I was pretty pumped for this week’s episode of The Flash titled The Darkness and The Light after last week’s insanely awesome ending. I was secretly wanting more King Shark but we didn’t get it. While I’m not a huge Harrison Wells fan as some of my fellow The Flash fans, I can say that after a full episode with Earth-2 Harry, I moved a tick towards the direction of wanting Tom Cavanaugh in the show a lot more. While this episode had its flaws, overall I found it entertaining. So let me shed some light on what I think was good and what was bad in this new zoom-in.
Warning: SPOILERS will follow!
1. So the show opens with Earth-2, 8 months before Harry (I’m calling Harrison from E-2 Harry just like Cisco) comes through the portal. I really love all of the scenes within Earth-2 and really enjoyed this scene in particular because he really does show us that Harry really is a complete different version of Harrison Wells than the one we know. When in fact, we only saw the Earth-Prime version of Harrison during last season’s episode 17 titled Tricksters, and he seemed like a genuinely caring guy when he was with Tess, the other Harrison was just Eobard Thawne in disguise. While in this flashback we get a few interesting moments. Jay Garrick as The Flash speeds in and denounces Harry in front of a crowd of people, telling everyone that it was Harry who created and is profiting off Meta-humans, namely Zoom, but we also see the crowd taking Harry’s side in the end. This was interesting because it shows that The Flash in Earth-2 isn’t this incredible superhero like Barry is in Earth-Prime, Jay is just one of many heroes and currently he’s failing to stop Zoom. We also find out that Harry has a daughter in Earth-2 named Jesse Wells (who comic readers may know is Jesse Quick). This makes me think that maybe Harry’s wife is dead in Earth-2 as well and I’m curious as to why. He’s obviously still not a great guy and frankly he is kind of an ass, but I want to know more about Earth-2. We see Jesse caged at the last minute of this episode and see that Zoom is holding her alive, which can only mean that Harry is in Earth-Prime with an agenda. I think he’s going to try and use Barry to fight Zoom and try and take them both out in the process to save his daughter.
2. #TeamPatty! Finally this week Barry finally caught on (with Cisco’s help) that he just needs to stop ignoring that Patty digs him and he asks her on a date. Honestly Grodd could have shown up and I would have still loved this story line more this week. I really enjoyed the date scenes and kept thinking… When is she going to tell him to take the damn sunglasses off? And I’m glad they had her call Barry out on being blind. I would have thought Barry was smart enough to come up with the dilated eyes excuse from the start, because I certainly thought of that excuse immediately. I loved that Patty was just genuine and sweet about everything and loved how the date ended. What can I say? I’m a hopeless romantic and the Barry/Patty romance has me totally twitterpated. I can’t get enough of these scenes so I hope they keep them coming. I also know I’m not the only one who squealed like a school girl when Patty put Barry’s hands on her head so that he could kiss her while blind. That was just a well done scene.
3. Holy smokes Iris is a hell of a shot right? I mean, you give an untrained skinny young journalist a P9 pistol and of course she could head-shot a villainess in a way that a) doesn’t kill her b) doesn’t damage the mask or anything or c) is dead on! I found this scene pretty laughable. Why only shoot off her mask? I’m guessing she had at least five rounds in that gun so why not just wing her or hell shoot another bullet into her dome and take her out after seeing her boss murdered? We see Joe give her the gun earlier in the episode to use on Harrison and they wrote in a quick line that he taught her to use it but that line doesn’t really do it for me. The whole Lynda Park/Iris storyline was almost filler if the main baddie Dr. Light wasn’t Earth-2 Lynda. Dr. Light would have been a cool bad guy if she would have just used her big light flash power that worked effectively every time she used it. The Flash’s speed mirage powers could have been cancelled out over and over if she would just use that more.
4. Speaking of speed mirage, Barry learned a new power this episode, the one that we’ve seen Harrison use in a much smaller scale last season. I actually got really excited by this power, because it was pretty well done, but I have a feeling that this is one of those powers that will be used maybe once out of ten episodes. Also, why was it needed? Barry hid behind a train saying he couldn’t get close enough, but he’s The Flash! Come on people! He couldn’t just dash up to her and punch her in the face before she could think to raise her hands for a blast? I did like to see Barry trying to talk her down earlier in the episode though, that was a new concept for this show. I thought overall the action in this episode was pretty great.
5. Jay Garrick showed up again in this episode! Caitlyn had to go find him after Harry came through the portal, but what has he been doing when not helping Team Flash fight off Zoom’s minions? I hope he’s not just eating at Big Belly Burger three meals a day. I liked seeing Jay in his suit and using his powers during the opening flashback, and I really wish they would give him back his powers soon and not just wait until Zoom is defeated to give them back to him. I want a few episodes where Barry and Jay run around together fighting the bad guys. The Jay and Caitlyn romance scenes are still a bit too soon for me as only 6 episodes ago we saw Caitlyn about to get married. I get that she’s attracted but does Jay really think he can have a relationship with anyone in Earth-Prime?
6. Easter eggs, references and queries. During Jay and Caitlyn’s stake out and make out scene Jay mentions Atlantis and having a friend from there. This was one of two Aquaman references in this episode. This makes me start to think that all of the Green Lantern Easter eggs and references we’ve been getting really are just references that won’t ever go anywhere. It really makes me feel like CW is just being a dick by toying with us and pretending to have a much bigger universe than they do. That being said, they actually did have the rights to Arthur Curry back when they made Smallville, so it’s possible we could get an Aquaman appearance… aw damn it! There they go getting my hopes up again! Another reference we got this episode was much more subtle. Caitlyn says “I don’t think any of us would become evil if we all of a sudden if we got powers” which makes all of the Earth-2 Caitlyn as Killer Frost theories go out the window for me. I think this Caitlyn is actually going to be Killer Frost after this line. I think somehow she’s going to get powers that force her to steal the body heat of others to survive and I think it’ll drive her mad. This and that fact that there hasn’t been any reactions from Jay or Harry that they know of Caitlyn Snow from Earth-2. You’d think Killer Frost would be known there. We also got confirmation from Harrys watch that Caitlyn isn’t a meta currently, so sorry friends, she’s not been swapped just yet.
I’m glad that they finally named Cisco Vibe. This episode was rife with some of the best Cisco moments of season 2 so far. He was not only hilarious during most of his scenes, but I really enjoyed the scene where Harry outed him. We can finally get rid of those scenes where Cisco is hiding what he can do, and start actually using his powers for more. I wasn’t too impressed with Ciara Renee’s Kendra Saunders introduction this episode, but I hope she grows on me as Hawkgirl is one of my more favorite of DC comics’ heroines. Overall I thought this was a good enough episode and I remained pretty entertained throughout. I loved that we got a clear, non-blurred view of Zoom at the end and let me just say this… Zoom and Barry have the same color eyes in a promo photo for next week, so my theory that Zoom is Earth-2 Barry gone bad is still alive. The question is… did Zoom take Jesse’s speed? Or will she get it after Zoom is defeated? And how will Jesse being added to our list of speedsters mix up the show? I can’t wait to find out next week!
This week in the competition between The Flash and Arrow, I couldn’t pick one over the other, so this week the shows split the point! You can check out my Arrow column Arrow Re-Nocked here! It came down to the date with Patty vs John Constantine on Arrow and it was impossible for me to decide. Which did you like more? Let me know and why down in the comments!