The Story
The STAR Labs team investigates a fire attack on one of Martin Stein’s former colleagues and is able to track him down. While Barry’s first encounter with Firestorm is unsuccessful, he is able to plant a tracker on him so that they can approach him during the day. They bring Caitlin and Martin’s wife to appeal to both the Martin and Ronnie parts and Firestorm agrees to go back to STAR Labs for some tests. It quickly becomes apparent that Firestorm’s temperature is rising and that he could go nuclear if something isn’t done to separate the two men. Firestorm sneaks out of STAR Labs to move to a safe, uninhabited area outside of the city. Wells puts together a genetic splicer from a piece of technology from his tachyon device – which sets back his “timeline” even further – and sends Barry and Caitlin to give the splicer to Firestorm. Unfortunately, the splicer appears not to work and Firestorm explodes in a nuclear blast that Barry and Caitlin barely outrun. Meanwhile, General Wade Eiling is informed of the blast and commands his Sergeant to bring him Firestorm.
Firestorm
While Firestorm seems to have exploded in his own nuclear blast, that’s obviously not the end of the story. General Eiling is interested in whatever is out there – whether it’s the person known as Firestorm or simply the technology behind Firestorm. We know, of course, that Eiling is into weaponizing soldiers. What better weapon than a human nuclear bomb? So whatever he finds out there will be highly potent, extremely dangerous, and certainly not safe in Eiling’s hubristic hands. Whatever Martin/Ronnie’s fate in that blast, we haven’t heard the last of Firestorm.
Valentine’s Day
It’s obviously getting close to the holiday of love because everyone in the episode seems to have something romantic going on. Barry and Linda have great chemistry and move right along from spicy tacos on date one to spicy sexy times on date two. Unfortunately, Barry has a hard time balancing Linda and work, interrupting their alone time and disappointing Linda. Barry tries to convince Linda to give him another chance, but she is reluctant.
To make matters worse, Iris tells Linda that Barry is getting over an unrequited love situation and might need some time. Linda correctly deduces that Iris is the other party and calls Barry out on it. Barry confronts Iris, angry that she has jeopardized his chances with Linda, and tells her that he doesn’t have feelings for her anymore. Iris seems hurt and confused by this. In the end, Barry takes the dive and professes his commitment to Linda and wins her over. Iris is further disturbed by this.
Meanwhile, a lonely housewife now living in Barry’s childhood home flirts shamelessly with Joe when he comes to reinvestigate the scene of Nora Allen’s murder. Joe is awkward.
The Murder Investigation
Joe has Cisco meet him for some secret investigations into Nora Allen’s murder. Cisco brings some special equipment and tests the house where she was killed and is able to pull some images from the back of a nitrite mirror. They construct a 3D hologram from the series of ten images and discover that one speedster had injured the other. They find blood spatter on the wall under the wallpaper and take samples. They find two different blood types. The awkward part is when Joe has to ask Cisco to test the blood samples against Harrison Wells. Joe has always had is suspicions about Wells – and rightly so – but feels he can trust Cisco to keep his suspicions a secret even if he doesn’t agree with them. Cisco eventually breaks down and tests the blood against Wells. He doesn’t find a match to Wells – which is the real surprise – but does find a match to an adult aged Barry – which, let’s be honest, everyone pretty much saw coming. Now we get to deal with fun scientific theories involving speed and time travel.