The Flash Season 2, Episode 6: Enter Zoom

This week's episode of The Flash was both lighthearted and incredibly dark. In fact it was the darkest the series has ever been, as Zoom literally broke Barry and displayed his near-lifeless body to the citizens of Central City like a gruesome trophy.

When I saw that Zoom was going to be this season's Big Bad, I was worried that he'd turn out to be just another Reverse Flash clone. Nothing could be further from the truth! Zoom is absolutely terrifying in ways the Reverse Flash never was. Plus he's stronger and faster! Not to mention just plain evil!

The tease of Jesse Quick in this episode signals we'll likely be getting yet another super speedster on the series soon. At this rate The Flash is gonna need a spinoff just for its secondary characters!

SPOILERS!

The Plot:

Barry questions Doctor Light, who's being held in STAR Lab's Illegal Secret Super Jail. She says Zoom forced her to come to Earth 1 and kill Barry. She was then supposed to throw his emblem through the breach to let Zoom know she'd done the job, and then he'd come through the collect the body. This gives Barry an idea. Light isn't a truly evil person, so he talks her into fake killing him in order to lure Zoom to Earth 1, where he'll stop him. Light agrees.

Harry says he can whip up a serum that'll slow down Zoom and make him easier to capture. Shortly after, Doctor Light turns invisible and escapes. I guess she wasn't on board with Barry's plan after all. Cisco tries using his vibe power on Harry to find out if he's evil or not. Harry realizes what he's doing and tells him to knock it off. Harry flashes back to his life on Earth 2 with his daughter Jesse. He calls her "Jesse Quick," a name which will delight comic fans but sail right over the heads of the general audience. Unfortunately Jesse was kidnapped when a metahuman attacked her college.

The Flash asks Linda Park if she'd be willing to impersonate Doctor Light in order to draw out Zoom. She agrees, and dons the Light costume. Cisco even whips up some light blasters of comparable power for her. She practices using the blasters, which goes badly, and tells the Flash she can't go through with it. Barry reveals his secret identity to Linda and tells her he believes in her, or some kind of motivational poster claptrap. She agrees to give it another try.

Cisco tries to "vibe" Harry again, and this time it works. He sees an image of Zoom interrogating Jesse, who he's holding in a cell.

Barry and Linda, as the Flash and Doctor Light, pretend to fight at a deserted pier. Light "defeats" the Flash, and throws his emblem through a breach that appears. Unfortunately Zoom doesn't step through, and the plan fails. Linda goes back to the newspaper to talk to Iris. Zoom appears and grabs Linda before, er, zooming away.

Zoom appears on the roof of STAR Labs, holding Linda over the edge to draw out the Flash. When he appears, Zoom drops Linda from the roof. Barry zips down to the street and creates a vortex to break her fall. Zoom and Barry then confront one another. Barry uses his "speed lightning" power to toss a blast at Zoom. He easily catches it (!) and hurls it back at Barry, injuring him. Harry shoots his "slow serum" at Zoom, who catches it in midair and jabs it into Barry's stomach. Zoom then appears to break Barry's back. Yowch!

Zoom carries Barry's broken body and displays it at the Picture News and the Police Department, taunting everyone inside with the image of their defeated hero. He returns to STAR Labs and is about to kill Barry in front of everyone, when Cisco shoots him in the back with a slow serum dart. Zoom hisses and speeds away.

Cisco tells Harry he saw an image of his daughter, who's still alive. Linda leaves town until things blow over. Barry awakens later in the STAR Labs infirmary, and can't feel his legs.

Thoughts:

• Doctor Light says she was supposed to toss Barry's Flash emblem through the breach, to let Zoom know she'd killed him. Cisco throws a fit over this, saying, "You know it took a lot of work to make that emblem, right?"

I was going to point out how silly it was for Cisco to get pissed about this, especially considering that last season it took him all of twenty minutes to whip up a gun that could literally shoot liquid gold. 

But then I remembered that this season Cisco built a heating unit into the emblem, which the Flash used to escape from a block of Captain Cold's ice. So who knows, there could be even more tech crammed into the thing. I guess it's not so crazy for Cisco to be reluctant to throw away the emblem after all.

• Harry's daughter is named Jesse. He likes to call her Jesse Quick, because she's so smart.

In DC Comics, Jesse Quick was yet another speedster (there were a lot of them over at DC), who was the daughter of the Golden Age heroes Johnny Quick (who had super speed) and Liberty Belle (who had sonic powers).

It's pretty much a given that this Jesse will eventually become a speedster, most likely over on Earth 2. I seriously doubt that the Earth 2 Harrison Wells will turn out to be Johnny Quick though! Jesse will definitely have a different origin, maybe even getting her powers from Zoom. 

• It was really lucky for Harry that the Earth 2 news crew just happened to film a nice clear shot of Jesse's phone (complete with "Daddy" visible on the screen) so he'd know his daughter had been captured by Zoom. I know, it's artistic license, but still...

• So we're calling Cisco's power "vibing" now. Eh.

• Why was Cisco trying to "vibe" on Harry by creepily draping his body over him in order to touch him? That's not how it works!

Look, they've already established that Cisco can "vibe" by touching inanimate objects belonging to a subject. In fact just last week Cisco vibed after touching Doctor Light's helmet. So why not just have him borrow a pen from Harry? Or touch his chair after he gets up? The whole "no touch" thing was just the writer's stupid attempt at yuks.

• In this episode we find out that Doctor Light can make "hard light," whatever that is. And she can also become invisible. But she can only make her body invisible, not her costume, so somewhere out there in Central City there's a naked Linda Park from Earth 2 wandering around.

• In this episode we find out that the Earth 2 Robert Queen became The Hood, and his son Oliver died in the shipwreck. Interesting. So I guess that rules out any Earth 2 Arrow appearances. Hopefully the E2 Robert Queen was younger than the Earth 1 version, otherwise he'd probably be a bit too old to be a superhero.

• Barry used his echo voice to disguise his identity from Linda Park. Well, for a minute or two at least.

• Sigh... Barry reveals his secret identity to yet another person on the show. Based on what he was asking Linda to do, his actions make sense, but still... I think once again we're down to one character who doesn't know who he really is.

• So the real Doctor Light turned invisible and buggered off, and Linda dons her costume and assumes her identity. Cisco even whips up a pair of gloves with similar power!s The real Light's gonna want her costume back eventually. I foresee a Light vs. Light showdown sometime soon!

• I may have mentioned this before, but I've noticed that whenever Barry removes his mask/helmet, he'll reach up with both hands like he's about to pull it off, then they always cut away to someone watching. When they cut back, he's got his mask off and pulled back like a hood.

I'm betting they do this because the mask/helmet is so tight that it takes a squad of wranglers to remove it from Grant Gustin's head. Plus his hair's probably all sweaty and matted down after being under the helmet for hours, so once it's off they probably have to do some maintenance on his hair to get it to defy gravity again, hence the cutaway shots.

• While watching this episode, I suddenly wondered why Barry didn't ask Gideon for help. You remember Gideon? Dr. Wells' secret futuristic computer that lived behind the walls of STAR Labs? Then I remembered that Dr. Wells was really Eobard Thawne, who was erased from existence when his distant ancestor Eddie Thawne killed himself. So since Eobard was wiped out, I don't think Gideon exists anymore. Even though everyone remembers who Eobard was.

Sometimes this show makes my head hurt.

• Harry seemed really intent on cooking up his "slow serum" to use against Zoom. I half expected Harry to shoot Barry with the serum as he uttered an evil laugh, but instead he seemed to be genuinely trying to help defeat Zoom. Maybe he's just a jerk, and not evil.

• Barry fears Zoom will try to harm Linda, so he has her hide out at Iris' place (as if Iris would be a match for Zoom). After the failed attempt to draw out Zoom, Linda visits Iris at the newspaper, then leaves by herself. Of course she's immediately captured by Zoom. So why the hell did Iris let Linda go out alone?

• When Barry confronts Zoom, he tosses a powerful speed lightning bolt at him. Zoom easily catches it and hurls it back at Barry. OK, I have to admit it looked cool, but... need I point out how ridiculous an idea that is? Almost as silly as Captain Cold freezing laser beams and shattering them!

• I was really expecting Jay Garrick to somehow regain his powers and show up in the nick of time to save Barry. Maybe they're saving that for the mid-season break.

• Zoom runs around various Central City locations holding up the broken body of the Flash. I was sure he was going to unmask him here and reveal Barry's identity to the few citizens who were still unaware he's the Flash. But for some reason he didn't.

Also, the way Zoom held Barry's near-lifeless body up by one hand looked very much like an image from a Silver Age comic book cover.

• So Zoom apparently broke Barry's back, and his legs are paralyzed. If it turns out that his "heightened metabolism" is able to heal his paralysis, I'm gonna have to call bullsh*t.

I can buy the fact that Barry's speed can make cuts and bruises heal faster, but it can't repair a broken spine. It's fixing things that can normally be fixed, just faster. It shouldn't be able to magically heal a spine.

I suppose it's possible that Barry's spine is just injured and not broken. If that's the case, then I'll give them this one. I wonder if next week Barry will be tooling around in Dr. Wells' old wheelchair?

• I'm still not quite positive who Zoom really is, but I'm leaning toward the Earth 2 Henry Allen. I haven't quite figured out his motivations yet though.

The reason I think that? Normally when we see Zoom, he's covered in special effects lightning and his eyes are obscured, appearing as little pinpoints of light. But take a look at this on-set photo, without all the effects added. Look at those eyes. Call me crazy, but they look a lot like the eyes of actor John Wesley Shipp, who played Henry Allen before he literally bolted off the show a few episodes back.

Tony Todd is the voice of Zoom of course, but could Shipp be the one inside the suit?

The Flash Season 2, Episode 5: The Darkness And The Light

This week's episode of The Flash was jam-packed full of plot developments, but somehow it never seemed crowded or rushed.

The main attraction in The Darkness And The Light was of course our first good look at the Earth-2 Harrison Wells. And what a difference a dimension makes! This version of Wells is brusque and abrasive, and doesn't care what anyone thinks of him. Tom Cavanagh does an excellent job of distinguishing the Earth-2 Wells from his Earth-1 counterpart, and it's great to finally have him back on the show.

Linda Park (remember her?) finally gets something to do as the Earth-2 Doctor Light. Her appearance may well be a clue as to how the show will handle the whole Caitlin Snow/Killer Frost thing.

And once again, The Flash spends time laying groundwork for the upcoming Legends Of Tomorrow series. Cheezus, enough with the nods to this series already! This week's introduction of Kendra "Hawkgirl" Saunders wasn't as intrusive or extensive as last week's All-Firestorm-All-The-Time episode, but I'll be glad when Legends finally premieres so The Flash can stop setting it up and concentrate on its own characters.

SPOILERS!

The Plot:

In a Earth-2 flashback, Harrison Wells holds a press conference to unveil his new metahuman-detecting app. Hey, maybe he's the Steve Jobs of his world! Jay Garrick, the Earth-2 Flash, accuses Wells of causing an underground explosion that created their metahuman population, and asks what he's doing about it. Wells denies this, accusing the Flash of not doing his job. Wells' daughter witnesses the exchange and looks worried.

In the present on Earth-1, Barry is saved from King Shark by the Earth-2 Wells, who's traveled to our dimension. He introduces E2 Wells to the STAR Labs Gang, who naturally don't trust him. Joe walks in, sees Wells and immediately shoots at him. Barry catches the bullets with super speed and explains what's going on to Joe. Wells admits he did create the metahumans, including Zoom, and has come to Earth-1 to do something about it.

At the Picture News, Linda Park argues with Larkin, her editor. Joe visits Iris, tells her about the new version of Wells and gives her a gun to protect herself. Barry and Cisco visit Jitters, where they meet Patty. She flirts with Barry, who blows her off. Cisco tries to ask out the Jitters barista, who turns him down cold. Cisco then gets one of his visions, this time of a superpowered woman robbing a bank.

Barry zooms to the bank and encounters a masked metahuman woman who's robbing the vault. Barry tries to reason with her, and she raises her visor to reveal she's the Earth-2 Linda Park. She says she doesn't want to steal but is being controlled by Zoom. She gets spooked when Barry recognizes her and calls her by name. She blasts the vault with light and escapes, blinding Barry.

Back at STAR Labs, Caitlin says Barry's retinas were scorched, but due to his powers should regenerate in a few hours. Barry's worried about the E1 Linda, since Doctor Light now knows she has a doppelganger. Caitlin and Jay volunteer to keep an eye on Linda. Barry decides to cancel the date he made earlier with Patty, but Iris talks him into going. It'll be a literal blind date! Barry meets Patty for dinner, wearing sunglasses equipped with a camera so Cisco can monitor the date and tell him what to do. Patty sees through this lame plan and realizes Barry can't see. He makes up an excuse about having his retinas dilated, and she's impressed he went through with the date.

At the Picture News, Doctor Light blasts Caitlin and Jay's stakeout van. She enters the building, intent on killing E1 Linda. She says the only way she can be safe is to kill Linda and become her. Larkin attacks Light and is killed. Iris shoots at her, knocking her helmet off her head. Light blasts the room and escapes.

At STAR Labs, Wells blames Jay for Larkin's death, saying he's a coward because he always ran from Zoom. He says Barry should be teaching Jay, not the other way around. Wells then outs Cisco, using his watch to reveal he's a metahuman. Barry and Caitlin are puzzled as to why Cisco hid his powers. He explains it's because he feared they'd turn him evil like the E1 Wells.

E2 Wells forces Cisco to touch Light's mask, which gives him another vision. He sees her at a railway station. Barry zooms there and confronts Doctor Light. He discovers another new power— running so fast he creates multiple images of himself. This confuses Light long enough for Barry to knock her out.

With Light in custody, Barry plans to use her to lure Zoom out into the open in order to defeat him. Jay refuses to help, telling Barry that facing Zoom will end in disaster. He also tells him not to trust Wells. Cisco returns to Jitters for coffee, and the barista gives him her phone number. Her name is Kendra Saunders, which doesn't mean anything to the audience now, but lets just say you should watch her like a hawk. Barry and Caitlin tell Cisco that now that he's a metahuman he needs a cool codename. They decide on Vibe. Unknown to the trio, Wells watches them through the window, which isn't the least bit creepy.

Back on Earth-2, Zoom holds Wells' daughter hostage. She defiantly says her father will save her.

Thoughts:

• Dr. Wells calls Cisco "Crisco." So I guess they sell that product on Earth-2.

• In the Earth-2 flashback we finally get to see Jay Garrick use his super speed. Briefly. I'm anxiously awaiting him getting his powers back. What good is having two Flashes on the show if only one has super speed?

We also learn in this episode that Barry is much faster than Jay ever was. That follows the way things are in the comic as well.

• Earth 2 looks like an awesome place, with its bright & sunny atmosphere, monorails and art deco architecture. I'd like to see an entire episode set there.

• In the recap we see Dr. Wells save Barry from King Shark. In the very next scene, Barry's presenting Wells to the STAR Labs Gang and explaining that they can all trust him. 

It felt like there were a few scenes missing here. Heck, they could have devoted an entire episode to Barry learning to trust the E2 Wells before bringing him to STAR Labs. I guess they're leaving how all that happened to our imaginations.

• “You know, our Dr. Wells may have been evil, but you’re just a dick.” Oh, Cisco. Don't ever change.

• Wells googles his Earth 1 counterpart while listening to "You're No Good." Gosh, The Flash writers, what could you be trying to say here?

• There've been a couple different Doctor Lights in the DC comic universe over the years, none of whom were Linda Park.

The first was a man named Arthur Light, a supervillain who often clashed with the Justice League. Originally his powers came from his suit, but over time he gained the ability to emit light from his body, and use it as a weapon. He could generate light blasts, form force fields out of light (?) and even fly. For some reason DC turned him into a very disturbing and unpleasant character in recent years (don't ask).

The second Doctor Light was an Asian woman named Kimiyo Hoshi. She was an arrogant scientist who was struck by a cosmic ray and gained the power to control and wield light. Unlike the original, this second Doctor Light was a superhero.

• As has become the custom, the minute Doctor Light finds out she has an Earth-1 counterpart she wants to kill her. But why? She says the only way she can be safe from Zoom is if she becomes the Earth-1 Linda. If that's true, why does Light try to kill Linda in a room full of witnesses? That would tend to blow her cover, wouldn't it? Plus it wouldn't be hard for Zoom to figure out what she did once she stopped reporting to him. It just doesn't seem like a very well thought out plan.

Also, when Doctor Light confronts Linda, she says, "It's not murder if you kill your double, right?" Umm... yes. Yes it is murder. I'm pretty sure deliberately killing anyone is murder, even if they are your exact duplicate.

• When Barry first loses his sight, why does he act more like he's drunk than blind? He staggers around STAR Labs bumping into things and people with his eyes half closed and a very dopey expression on his face.

• E2 Wells' smartwatch app doesn't flag Caitlin as a metahuman. This confirms my theory that we'll eventually find out that her Earth-2 counterpart is Killer Frost, leaving our Caitlin untouched by evil.

• Speaking of Earth-2, I wonder if we'll ever see doppelgangers of Barry, Cisco, Iris or Joe? Or even Eddie Thawne?

• During their stakeout, Jay tells Caitlin that Earth-2 has an Atlantis that's still above water. He also mentions having a friend who lives there. Smart money would suggest he's talking about Aquaman. I'm guessing this is just a throwaway line, and wouldn't hold my breath waiting for him to show up on the series. The DC Movie people won't let the DC TV people use any of their characters, and Aquaman's going to be in the upcoming Darknight V Hopeman movie, so...

• Barry and Patty are really cute together, and seem like a perfect match. That means she'll probably either be dead or forced to relocate by the end of the season. Or who knows, she may even turn out to be Zoom!

• After Barry was blinded by Doctor Light, why didn't he get Cisco to whip up some sort of souped-up sunglasses for him? Heck, last season Cisco nearly spent all of twenty minutes cobbling together a gun that somehow shoots streams of gold, so a pair of sunglasses shouldn't have given him much trouble.

• When Barry inexplicably has trouble capturing Doctor Light, Wells tells him he can defeat her by running fast enough to create "speed mirages," and appear to be in several places at once.

You know, if Barry can really move that fast, then there's no reason he couldn't have just run up behind Light and conked her in the head before she even knew what was happening. Christ, earlier in the episode he snatched three bullets out of midair with his bare hand.

This glossing over the reality of super speed has always been a problem for the show (as well as the comic). Barry's speed always seems to fluctuate depending on the needs of the plot.

In reality (heh) every episode of The Flash should last about two minutes. Barry enters STAR Labs, Cisco says, "I'm reading an alarm at the Central City Bank." There's then a loud WHOOSH as Barry disappears and reappears in the space of a second, saying "OK, foiled the bank robbery. What else you got?"

• At the end of the episode, E2 Wells observes Barry, Caitlin & Cisco from the shadows. The implication here is that he's got some secret agenda or is just plain evil like is E1 counterpart.

I thought it was a bit too early to be implying that. This is E2 Wells' first full episode, so it seems like it would have been better to convince us he's benevolent for a couple of weeks before he plays the evil card.

• So is it too early to start speculating on Zoom's identity? It's Screenwriting 101 that any time a character wears a mask, their identity is supposed to be a shock to the audience. I expect the same to apply here.

I don't think the E2 Wells is Zoom, since that would be a little too repetitive. Plus neither was even on the same Earth in this episode. So Wells is out.

I doubt he's really the E2 Caitlin, since I believe she'll turn out to be Killer Frost. I don't think he's the E2 Cisco either, since he probably has Vibe powers too.

Zoom turning out to be a sinister version of Barry might be interesting— the Flash fighting his evil twin and all that. It would also be a shock if he turned out to be Joe. I could definitely see Barry hesitating to kill Zoom if he pulls off his mask and looks like his godfather.

What if Zoom is somehow Patty Spivot? It's possible, but unless Zoom can shuttle between dimension in a second, that wouldn't be possible, as we saw them both on separate Earths in this episode. 

Zoom might also be the E2 Henry Allen. That could help explain Henry's abrupt and puzzling departure a few episodes back.

I still like the idea that Zoom could be Eddie Thawne. At the end of last season we saw his dead body get sucked into the singularity. Who knows what happened to it after that? He could have been brought back to life and dumped on Earth 2, and now has a vendetta against the Flash.

As you can tell, at this point I have no idea who the hell he is, but I'm convinced he'll turn out to be someone we know.