Wells is being totally evil. He and Stein are talking about stuff that no one cares about—they should have been arguing the merits of Back to the Future—when Stein succumbs to the mickey Wells put in his drink. Then our morally ambiguous scientist hands him over to Eiling.

Then he feeds Team Flash a line about how Eiling just stormed into the place and took Stein while he sat there totally helpless. His pants really should be on fire by now.

Ronnie decides to use the special bond he has with Stein to find out where Eiling took him.

Meanwhile, Eiling is using some enhanced interrogation to get Stein to tell him how to mass-produce Firestorms. Yep, he and Waller are two peas in a pod.

Stein would rather die than give up the info. Me, I would have said, “Well, you blow up a particle accelerator while holding a tesseract and hope for the best. Good luck. Can I go now?”

Using some intriguing BS, Team Flash finds out where Stein is being kept. But there’s a good chance that once they’re back together, Stein and Ronnie will merge again and that means no more snuggles for Caitlin which makes her very sad.

Barry whisks Stein to … just outside the base. Honestly, just take him a dozen miles away, race back and grab Ronnie and be done before the army people even know what’s happening. Barry is supposed to be smart, isn’t he? Did he go to planning school at the Oliver Queen Institute?

Eiling uses a weapon that melts off Barry’s clothes. Okay, hey, now I’m on board. While Barry is dealing with that, Stein and Ronnie form Voltron Firestorm.

Firestorm wrecks some army toys and then Eiling hits him with a whammy thing. Hmm…. Eiling wanted this army of Firestorms even when he knew they could be defeated with a gadget that his lab boys whipped up in the five minutes they had access to Stein’s bloodwork? In fact, as easily as he has whupped both meta human heroes, why is he even worried about them at all?

Well, Barry knocks him out and the day is saved. But Ronnie is just too hot to be on this show full time (*sadface*) so he and Stein pack their bags to go and find a better way to be big damn heroes. Or something. Maybe he’ll show up in Star City? That’d be awesome.

Eiling has made one very serious mistake this episode and that’s telling Wells that he knows Barry’s secret identity (like half of Central City). So even as he is trying to drink away the crushing defeat he has suffered, Eiling finds himself kidnapped.

And so we see Wells in the yellow suit. Well, I’m confused. Wells has some grand scheme and I really can’t even guess at it. But in this case, he’s protecting Barry from Eiling and his wicked ways. To that end, he has brought Eiling to meet an old friend.

“Oh God,” says Eiling.

“Not God,” says a deep voice. “Grodd.”

Hell freaking yeah! This show has been saving all its pennies to pay for a kick-ass CGI Grodd. And he is not one to fool around. He grabs Eiling and drags him off to make him very, very sorry for ever putting the hurt on Grodd.

And that’s it for this week. Sound off in the comments.

Latest News