The Flash Zoom-In: Trajectory (2×16)

Mar 23, 2016

Well, well, well look whose back to review The FlashI wrote up the King-Shark mid-season finale episode, and thought that’d be my last. But nope, here I am typing away. I’ll be brief, however, because it’s almost a week late and tonight we’re going to have an awesome “Superhero Event” with The Flash visiting Supergirl. Plus, tomorrow’s all-new The Flash: Flash Back.

Last week’s episode Trajectory, introduced a fellow speedster in Eliza Harmon/Trajectory (Allison Paige). Her character was as dull as the word dull can define. They connected her to the Star Labs peoples by showing that she was a former co-worker of Kaitlin’s when she asked for Eliza’s help in the formulation of Velocity-9 to try to cure Jay, which as we know doesn’t. V9, for those unaware, is a temporary speed enhancement. Barry doesn’t need such a pick-me-up because he harnesses the speed force within his cells due to the infamous particle accelerator explosion.

It was interesting to see how Barry reacted when he found out from Kaitlin and Dr. Wells that the V9 helped Jay regain some of his speed back when Barry’s actively trying to do the same in a more natural way by training himself. Obviously, Kaitlin and Wells don’t allow him to give himself the narcotic boost because they know the side effects it had on Jay.

All of what I just wrote about was simply set-up for the inevitable uncovering of Zoom’s identity to not us the viewer but the characters on-screen, especially when Cisco would vibe Zoom whenever he was near Jay’s helmet.

Pointless…

The showrunners couldn’t make it that easy because there’d be no episode and they’d let a character introduced go to waste. So Trajectory was shown to be an insane minded wannabe speedster who needed to be doped up on V9 to be faster than The Flash. Barry’s heroic speech to try to ween her off of the formula was all for naught, as she decided to shoot herself up again to her own end. Her lighting streak began to turn into Zoom blue and then her cells degenerated to the point of non-existence.

Ah, now for the part of this episode that up-ticked it for me from okay to good. Joe, Kaitlin, Cisco, Wells and Barry were all in a circle trying to figure out what happened to Trajectory.  As they connected the fact that she was using the V9 to compensate for her lack of speed to how the blue lighting signifies being faster than The Flash but also cells degenerating at a faster rate at the same time to Jay avoiding V9 because he knew it’d make himself sicker. Wells dropped the bombshell, to the characters, that Zoom is sick and wants Barry’s speed for a cure like… (*drum roll*) Jay.

Cisco confirms the news when Barry breaks the glass encasement holding Jay’s helmet and hands it to Cisco to vibe it to be sure. When he holds it, he vibes Zoom taking off his mask to show the face of Jay. The closing shot of Barry running to the canyon where they were to open the show, taking off his mask and yelling to the sky showed how high the emotions will be running (no pun intended) in the coming weeks.

Oh, and before I forget, all the stuff surrounding Wells’ daughter, Jesse, made no sense and is stupid. I’m glad she’s leaving, for now.

Check out the preview for the next episode: