As Virgil adjusts to hero life, his former bully Francis embarks on villainy. Renaming himself Hotstreak, Francis decides to take advantage of his new powers. Meanwhile Mr. Hawkins points out that most of the new metahumans are committing crimes, and they don't know if all of them will turn evil. Static decides to investigate the source of the Big Bang: Alva Industries.
Tropes for this episode include:
- Always Chaotic Evil: Subverted. Mr. Hawkins brings this up as a possibility, even for Static, but it turns out that Virgil is perfectly fine. He just needs to cut back on salt.
- Chronic Hero Syndrome: Virgil goes to stop Hotstreak rather than deliver the evidence of Alva's gas to the police.
- Destroy the Evidence: Hotstreak accidentally destroys the disk that would have incriminated Alva.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: Virgil's attempts to explain to his doctor why he wants blood tests without revealing he was at the Big Bang inadvertently make it sound like he's sexually active and afraid of having contracted some kind of infection. Virgil, thankfully, quickly realizes the misunderstanding and corrects it.
- Dramatic Irony: Robert going into a spiel at dinner about how all meta-humans are menaces to the city. It's one thing that he even pegs Static is a ticking time bomb for a monstrous mutation or a crazed villain. What he doesn't know is, Static is sitting right there in the form of his son, growing increasingly uncomfortable at the idea he could be the next abnormal meta-human.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: This episode establishes the early-series limitation that Static's power can only manipulate metal using electromagnetism. This is eventually dropped to lean more into Lightning Can Do Anything.
- Foreshadowing: When Virgil does a blood test, he compares his and Richie's. The thing is that both of their blood looks the same under the microscope. That's gonna be important in Season 3.
- He Knows Too Much: Static nearly gets killed at Alva Industries when he's caught investigating their involvement.
- Idiot Ball: Virgil goes into battle against Hotstreak, a guy who shoots flames, holding a vital piece of evidence against Edwin Alva that he nearly got killed trying to obtain. Predictably it gets fried in the scuffle. Why he didn't just hand it off to Richie before the battle is anyone's guess.
- Logical Weakness:
- Hotstreak versus the fire department is a Curb-Stomp Battle.
- Static's powers don't work well when there's no metal to charge. He points out to Hotstreak, however, that they're in a city. There's metal everywhere, even if you can't see it. Cue Static using his powers to uproot a sewage pipe to extinguish Hotstreak's powers.
- Mundane Made Awesome: During a Town Hall Meeting concerning the meta-humans, Robert makes it a point to very sternly dress down the mayor for doing very little about the problem. Richie is impressed, to which Virgil remarks his father got practice from giving his kids a firm talking to.
- Not Afraid of You Anymore: In his first confrontation against Hotstreak, Virgil chokes because he can't get past seeing Francis as his bully and feeling powerless against him. In their second fight, Hotstreak accidentally burns the evidence Virgil got from Alva's laboratory, which angers Virgil enough to allow him to power through his fear and win.
- Pyrrhic Victory: Lampshaded. Virgil relays the history of King Pyrrhus and how he beat the Romans at the expense of losing so many men, to the point where he might as well have lost the battle. He uses this as an allegory to Richie of how he feels about his own victory against Hotstreak. For context, he was able to defeat Hotstreak, but at the cost that he accidentally lost evidence of Alva Industries' involvement with the Big Bang accident.
- Strawman Has a Point: In-universe, Virgil realizes his dad may be right in considering that the Big Bang may cause the metahumans to go Drunk with Power and possibly become evil by default. He quickly gets a blood test from his doctor.
- Would Hurt a Child: Whether they know it or not, Alva Industries does this, apparently being perfectly willing to kill Static when he breaks in.
