Everybody needs a montage!
[dropcap size=small]T[/dropcap]his week’s The Flash starts off a little slow, but what better way to end a slow episode than have the two fastest men on Earth do battle? Enter Zoom.
So it turns out Dr. Light isn’t the metahuman we thought she was, but that her suit shoots out energy blasts for her. Actually she can turn invisible, but only when she’s naked, so she conveniently leaves her suit behind when she escapes because Barry needs it for his plan, which is almost as dumb as Dr. Light’s plan to kill good Linda from last week (a plan that Barry has the nerve to call her out on.)
Much of the first half of the episode is again spent trying to work out what it is that mysterious Tom Cavanagh is hiding. We already know of course, but we get an unnecessary reminder in an Earth 2 flashback, where Jesse Quick finds out that he created Zoom but she still loves him and all that. He actually finds out she has been kidnapped during a news broadcast, where we learn that Oliver’s dad Robert became Earth 2’s Green Arrow in a clever little nod to The Flashpoint Paradox.
Back on Earth 1, journalist Linda agrees to go along with Barry’s plan once he reveals himself to her, so she dons Dr. Light’s supersuit and cue the montage of her trying to blast cardboard cut-outs of Barry (because Cisco has one of those). As happens in a montage, she becomes at least good enough for Barry to go ahead with his idea to lure Zoom through the portal and into Earth 1.
So he and Linda stage a fight (for no apparent reason – it’s not like Zoom is watching!), and she removes his emblem and throws it through the portal. Zoom doesn’t come straight away. He’s too busy threatening Jesse Quick, which Cisco is able to see because Vibe. He and Wells share a moment as Cisco finds out that Wells hasn’t been helping Barry for his own, selfish reasons, but for his daughter, and it could the first step on the way to the Cisco/Wells father-son relationship we saw last season, but without all the murdering.
Zoom eventually zooms(?) through the portal and captures Linda (good plan, Barry). Barry suits up, and he and Zoom face off in a fight reminiscent of his first meeting with Reverse Flash. Barry gets things going with a thunderbolt, but Zoom uses reflect and there goes Barry’s confidence.
Barry does some science because that’s all he’s got left – he runs up a building and into the sky, dragging Zoom into a freefall fistfight to even things up – but Wells goes and ruins it by shooting one of his speed dampeners at Zoom, who catches it and stabs the sh*t out of Barry.
Not content with stabbing a dude, Zoom then parades Barry’s near lifeless body around Central City, declaring himself the fastest man alive to Iris, Patty and then everyone at S.T.A.R. Labs. As he readies himself to deliver the fatal blow, Cisco interrupts his murder by actually hitting him with a speed dampener, and Zoom escapes.
Look, the fight is great – it feels like there could be real life consequences as a result, and the effects are, as always, on point – but I can’t get over how much Zoom sounds like the Octopus in Diddy Kong Racing 64 (look it up and thank me later) and for that reason, it’s also a little bit hilarious.
The episode ends with Barry waking up having lost the feeling in his legs. Now as much as I feel for the guy, this is a paralysation I can get behind. I like the idea of having a wheelchair back at S.T.A.R., and Wells not being the one in it. Also it’s Gorilla Grodd next week, and Barry’s going to have to figure out how to beat a giant telepathic monkey from a wheelchair. It’s a whole new challenge, and one I’m super excited for.
The Flash returns to The CW next Tuesday.
