Jessie Robertson reviews the fourteenth episode of The Flash season 2…
When your doppelgänger kisses your wife, you most certainly will have words with him!
We return to Earth-2 this week (sans all the glorious Easter eggs from last week) to finish up the trek into Zoom’s side of the world. I honestly thought more may be revealed about Zoom this week, and I guess, in one way, it kind of is, but he basically functioned the same way he always does: zips in, beats/kills someone, and leaves. I’m often wondering where he is at when he can get anywhere so quickly? This week, as Barry, Jesse, and our Man in the Iron Mask remain locked in Zoom’s prison, the ragtag group of Cisco (E-1), Harry, Iris & Barry (E-2) and Killer Frost (after not much convincing) go after their imprisoned friends. They have to scale these monstrous cliffs that looked like a stock photo on my TV to get to them, which happens all during the commercial break. Let’s look at this group for a moment: First off, where is the attraction between badass Iris and pansy-ass Barry? They give him a lot of dialogue this week and you can tell Grant Gustin is having fun being the wimpy scientist guy but they make him so far on the scale of hapless, it’s hard to see how that relationship ever got started; she has to be the aggressor right? Good for Danielle Panabaker for getting to explore her villainous side, but she doesn’t get a lot of material (until the end) to really be anything other than a stock villain using their powers. Cisco remains jokingly dormant for much of the episode and Harry takes a back seat to the other characters as well. It feels like some material was missed or left out with this unique group of characters because none of it was too compelling but serviceable enough to forget, which could be worse.
In the prison, Barry tries to defend Harry to Jesse, who feels as if he’s abandoned her. There are some good moments with these two and I could see her fitting in very well with this show; she’s intelligent, layered and has a kindness to her performance that sort of balances Harry’s gruff exterior out. This brings us to the 3rd man: The Man in the Iron Mask. Fans knew after last week there was something about this man that would be important: Once Barry and Jesse settle down they realize he’s sending a unique code POW prisoners used and decipher it to reveal he’s been tapping a single word: J-A-Y. As in Jay Garrick. This leads to a lot of interesting questions: Is that man E-2’s real Jay Garrick and the one on Earth-1 a fake? Could he actually be Zoom, transporting from Earth to Earth? When Jay showed Caitlin his E-1 doppelgänger, he said his name was Hunter Zolomon; which is Zoom’s comic book identity. The show seemingly is leaning heavily in this direction which would be really out of the box. Before Barry can escape with his friends, he gets a pep talk from his E-2 counterpart, in his best moment of the episode, and proves that there is a link of heroism between these two people. The Man in the Iron Mask is left behind, almost just to leave the mystery out there for a while longer, which is another strong sign it will point to Zoom’s identity.
Earth-1 is almost not worth discussing; Caitlin upgrades Velocity- 8 to Velocity -9 so Jay can fight Geomancer; in a ridiculous scene, he tries to bring down a hospital and Jay rescues 2 people from this massive building and puts on a hokey smile. 2 people literally? Then, of course, Geomancer walks right into Star Labs. How? How does this keep happening? ***Jay happens to be taking a nap at the time, for all you conspiracy theorists**** and Caitlin has to put him down. The portal from E-2 is malfunctioning and Jay and Joe (absent from the whole episode) have to help stabilize it to bring their friend’s home. Once they’re through, Zoom reaches in and pulls Jay back through the Wormhole, seemingly killing him. But, as in Season 1, we know that Speedsters can be in 2 places at once.
Theories? Is Jay Garrick really Zoom?
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https://youtu.be/b7Ozs5mj5ao?list=PL18yMRIfoszEaHYNDTy5C-cH9Oa2gN5ng
Originally published February 17, 2016. Updated April 15, 2018.
