For an episode that featured the debuts of Firestorm 2.0 and Henry “Tokamak” Hewitt, as well as a giant man-shark, The Flash’s fourth Season 2 episode “The Fury of the Firestorm” was a fairly boring affair. But there were two pretty awesome moments during the episode, and one of them involves future-Flash Wally West, and how he’ll enter the story.
We knew news of Wally was coming, as the arrival of Iris’ mom necessarily meant that other facts about the West family would come to light. And it was nice that we weren’t forced to go too far into the season before learning that Wally is, in fact, Iris’ brother, and one that Francine was apparently hoping to keep hidden from everyone else for as long as possible. Or at least until she died by the end of the year due to McGregors disease, which she contacted as a side effect of her former drug use.
It appears that Francine was pregnant whenever she left Joe and Iris all those years ago, and that was Wally in the oven. Unfortunately, we still haven’t gotten to meet him yet, as actor Keiynan Lonsdale has yet to make an appearance on the show. But we can’t wait to see what he’s like and what kind of relationship will form between him, Iris and Joe, assuming Iris doesn’t keep her sibling a secret until Season 3 comes around. Obviously we also want to know how he’ll mesh with Barry and when he’ll be transforming into Kid Flash or whatever hero he gets to be in this universe, but we know that we’ll probably have to wait a while for all that.
Here’s how executive producer Andrew Kreisberg explained the creative team’s decision to expand the West family in Season 2 to ComicBook.
We sort of had this idea, just like with any of the shows that we do, we kind of have these ideas in the previous season. We always knew we were leading up to this. We always hated on TV shows where it's year two and somebody's, 'Well, Cousin John's coming,' and it's like, 'Oh, good old Cousin John,' who no one ever mentioned before. It was weird, the notion that they don't know Wally, and that was sort of where it came from. That was the idea that Francine was still alive and then that whole storyline.
If we’re being totally honest, introducing a long-lost relative coupled with the concept of a completely unknown relative isn’t exactly spotless storytelling, but I’m pretty much on board with everything The Flash throws at viewers. I mean, I could do with Barry’s dad not jetting out of Central City as soon as he got out of jail, but some men are weird that way.
Stay tuned for next week’s episode of The Flash, in which we might get to see Barry having a conversation with the actual Harrison Wells for once.
