Talk about a jumping in point to come help out my good friends Everett Harn and Sarah Belmont cover some The Flash. Let me just say before I move on… when I had the choice between The Flash and Arrow, to me it was like comparing Grant Gustin to Stephen Amell, and although Amell is a gorgeous human being. I’m sorry, Mr. Amell, but Mr. Gustin will always win this fight because !@#$%& So, in this case, I guess I “have failed this city.” Oh, well. Crushing on @grantgust shall commence, as per usual. (I can’t pass up the chance to talk up Gustin a bit when I have free reigns to review The Flash. C’mon now.)
#DatFace (Hint: Visit my Twitter profile @werdynerdy, it’ll all make sense. I promise. If not, drop me a mention or DM. Or better yet, ask Everett or Sarah.)
As for the episode King Shark, wowee. That…was…awesome. I mean, the titular metahuman himself looked really great. The detail of the CGI was jaw-dropping. (See what I did there?) To see this hulking, walking, talking — voiced by David Hayter no less (cough, cough Solid/Old Snake from Metal Gear Solid…gosh), pants wearing behemoth in all his glory was simply spectacular. And the end set piece between The Flash and King Shark, when Flash did the whole spinny-vortex-thingy on water to trap King Shark in order to cause electricity with his speed. Then using the move Jay Garrick taught him to deal the final blow was stunning.
Speaking of Jay. Give a Heath Ledger’s The Joker-esque slow clap to my buddy, Everett, for his prediction of who Zoom is under the mask. Here’s what he wrote in last week’s Zoom-in review:
“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 Man in the mask I know.”
Um, well, if you can’t figure it out by now but Everett was spot-on that Zoom is Hunter Zolomon. Speechless. ‘Nough said. Good s–it.
Aside from the re-match between The Flash and King Shark, Diggle and Lyla crossing over to Central City is always a welcome sight, especially when Dig still can’t fathom Barry Allen’s speed. I just would’ve liked to see more of Diggle. His appearance felt so brief, but it was easily outweighed by the aftermath of the Earth-2 two parter.
From what Barry, Cisco Ramone and Harry Wells experienced to the impact of Jay’s “death” (I have some thoughts…) added an emotional beat that allowed for quality character drama. The best had to be Cisco freaking out over how Kaitlin’s losses of Ronnie Raymond and Jay in such quick succession could be the tipping point the Earth-1 version of her needs to become the cold-hearted, ice-wielding killer Killer Frost. I really liked and laughed at the scene between these two characters when Kaitlin acted as if she truly was succumbing to that part of her. When in reality she was just understandably taking a “death” hard. The other is seeing how Barry is doing, as Dig pointed out, what Ollie does. He puts the weight of the world on his shoulders.
Only downside to this episode was the Wally West and Barry bonding scenes. Wally doesn’t quite work on the show yet and the family tug-of-war there could be done a little more effectively. Other than that with the spectacle we were given including the topper of the reveal of who Zoom is. March 22 is going to feel so far, far away. But, at least, we can all have a good feeling about it going forward and enjoy geeking over our individual thoughts of what’s to come.
Check out the preview for the next episode below:
Editor’s Note: There’s no way that this episode of Arrow beat The Flash‘s “King Shark” in my weekly competition between the two shows. Vixen was bad ass, but not gargantuan man-eating shark-man bad ass. All of the special effects during The Flash‘s battles topped Arrow‘s action by a mile so The Flash gets the point. For a review of Arrow, check out this week’s Arrow Re-Nocked: Taken (4×15) here! – Everett