1.2: Fastest Man Alive
A firefighter, talking to dispatch: "We're still at least two minutes out". Dispatch responds, horrified, "People are going to die in there!"
What the fuck? Does the dispatcher think the firefighter doesn't know that fire can kill people? Also, two minutes isn't that far. The response to "We're two minutes out" should be "Great! Then you'll be able to save those lives super quickly!" or at least "Well, it is what it is." Did they cut out a scene with the firefighters stopping for lattes? Or was it that dispatcher's first day and no one trained him?
And this is just the cold open.
The show ACTUALLY starts when Barry gets to his day job, which he'd forgotten about. Forensic science genius Barry Allen sees a bunch of identical footprints (entirely identical; same shoes, same size and build bodies wearing the shoes) and concludes that they're looking for six guys, because "the tracks cross over each other". Because it's impossible for someone to step in his own footprints, right?
We next encounter this mysterious team of bad dudes at the big award ceremony for Simon Stagg, where they break in to start robbing everyone. They all try in unison to shoot a security guard, but Barry fast-pushes the guard out of the way. Somehow, in the time it takes The Flash to run a dude outside, the crew of bad guys all got out to their car. Granted, Barry collapses shortly after rescuing the guard (B-plot: "Barry needs to eat more or he'll pass out because of his super-speed metabolism, but apparently he's not any hungrier than normal"), but still.
So we get a scene down by the docks where we learn the bad guy is named Danton Black, plus a few extra pertinent pieces of information: 1. He was working with Stagg's head of security 2. Black considers killing Stagg to be the only thing he still wants in life. 3. He can separate into more than one guy
We do NOT learn any of the following: 1. Why the hell is security guy helping Black? Is he being bribed? Is he being extorted? Is he being threatened? Does he just hate Stagg too? Is he in love with Black? 2. Why was Black robbing the people at the event if his goal was to kill Stagg? Why'd he try to kill that security guard? 3. When Black divides into more than one copy of himself, why isn't the clone naked? The pseudoscience explanation for his division is given later as, basically, stem cells plus applied phlebotinum, and I’m willing to suspension-of-disbelief that aspect, but how did he get the stem cells to turn into pants and shoes and zippers and buttons and shit? If he can stem-cell his way into identical outfits, why did he need to steal guns for everyone?
And we'll never get answers to any of the above, either. Black separates into five guys and kills up the security guard.
So Black tries again to kill Stagg (and makes sure the cops see his face by pulling off his mask for no reason). Barry shows up to save him and, despite being able to easily dodge bullets, entirely fails to dodge fists. This happens right after a scene where he did a whole monologue and walked around the room in the time it took for sugar to fall into coffee, but moving fast enough to dodge a fist is just beyond his abilities.
After the fight, the Star Labs guys use some of Black’s blood to clone their very own Danton Black. It doesn’t move at first, but as soon as it does, Joe busts in and shoots it without so much as saying "Freeze!" He didn't realize that it was just a clone. He wasn't there for the explanation of them being just empty receivers. He just strode in, saw a suspect, and fired his weapon.
But hey, I guess a cop shooting an unarmed Black man is the most realistic thing that's happened in this show, AM I RIGHT?
After that--I.e., after demonstrating that a police officer can clearly shoot and easily kill Danton Black clones--Joe gives us a big speech about how the police can't possibly stop this guy.
So, it's big showdown time. Black tries to shoot Barry and he easily dodges the bullets. It's almost as if the writers want to make us super aware that Barry is faster than a bullet just so it's extra annoying when he’s unable to dodge human-speed punches. Why can't he just run up and snatch the guns out of each Danton Black's hands? He stole six guns at the top of the episode. Just grab the guns.
Black starts monologing. Apparently Stagg "stole his research", which meant that he wasn't able to grow his wife a new heart, which means he couldn’t save her. It's not made clear how one could steal research in such a way to make that happen. Like, did he not have any backups? Did he steal all of the equipment in Black's lab? Usually when you hear about someone stealing someone else's research, they just mean they published it without giving the other guy credit. That’s certainly a dick move, but wouldn't prevent Black from saving his wife.
Black starts vomiting out more Dantons Black everywhere. Now that there's enough that one could reasonably go "Okay, now it's too many for Barry to fight, even with super speed", he fights them easily with superspeed, effortlessly weaving through the throng and finding the prime Danton Black to knock him out cold, and alllll of the other Dantons Black collapse. Man, imagine if he’d only had super speed and the ability to smack someone in the head back when there were only a small number of Dantons Black to fight, he could have solved this problem much more quickly OH WAIT HE HAD SUPER SPEED THE WHOLE TIME.
Then Black wakes up, falls out a window, and dies.
So here's how I would have killed Stagg if I'd been a scientist with the ability to clone myself and a lust for revenge:
* Make two of me * Go to somewhere public where I knew Stagg was going to be * Make sure everyone sees me talking and interacting with people at the event. Stay in range of security cameras at all times. * Have clone shiv Stagg in the bathroom. Make a run for it, then dispose of the clone later.
Boom, done, easy, and with a secure alibi.
Misc annoyances 1. Barry and Joe have a conversation about how they need to keep it super secret that Barry has superpowers. They have this conversation in the lobby of the police station, with a crapload of people around. You can tell that there are people all around them because the director filmed this conversation with a rotating camera around Barry and Joe, making sure they were surrounded by extras the whole time. 2. It's creepy that Barry wants to bang Iris. They basically grew up as brother and sister. He thinks of Joe as his dad. He shouldn't want to bang Iris. 3. Stagg's head of security implied that his part of the deal was telling Black where Stagg would be. So, he gave Black the super-secret information that Stagg would be at a large, well-attended party in his honor. Did Black really need to make some shady arrangement with Stagg's head of security to get that information? 4. Why didn't Stagg's head of security bring a gun with him to the shady docks where he met Black? 5. Seriously, Joe. Firing a gun in an enclosed space like that? Good job giving the whole Flash team tinnitus. I guess they might be used to it after all of the sonic booms. 6. What happened with all of the extra Danton Blacks bodies at the end? There was like a building full of 'em. Based on the mindless Black Blank they grew in Star Labs, all of those Danton Blacks were living and breathing. Honestly, I think the logistics of how they dealt with that would be a great episode. There would be religious groups demanding they be kept alive, people saying they should harvest their organs for transplants, people trying to study them, etc. None of these ramifications are ever addressed.
