'The Flash' Season 1, Episode 2 - Who Was That Multiplying Man? Recap

After a promising, action-packed, excellent pilot, "The Flash" returned with a second episode that was...not as good. We had to wade through some awkward catch-up exposition dialogue in the beginning there, which seemed unnecessary since we had just seen the first episode a week ago.

Still, episode two provided some fun action, as Barry found himself up against another meta-human, this time in the form of a man who could multiply himself on command.

But first, Barry had to figure out some kinks in his newfound powers. You see, he's been running all around Central City as The Flash, saving people from burning buildings and stopping robberies and whatnot.

He keeps having slight faint spells, though, and the biggest one comes right as he's chasing down Danton Black, our multiplying villain, in their first encounter. With Iris taking up journalism and showing an interest in the "Red Streak" spotted around town, Joe warns Barry to be smarter about using his powers.

In fact, Joe reminds Barry that he already has a job in law enforcement, and it's not as a cop, so he should stop acting like one. Joe is surprisingly calm about the whole superpowers thing, but he's also very dismissive of it. The dude can run faster than the speed of sound at this point, and you want him to just be a boring ol' CSI?

Joe says that Barry shouldn't be a hero, "just because you can run fast." Yeah but he can run like, really really fast.

Wells is on the other side of that fence, and tells Joe that he should be more supportive. "Doubt is Barry's greatest enemy," he says, and that rings true to the comics, where Flash traditionally has a bit of an inferiority complex.

Behind all this is a little more background into the early days of Joe and Barry's adopted father-and-son relationship, in which Barry wanted to visit his father and thought Joe was keeping him from it. It turns out that Barry's dad just didn't want his son to "see me like this." You know, that old thing.

When Barry has to take on hundreds of clones of Multiplex (as he was so named in a wink and nod to comic book readers at the end of the episode), Joe gives in and gives Barry his encouragement.

The action scene here is fun, though there are definite plot holes in terms of how Barry uses his powers. Not only is he faster than a speeding bullet; he's much, much, much faster than a speeding bullet. Theoretically, he could grab every multiple that Danton makes of himself and shuffle them off into a prison cell one by one before Danton would even be able to draw his gun.

So when Barry starts throwing punches and kicks in regular speed like he's Batman or something, we as an audience know it's just for story convenience. We've seen what The Flash can do, so we don't really buy it.

The episode wraps up with another tag of Wells doing something inexplicably sinister: He pulls the ol' "jk I can walk" thing and stabs Simon Stagg before he can take advantage of Barry and his powers. Wells claims it's to "protect" Barry, but are we really buying that at this point?