This episode also had a minor crossover with Arrow in the form of the Diggles and ARGUS attempting to recapture King Shark. While their presence didn’t really add anything to the episode, it didn’t take anything away from it either, which has been the case in some of THE FLASH's previous crossovers. Personally, I think crossovers are more exciting when they happen on special occasions instead of every ten episodes or so, but I can appreciate the appeal of just seeing these characters interact more, and scaled back crossovers with just one or two guest characters offer lots of nice opportunities for that.
And because apparently Barry didn’t have enough going on already, Joe and Iris convinced Barry and Wally to try and get to know each other after weeks of mostly avoiding one another. This predictably went sideways, partially because of Barry’s attitude and Wally’s insecurity, but it seemed like large part of it was also coming from Wally not understanding Barry’s habit of mysteriously disappearing.
Not telling Wally seems like a strange decision given how much the Wests seem to want him to feel like a “real” part of the family. But even if they didn’t think he could handle secret yet, wouldn’t it have least have made sense to tell him that Barry’s friend died recently? Or something else to give him context for Barry’s behavior so he doesn’t take the standoff-ish-ness personally? It just felt a touch forced. Still, it did lead to some very nice family heart-to-hearts for both Barry and Wally that provided the emotional high points of the episode. Now if only we could get them to have these cathartic conversations in the same room.
This week also spotlighted Caitlin who, as the person closest to Jay, took his loss to heart and shut down emotionally. Her blunt coldness offered some very sad callbacks to the early episodes of Season One, when she was still reeling from Ronnie’s death. It was also interesting to Cisco’s worry about Caitlin becoming Killer Frost, especially since he seemed so focused on the ways she and her counterpart weren’t alike last week. But the conclusion to this storyline was pretty unsatisfactory —Caitlin basically ended up laughing off Cisco’s concerns without ever addressing her clear emotional problems. Obviously Caitlin’s not going to suddenly turn evil, but they’ve both seen quite a few people have mental breakdowns during their time on Team Flash, not to mention the whole business with Wells stabbing them all in the back. You’d think they’d take the topic a little more seriously.
Of course, it was once again the ending teaser that gave us the big twist of the night by finally showing the man under Zoom’s mask to be a very much Not-Dead Jay Garrick. This reveal isn’t terribly surprising given how suspicious Jay’s behavior has been in the past few episodes, but it does make Zoom’s motives even more murky. And I use the name “Jay” for sake of clarity, but it seems pretty clear that the man who has been going by that name is actually the Earth-2 version of Hunter Zolomon. It explains the mystery of his Earth-1 doppelganger, and it lines up with Zoom’s identity in the comics. The real Jay, I suspect, is the man in the mask, though whether he’s from Earth-1, Earth-2, or even a possible Earth-3 of some sort is still up in the air. Whatever the case, these final moments have definitely given us plenty to chew on over the four-week break.
Written by Kaitlin Roberts, THE FLASH Beat Writer -- Click here to read Kaitlin's posts.
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