I don’t know about you, FLASH fans, but I have still not recovered from last night’s shocker of an episode. Although I wasn’t as spoiler-free as I would have liked, the only thing I knew for certain about this episode, going in, was that something major was going to happen, but I had no idea what that could possibly be. When I asked a source how emotionally prepared I should be to watch “Enter Zoom”, I was told that I couldn’t prepare for what was to come and should just accept the fact that it was going to hurt.
And it did. It hurt. A lot. It is still hurting. When the episode ended, all that was going through my head was “oh my God” in a never-ending loop. “Enter Zoom” took a much darker turn than I would have thought possible and set itself apart in a league of its own – despite the fact that this season has been delivering pretty solid episodes thus far.
(From this point forward, we are going to discuss the events and the aftermath of last night’s THE FLASH, so if you haven’t seen it yet, I suggest you hit the back button right now. You do not want to be spoiled. Trust me.)
This episode started out much like the previous ones this season. In fact, up until roughly thirty minutes in, it seemed like it was an average episode (which is this season’s speak for pretty damn good), just moving the plot forward. Barry is determined to lure Zoom into our Earth and take him out once and for all, having had enough of the speedster demon sending metahumans through the breaches to try and kill him. He talks to Dr. Light, whom they captured last week, and she tells him that Zoom sent her to kill the Flash and the plan was for her to send back the speedster’s emblem through the breach – to signal her task had been successful – and then she would be able to go home to Earth-2. So Barry’s plan is to use Dr. Light as bait, so when Zoom shows up, they can take him out. It seems like an okay plan to Harry, but Caitlin is on my team and thinks this is crazy and Barry will just get himself killed. He has no idea what Zoom is capable of.
Except that plan goes down the drain because Dr. Light can become invisible and she manages to escape the pipeline and disappears. So Barry has the brilliant idea of using Earth-1 Linda Park instead. The plan is flawed and pretty much everyone agrees, except Harry who is just as much – if not more – invested in defeating Zoom as Barry is. This whole plot served as great comic relief and it carried the episode very nicely. They managed to reproduce Dr. Light’s powers and start training Linda so she can use them at the proper time. Her entire training was definitely one of the highlights of the episode and Cisco’s target dummies were priceless, and so was the scene where Linda and Barry enact a terrible dialogue, so they could pretend that she had killed him. The whole thing was hilarious and managed to distract me just enough to get sucker punched when I least expected it.
In fact, even though this episode had a much lighter side for the first half hour, it also managed to squeeze in some pretty amazing character development and great moments between Joe and Barry, Joe and Patty, Barry and Patty and Harry and Cisco, just to mention a few. I can’t even begin to tell you how much I love Patty Spivot and I hope she stays forever on the show. She brings such light and fresh energy to a scene, that it’s impossible not to like her. Her entire conversation with Joe – including her confession that she and Barry have kissed – and Joe’s reaction to it were as endearing as they were hilarious.
What really stood out to me in this episode, however, is how they manage to balance the light and funny scenes, the dramatic ones and the very dark ones and things just work. So much happened and it was all in the span of forty minutes. The moments between Joe and Barry were so great and emotional and, at the same time, it was heartbreaking to hear that Barry was taking Wells’ words to heart and thinking he could never be happy. Kudos to Grant Gustin and Jesse L. Martin because those scenes were performed so well and had such heart to them that they resonated not only with our Scarlet Speedster, but with the audience as well. Barry taking that leap of faith with Patty and deciding then and there that he wants to be happy – and she makes him happy – was the cherry on top of the proverbial cake.
Then everything was shot to hell. Zoom did cross into Earth-1 and kidnapped Linda. And let me tell you, Zoom is terrifying. He is death personified and just looking at him gave me chills. Iris calls Barry to let him know the speedster demon has her friend and he doesn’t even stop to think before he speeds after Zoom. He manages to save Linda and tells her to run and then he tries to engage Zoom in a fight. Saying that it didn’t go well for him would be the understatement of the year, and that was when THE FLASH took a serious turn to the dark side and showed us just how dangerous and merciless Zoom can be. He is is better and faster and stronger and he kicks Barry’s ass and parades his unconscious, broken body all over Central City, going to Picture News, to CCPD and then, finally, back to Star Labs, where he tries to kill Barry and very nearly succeeds. I watched that entire sequence with my jaw to the floor and half covering my eyes. When Zoom broke Barry’s back, I swear the sound nearly made me sick. I was in shock for much of the last ten minutes and things just seemed to get exponentially worse, up until the moment Barry woke up and couldn’t feel his legs.
Barry. Is freaking. Paralized. I still can’t wrap my head around it.
Did he lose his speed force? How is he going to walk again? Shouldn’t his regenerating abilities have healed his broken back? Why didn’t that happen? How can he recover from all his other injuries, but not from a broken spine?
Before we all lose our minds, however, let’s take a deep breath and remember that he was walking just fine when he appeared in the ARROW’s flashforward and he seems to be on his feet in the promotional photo of the crossover happening in a couple of weeks. So, you know, everything is going to be okay. It’s just the getting there part that is probably going to be difficult for Barry.
Bonus highlights:
– The fact that the Hood in Earth-2 was actually Robert Queen and Oliver was the one who died when the Queen’s Gambit sank.
– Harry’s daughter is Jesse Quick, apparently?
– Joe giving Harry a piece of his mind when Barry nearly died.
– Cisco’s “I would never let that happen. Sargent Slow is a terrible name”. God, I love Cisco.
What did you think? What are your theories? Hit the comments below and tell me all about it, or come talk to me on Twitter.
Don’t miss the next new episode of THE FLASH on November 17 at 8/7c on The CW.