Flash (CW)

[Grissom]

Grodd is a very formidable villain. There should definitely be recurring episodes as we see him increase in intelligence.

[The Joker]

The Grodd segments have been nothing but aces so far.

I can safely say that this show has been pretty incredible, and most assuredly one of the more enjoyable superhero genre shows out there right now.

[The Laughing Fish]

Mark Hamill reprised his role as James Jesse aka the original Trickster this week, it was fun!

Every time Hamill spoke sounded exactly like Arkham Joker. I thought he said he was retiring the voice? 

What made the episode even better was it made tons of references to the original 1990s TV series: including screenshots taken from an episode of Hamill's James Jesse in court while Barry and company are investigating on their computer monitors back at Star Labs, and a shot of the original Trickster costume when Barry Allen and Joe West investigate the Trickster's lair as they try to lean more of a mysterious copycat. And of course John Wesley Shipp made yet another cameo, and Vito D'Ambrosio who played Officer Bellows in the original series appeared in a cameo too - as Central City's mayor. What a way to complete a fine tribute.

I've been enjoying The Flash a lot. Grant Gustin is really growing into the role, and his relationships with Joe and Iris West, Cisco Ramon, Harrison Wells etc is making everything worthwhile. I don't want to get into spoiler territory for those who haven't watched the show yet, but I'll say this - a certain man in yellow is definitely a huge menace as the big bad this season.

Very good show, which is a lot more than I can positively say about this season's Arrow, sadly.

[BatmAngelus]

Can't believe I haven't commented in this thread- this season of Flash blew Arrow's season out of the water. The Trickster episode with Mark Hamill may have been my favorite ep so far, complete with the backstory of how the Reverse Flash disguised himself as Wells. Tom Cavanagh's Wells/Thawne/Reverse Flash is my favorite villain out of the many nemeses in the CW-verse so far.

SPOILERS
I do think they repeated Arrow a bit too much, though, in basically having Eddie Thawne be a cop version of Tommy Merlyn: he's a red herring 'cause his name is the same as the hero's main nemesis, but he turns out to be a relative instead. He's the boyfriend of the female lead, even though we know that character will end up as the protagonist, and grows jealous of her relationship with the hero. And then at the end, he dies, partially due to the actions of his evil relative.

At the same time, also like Tommy and Laurel, the Iris-Eddie romance felt peripheral to what was going on for a long time. Thankfully they didn't string Iris along like Laurel and she was able to learn Barry's secret and be a part of the group. Personally, I think it should've happened way earlier in the season.

There's been criticisms of the time travel ending, saying that wiping out Reverse Flash's existence should've killed the whole timeline rather than just taken him out, but the way I saw it, the singularity/black hole grew to astronomical proportions due to Eddie's suicide wiping out the timeline.

I do hope that, after a whole season of character development, Season 2 doesn't suddenly take place in an alternate timeline, like fans are speculating. I think it's more likely that Season 2 will explore different timelines and maybe villains from other timelines will find their way into ours, but the core settings of the show in Central City, STAR Labs, etc. will remain intact.

[riddler]

I enjoyed this season quite a bit. STAR labs was great, Cisko and Snow played well off each other, there will be a void to fill without Wells.

I feel this show is beating Arrow in two areas; 1) clear motive; Barry has the goal of saving his father in the back of his mind and we get the sense that would be a climax. Arrow started out with the black book but that has been abandoned 2) far better villains. Grod,Golden glider, captain cold, Firestorm, Heat wave, and the clock king have all been outstanding adversaries let alone the arch enemy the reverse flash.

Overall my favourite moment was Caitlyn and Barry going to karaoke and the drunken Caitlyn singing so awful before finding out Barry can sing.

[thecolorsblend]

I originally had very low expectations for this show.

*sigh*

You all know how amazing it is. So what I'll try to say that maybe nobody has before is what works for me with this series is how the showrunners don't seem bent on setting up a status quo and then slowly adjust it as time goes.

As an example of what I mean, look at Smallville. If you watch the pilot episode and then watch the 2nd season premiere, there's not a radical difference in most characters lives. A few minor things but mostly basically the same. It was a very slow evolution. So slow, in fact, that I think it's really the 6th season premiere before the viewer can say that the show was officially dealing in a completely different status quo now.

The Flash isn't doing that. The status quo was arguably smithereens by the 17th or 18th episode OF THE VERY FIRST SEASON. It's like the showrunners weren't saving anything for later. No matter what the outcome of this sucker may be, that's an incredibly ballsy way to make a show.

[BatmAngelus]

Thoughts on the latest season?

Loving how they brought Cavanagh/Wells back in a way that didn't seem corny. Since his daughter is Jesse Quick, perhaps this version of Wells becomes...Johnny Quick?

A little disappointed in what they did with Jay Garrick, especially his last episode painting him as more of a coward and an inferior Flash to Barry. I get that giving Jay his speed and making him more experienced/better than Barry would paint the protagonist in a bad light, but it seems that Jay's had little to do after his Flash of Two Worlds episode and now that Wells is back, Jay's role as mentor has kinda vanished.

Patty Spivot, like Linda before her, is still coming across as a better love interest than Iris, though admittedly Irish has improved since last season.

Any guesses on Zoom's identity? The latest guesses online have been Earth 2 Barry and Earth 2 Henry Allen. Part of me wants it to be Eddie Thawne (or at least Earth 2 Eddie Thawne) since his cop backstory matches up with Hunter Zolomon (the Zoom in the comics), but that wouldn't explain how he's still alive (he has to be dead in order for Reverse Flash to have disappeared) or why he'd turn evil.

[thecolorsblend]

Elements of Zoom's agenda remind me of Savitar, especially that agenda of wanting to be the only speedster in the game and whatnot.

I must say the idea of Earth 2 Harrison Wells becoming Johnny Quick hadn't occurred to me... but I am rather fond of the idea.

I've seen the Henry Allen thing myself. I kind of like that idea in that it gives Barry an emotional vulnerability in dealing with Zoom. It's got a lot of disco potential.

Overall the Flash is the best of the DCTVU. The characters are tons of fun, the stories are close enough to the comics to satisfy core fans but different enough to surprise them. I find Iris kind of annoying but, hey, nothing is perfect in life, right?

[BatmAngelus]

SPOILERS

Last night revealed that Jay Garrick's Earth 1 counterpart is Hunter Zolomon, which is the name of Zoom in the comics.

I'm surprised that they revealed this in such a casual manner. However, I'm not sure if this is supposed to mean that Hunter is our Zoom. Let's remember that we've had red herrings aplenty in this universe. We all thought that Wintergreen was Deathstroke, Tommy Merlyn would become Merlyn the archer, Eddie Thawne was a young Eobard, and, if we bring in Supergirl, Hank Henshaw was going to be Cyborg Superman. These all turned out to be deceptive.

You'd also have to explain this guy's motivation. How did he get his powers? Did he get it from the particle acclerator explosion? If so, why wasn't he doing anything on our world until this season? Why was he targeting Jay in Earth 2 before targeting Barry in Earth 1?

Or...is Jay Garrick from Earth 2 actually Zoom? It'd be a cheat since we saw the two of them fight, but you could say it was a case of an unreliable narrator. His motivation could also stem from him dying and he needs more of the Speed Force to cure himself. Or perhaps this is a Jekyl/Hyde thing where not even Jay realizes his alter ego.

Either way, I think there has to be a reason why Jay's doppleganger is Hunter Zolomon.

[BatmAngelus]

MAJOR SPOILERS

And it looks like the reason why is because the same actor is playing Zoom.

Here are my late night rumblings on how the Jay Garrick-is-Zoom stuff works. I don't usually put this much thought into my own predictions/theories, but the last time I did this, it was for Sherlock and I got it 90% right, so here goes:

I'm kinda wondering why they named this character Zoom in the first place. He's got very little in common with the Zoom in the comics. In the source material, Zoom is essentially the Reverse-Flash to Wally West's Flash. Hunter Zolomon was Wally's former cop friend before getting paralyzed by Gorilla Grodd and grew mad when Wally refused to travel back in time to prevent it. He ended up getting his own powers and a suit nearly identical to Reverse Flash's and the rest is history.

None of this is in the TV Zoom. If anything, I believe that Zoom is actually more of an adaptation of a different villain named Cobalt Blue. Like TV Zoom, he's out to steal speed and succeeds, at one point, in stealing Jay Garrick's speed. Like TV Zoom, he's followed by a blue essence (a flame in the comics, blue lightning in Zoom's case).

Oh, and he's also the twin brother of Barry Allen.

So, what if in the Flash TV show universe, it was Jay Garrick who had the secret twin brother, not Barry?

We know that on Earth One, Mrs. Garrick died in child birth. The boy grew up to become adopted by the Zolomons with the name Hunter Zolomon. We can assume that what Jay told Caitlin in the park is correct since Caitlin was unable to find a record of any Jay Garrick in existence on Earth One.

In my theory, on Earth Two, Mrs. Garrick not only survived giving birth, but she also gave birth to twins- Jay Garrick and Hunter Zolomon.

The following is Cobalt Blue's birth story:
"On the stormy night of May 13, two pregnant women came to the office of Fallville, Iowa's Dr. Gilmore. However, the doctor had been drinking, and he had sent his nurse home.

The child of one of the women, Charlene Thawne, had been strangled on its own umbilical cord, and Gilmore was too intoxicated to save the poor baby. However, the other woman, Nora Allen, successfully gave birth to twin boys. Gilmore, trying to be fair, gave one of the twins to the Thawne family, telling the Allens that one of their children had been stillborn. The twin that remained with the Allens was named Barry, and he grew up to be the Flash. The other twin, however, was raised by the Thawnes, and he was named Malcolm."
http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Malcolm_Thawne_(New_Earth)

Replace Charlene Thawne with Mrs. Zolomon, Nora Allen with Mrs. Garrick, Barry with Jay, and Malcolm with Hunter. You'd get two boys: Jay goes with his mom, Mrs. Garrick. Hunter goes with the other mother, Mrs. Zolomon.

Mrs. Garrick would get to raise her son, Jay, who would become The Flash in the particle accelerator explosion.

Hunter Zolomon, however, would get a sh*tty childhood, like Malcolm Thawne. When the particle accelerator went off, maybe he gained the same speed that night as Jay (considering he and Jay have the same DNA. Notice how both Mardon brothers got weather controlling powers on Earth One?).

When he discovered Jay's existence as the Flash and that he was a renown hero and got to grow up with a loving family, he was envious of Jay's life and decided to take it for his own, by finding a way to steal his speed.

He went on to become Zoom and seek to outdo the Flash and become his own "fastest man alive."

(Now, on this Earth, Zoom's costume seems suspiciously modeled after Barry's Flash costume. Look at the lightning on the sides of the head as well as the logo on the chest. My theory is that since Cisco came up with that suit for Barry on Earth One, Cisco/Reverb designed the same thing for Zoom on Earth Two and was Zoom's ally for awhile in telling him what was going on at the other Earth).

Jay in the meantime became a hero around Central City and figured out that Harrison Wells was behind the particle accelerator explosion and the birth of the metas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YB19IyHGpTk

This is the one of the few times that we've actually seen the real Jay Garrick/Flash from Earth Two. Notice how more confident and competent Jay seems to be in this clip compared to what we're used to?

Also take into account that Eobard Thawne may have some knowledge of Jay Garrick being the Flash on Earth Two and is scared of him, considering his reaction to seeing the helmet in Season 1:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3WNruGergk
This hardly seems like the useless Jay we know. I'd like to think that the real Jay Garrick Flash of Earth Two is someone just as competent, if not more, than Barry's Flash. We're talking about the first Flash of all comic history here. The man helped train Batman in the Brave and the Bold cartoon, for God's sake.

Anyways, Zoom went on to kidnap Wells's daughter, Jessie. Jay Garrick knew this and went off to fight Zoom, where Zoom stabbed and injured him. When the singularity opened up, it took Jay's helmet.

Unlike the flashback, however, the singularity closed and Jay was injured enough that Zoom captured him and somehow stole his speed. Zoom took away his Flash costume and locked him up and likely revealed that he was Jay's twin brother. He then put Jay in the iron mask (much like the classic Dumas story, where the "good" twin was locked up with the mask) to not give away the fact that Jay/Flash had been captured. The mask also likely mutes his voice (otherwise, why couldn't the guy just say what he wanted to?).

Discovering the breaches to another earth, Zoom traveled to Earth One and discovered they had their own Flash there. He developed his plan to steal Barry's speed from him too. He looked up his doppelganger and discovered that on this Earth, only baby Hunter survived.

He visits Earth One Hunter and finds out that the man, instead of having speed powers, is dying of a disease (Possibly due to the accelerator explosion. Remember how King Shark's Earth One counterpart died from complications from the accelerator accident rather than fully transformed?).

Zoom knows that the Speed Force may help cure Earth One Hunter and uses this as leverage to convince his doppelganger to spy for him so he can gain the speed powers that will help cure him. In reality, Zoom needs a spy to find out more about this Earth's Flash.

Earth One Hunter, then, becomes the "Jay Garrick" we've met. This is why he spies on the team and takes him so damn long between Season 1 and Season 2 to actually come up and talk to them. He was getting prepped by Zoom. Everything he knows about the Speed Force or from Earth Two is actually told to him from Zoom, who then gave him Jay's uniform to wear. His story about getting sucked into the singularity (after fighting Zoom) or developing his own Velocity serum is complete fiction.

More evidence that our Jay wasn't the real Jay? Caitlin. He falls for Caitlin, without much conflict. However on Earth Two, Killer Frost and Reverb were villains who fought with Jay Garrick. If this were the real Jay, wouldn't he have had SOME conflict with being attracted to Caitlin and working with Cisco? Look how thrown off Barry and Cisco were when they met their doppelgangers and then had to come back to Earth One and adjust to life.

I suspect Zoom actually has plans for Caitlin's Velocity 9 and used the fact that Hunter/"Jay" was dying as a way to get her to develop it. When they find that Caitlin's been digging into who "Jay's" doppelganger is, Zoom himself puts on the glasses and appears at the park bench in order for "Jay" to tell her the story of Hunter Zolomon.

This explains how "Jay" was able to conveniently know that Hunter would be at that park bench at that time on that day. It was all part of the plan to gain Caitlin's sympathy, get her to stop looking into his past, and instead get her to work on the velocity serum.

Notice how, once she was done and Velocity 9 was successfully, "Jay" was killed? He outlived his usefulness.

Now Earth One Hunter Zolomon is dead, leaving the REAL Jay Garrick in the prison cell and the Earth Two Hunter Zolomon as Zoom.

It's complicated as Hell and nowhere near as cool as last year's "Eobard Thawne became Harrison Wells" twist. But this helps redeem the pretty poor treatment of Jay Garrick so far on the show by revealing that we actually haven't seen much of him yet, incorporates comic book elements that the show hasn't adapted yet, fills in a few holes in the plot over the past season, and ultimately, makes sense as to how there could be three Jays, without getting into clone territory or "He's from YET ANOTHER EARTH!!!"