This episode of The Flash, titled “Escape from Earth-2”, really felt like the second half of a two-parter. With a pretty exciting opening that kept the intensity up for the most part, this episode turned out to be pretty good, although it lacked last week’s charm and intrigue. Even though we’re still in Earth-2, this episode didn’t offer up any fun Easter eggs like last week and with our hero getting locked up by Zoom, it was focused pretty heavily on the rest of the cast. While looking back through the episode it seems to have been fast paced, but recollecting my thoughts on it has me feeling that it was slower than I would have liked. Let’s make it back to the breach in this week’s The Flash Zoom-In!
Warning: SPOILERS will follow!
1. This episode started off in an insanely bad ass way with Zoom giving his rendition of the usual intro speech about being “the fastest man alive.” Him doing this, while burning messages into buildings and passing out fliers, was pretty awesome. Almost makes you wonder why he didn’t think to check Harry’s office for him in the first place instead of going through all that trouble. Zoom’s hunt gave this episode a sense of uneasiness that only a villain like Zoom can give. Mainly because he can literally run in at any moment, so everything our heroes did was like a race against the clock. We get to see him beat the crap out of Barry and scare the living crap out of several people. Zoom’s secret base, which is in the side of a cliff, is such a classic place to have a lair. I really like that Zoom is not only horrifying but familiar in an odd way to classic villain archetypes. He allows Killer Frost and the team to infiltrate his base and free Barry and Jesse before showing up to stop them. It was cool to see Zoom and Killer Frost “fight” even though we didn’t get to see how it ended. I would guess that Killer Frost isn’t dead even though she should be. It would be a waste of a good villain to just kill her off, but Zoom appearing at the end means he won that battle. While his plan fails to stop Team Flash from getting back through the breach, Zoom does what he does best and manages to get in one last shot before the breach closes… I’ll rant about this at the bottom.
2. Team E1 gets a huge role in this episode because Geomancer is still out there and needs to have his show down with The Flash. Now that Jay Garrick showed himself as The Flash last episode, Geomancer is now wanting to challenge him instead. This leads to more revelations about Jay’s illness and how Caitlyn’s Velocity-8 and finally Velocity-9 will affect him; the latter curing his illness. I’ve been a bit disappointed at the writers not giving Jay back his speed yet, but I guess it’d be hard to write an exciting story if there were two speedsters in Central City. That being said, they need to start practicing, because the introduction of Wally West and assumedly Jesse Quick, could mean more speedsters anyways. I do love when Jay takes Velocity-9 though. It’s too fun to see him save the people of Earth-1 in his classic golden-age style. While it was cool to see him beat Geomancer, Jay does his usual disappearing act while Geomancer attacks S.T.A.R. Labs. Caitlyn and Iris end up being the ones to beat Geomancer, which I think was pretty awesome. Girl power and all that, but it was fun to see a villain who’s been begging to fight The Flash get taken out by two ordinary people. I think Jay’s disappearances are supposed to make the audience suspicious of him for some reason. I’ll admit to questioning whether Zoom was Jay or even Jay’s counter-part Hunter Zolomon (aka Zoom in the comics), but I don’t think so anymore. This brings to me the man in the iron mask in Zoom’s jail cell…
3. Who is the man in the iron mask? Well for starters, thanks to this episode, we know he’s Caucasian and blonde. The man knows a five by five ‘tap code’ that is commonly used by prisoners of war, which could point to some military history. The man begins to tap ‘J-A-Y’ to Jesse and Barry and becomes emotional in a seemingly negative way when Barry tries to make sense of it by saying “Jay Garrick is still alive.” So now it’s time to delve back down into this suspicion of Jay. One theory is that the prisoner is Jay Garrick from Earth-1. “But Earth-1 Jay Garrick is Hunter Zolomon” you say? Hear me out. What if Jay Garrick and Hunter Zolomon are twins? Maybe they were separated at birth due to some reason we don’t know and grew up with separate lives. What if this happened in both universes? Zoom could be Hunter Zolomon from Earth-2, and Jay Garrick from Earth-2 is either being forced to play hero until he can find a cure for the speed sickness; that Zoom is going to suffer from too if he can’t keep getting speed. That’d make the man Jay from Earth-1 to keep the secret that there are twins on Earth-1 as well. This is a bit far-fetched 
I know. So let’s go over a few more options that may also be viable. Two easy answers are Eddie Thawne, who somehow survived the season 1 finale suicide and is the reason Zoom knows so much about Barry and team. That could mean that Zoom is Earth-2’s Eddie Thawne, and that’s why he hasn’t killed the prisoner, because the prisoner is himself. Another option, which is slightly less impactful, is that the masked man is Eobard Thawne from Earth-2. Maybe on Earth-2, Eobard went back in time to try and stop Zoom? That’d be a cool twist of events but less emotional. To make it even more emotional the man could be Barry’s dad. Yes Henry from Earth-1. Earth-2 Henry wouldn’t make sense since Barry is just a CSI on Earth-2. Last time we saw Henry Allen was during Gorilla Warfare (2×07). Now, Jesse told Barry the man in the iron mask has been there since before she was even there. We first see Jesse in her cell during The Darkness and The Light (2×05), so this would mean that the Henry in 2×07 would have to have been Zoom himself. Yes, Zoom is Henry from Earth-2! I went back and rewatched 2×07 and could totally believe that Henry was Zoom acting as Earth-1 Henry. The twins theory is the only one that explains the man’s reason for tapping J-A-Y and then getting upset. If the Jay in Earth-1 is playing Team Flash, then this man has reason to be upset. These are all pretty wild theories, but I think one of them will be right… either that or the masked man is Earth-2 Oliver or Robert Queen. *drops mic*
4. Team E2 spent their time this episode trying to track down Zoom’s lair, which caused them to enlist the help of Killer Frost. Why Cisco and Harry didn’t even attempt to use Reverbs glasses to trigger his “vibes” is beyond my level of reasoning. I guess the idea of trying to turn one of the most mentally unstable villainesses in all of the DC line up was a better idea. Cisco decided that appealing to the killer Caitlyn after Zoom killed her evil Ronnie would be enough to turn her against the former alpha-villain. After some angry icicle shooting, they managed to talk Frost into helping them and eventually helping them get up into Zoom’s lair. All the while this was happening, we got some pretty funny dialog from Earth-2 Barry Allen, who is frankly… a giant dork; but he was lovable. It’s a good thing that he decided not to be a pansy for once and went into Zoom’s lair with the team, because the only person who could talk up our Barry this episode was his Earth-2 self. It was pretty cool seeing this other Barry Allen being the one who needed to talk up The Flash into pushing his powers even harder to achieve his goals. This helped them rescue Jesse as well right before Zoom runs in and reveals that Killer Frost had been playing along in his evil plot this whole time. Luckily, Cisco’s talk with Frost did have an effect on her as she quickly turns on Zoom and begins to freeze him solid. This was cool, but like I said earlier… I don’t think it ends well. Barry doesn’t have the time to rescue the masked man, giving us a scene of the two talking between the glass wall; just like how he used to do with his dad in when Henry was in jail. Barry vowing to return for him was a bit odd being that Barry knew the end of their trip in Earth-2 would result in the closing of the final breach. How is Barry going to go back and rescue him? I have no clue really. It’s obvious that Zoom will find his way back over to Earth-1 to finish this season off, but until then I guess we have to just theorize on the masked man’s fate.
Okay, so before I end this I need to rant… What the #^%$ was Jay doing casually walking up towards the breach as it was unstably closing?! I get that they had to set up the easily foreseen and cliché shot of him being grabbed by Zoom at the last second and being pulled through as it closed, but there was absolutely no reason for him to get anywhere near the damn thing. I thought this ending was really bad because of this carelessness. Now I didn’t expect Zoom to shove his freaking arm through Jay’s chest, but I did see most of it coming. Zoom is super evil, so no matter what theory of the masked man there is, Jay being an expendable pawn of Zoom’s fits. I just hope this isn’t the last of Jay we see. If it is, I feel like it’s a pretty sad send off. This will probably lead to Team Flash trying to re-open the breach to go save Jay, but judging how fast Zoom was able to kill evil Ronnie and Reverb with the same move, I’m not holding out hopes for Jay. Overall this was an okay ending to what felt like one giant two hour special. Next week we get the return of King Shark, so I’m looking forward to next week’s CGI goodness.
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Check out the preview for next week’s episode of The Flash titled “King Shark”:
This round in the weekly competition between Arrow and The Flash, I actually give the point to The Flash who just barely beats out Arrow. With the amazingly sweet scenes between various characters and my girl Felicity counterbalancing the dumb ass-ery of Oliver, Zoom’s hunt of Harry and the mysteries in The Flash kept the enjoyment level up a bit higher all the way to its predictable end. Check out my weekly Arrow Re-Nocked: “Code of Silence” (4×14) review here.