'The Flash' recap: The fastest man alive, no longer

Hello darkness my old friend.


Spoiler alert! The following contains spoilers for Tuesday night's episode of The Flash.


After last week's comedy hour, The Flash gets grim with the most terrifying villain we've had on this show to date. Barry is dealt a (literal) crippling defeat, and Zoom establishes himself as more than just Reverse Flash 2.0 with a gripping action sequence at the end of the episode that caught us all by surprise after the somewhat silly training montage that Linda Park stumbles through.

In "Enter Zoom," the sixth episode of the second season, Team Flash sets off on one of the dumbest ideas of their lives, deciding to use Linda Park to bait Zoom into fighting the Flash. While most of the episode involves shenanigans over cheesy scripted dialogue and cardboard cutouts, Barry's inner turmoil over having manipulated by Harrison Wells even after his death endangers everyone else. And for some reason Iris -- who has been doing so well as the emotional center of the team up until now -- is his number one supporter for this haphazard trap.
A QUICK AND DIRTY PLAN


Dean Buscher

Punk rock Harrison finally gets his hands dirty.

After a quick cold open of Barry being seemingly defeated by Doctor Light, we flash back to 72 hours earlier where Barry is negotiating with Light in the pipeline prison to help them trap Zoom. Caitlyn is skeptical of the plan, arguing that Barry is unprepared, but Harrison 2.0 ropes in Cisco to create a weapon to slow down Zoom. Joe goes along with the plan if only to find out what Harrison 2.0 is hiding, asking Cisco to "vibe" his secrets.

In a flash sideways to Earth-2, Harrison argues ethics with his daughter Jesse, who reprimands him for not owning up to his experiment causing the meta-human emergence. But they don't have a chance to reconcile, as Harrison soon sees a news report that Jesse's college was attacked by Zoom and Jesse was taken hostage.

At the police station, an excited Patty is babbling off all her theories about Doctor Light to Joe, who quickly shuts her down. She turns to Barry for comfort but, weighed down by his own existential angst (come on Barry, I thought we got over this) and completely focused on his Zoom trap, he gives her the cold shoulder as well.

But Team Flash's plans are put on hold when Doctor Light makes herself invisible (this is what happens when no one listens to Patty) and escapes S.T.A.R. Labs. The team meets up, frustrated with this hold-up in their plans. Caitlin and Joe use the opportunity to balk at the plan, but Barry is full steam ahead, telling Cisco to go forward with the speed dampener and ignoring Joe's pleas for reason. Meanwhile Cisco is still pulling double duty by trying to vibe Harrison 2.0, but is immediately caught by the increasingly on-edge Harrison. Caitlin urges him to keep trying, guessing correctly that there's some personal feud between Harrison 2.0 and Zoom.
CAN'T DAMPEN YOUR SPIRIT


Dean Buscher

Linda I know you feel guilty but this was a crazy plan and you don't even do Crossfit.

At the newsroom, Linda approaches Iris telling her she wants to help, and Iris brings her home to let her take shelter. Barry returns to the West home, despondent over their plan failing, when he sees Linda and comes up with the idea of using an innocent civilian who has no special super skills whatsoever to set the trap. Nice one, Barry.

For some reason, Iris is totally on board with this plan, and Linda joins in willingly after Barry asks her to help in his Flash costume.

In a lighthearted training montage to help Linda get into the supervillain mindset, Cisco rigs up explosive gloves and pretty hilarious cardboard cutouts of themselves. The training session gets off to a very shaky start, leaving everyone still skeptical of the plan, but Barry keeps bullishly pushing through. Joe tries to talk him down, asking Barry why he's so eager to risk his and Linda's lives in a clear vendetta against a dead man.

Later that night, Barry goes to visit Linda in his Flash costume and reveals his identity to her to regain her trust. But the girl that he's actually seeing (poor Patty) gets spurned by Barry once again after she tries to wheedle the truth out of Joe and gets left in the dark once again.

Meanwhile, Cisco tries to vibe with Harrison again by basically being a fumbling idiot and ignoring all the rules of lab safety. He finally vibes and sees that Zoom has Jesse captive and is trying to torture Harrison's location out of her.

Team Flash sets up their cheesily and badly-written trap at an empty dock for Zoom (I accept your apology Cisco), and we finally see the context behind that cold open. Barry fakes a hit, Linda grabs his emblem and throws it through the breach, and they wait while Caitlin and Cisco watch from the security cameras and Harrison and Joe train their speed-dampener rifles on it. But after an hour, nothing happens and the rock-music-loving Harrison kicks things in anger.
SOME LIFE-ENDANGERING THERAPY


Dean Buscher

I screamed this entire time, this fight was terrifying.

At the lab, Barry confesses to Joe that his determination to catch Zoom is because of the Reverse Flash -- Harrison's last words unsettled Barry and made him believe that Harrison "still won." Joe -- who seems to repeat this monologue every other episode this season, tells Barry "you're responsible for your own happiness." Barry follows through by going over to Patty and kissing her deeply, but considering how long it took to get here, this is officially the most dangerous therapy session you could have thought up, Barry.

Meanwhile Iris and Linda bond over beer and secret-keeping, but as Linda leaves she immediately gets beset on by Zoom, who captures her and brings her to the roof of S.T.A.R. Labs. Barry confronts Zoom just as he throws Linda off the roof, but Barry is able to save her and get her safely away -- but not before the panicked Linda tells Barry that Zoom is a monster he can't fight.

But fight him alone he does, and he gets beaten severely in the process. Barry attempts to throws lightning at Zoom, but catches it and throws it back at him, knocking Barry back. Barry takes out Wells' speed dampener serum and forces Zoom into a freefall fight to even out their speed. Landing on the ground, they fistfight it out until Harrison can shoot Zoom with speed dampener, but Zoom catches it and stabs Barry, brutally injuring him. And to make matters even worse, Zoom drags Barry all over Central City and parades his limp body in front of his loved ones at the Central City Paper, the police department and finally S.T.A.R. Labs. He delivers the (nearly) killing blow by stabbing him in the gut with his claws, but Cisco shoots him with the speed dampener and Zoom runs off, leaving a barely-alive Barry.

Over Barry's wounded body, Joe rages at Harrison for using Barry, but Cisco reveals that Harrison's daughter Jesse is still alive. After Harrison leaves in shame, Barry wakes up, weakened and paralyzed from the waist down.

FLASH FAVES:


"My Jesse, always so quick." They are really not being subtle with the superhero names, are they?
Is Oliver Queen ... dead in Earth-2?
Patty and Barry are cute, but they've gotten together so quickly (and are such an obvious way to appease us over the fact that Felicity x Barry never happened), that I wonder what the show can do next with their relationship other than put Patty in life-or-death situations. Or just continually leave her in the dark. Because that always works out.
So Barry tells literally everyone his secret identity except for Iris -- who has to work it out for herself? Barry...
LIGHTNING BENDING.
Freefall fight: It's falling with style.
I audibly gasped in horror every five seconds during that Zoom/Barry fight scene, I swear to god. The show never felt like it had real consequences before, but in the last 10 minutes of the episode, it achieved just that.
Despite the awfulness that has befallen Barry, I really love the parallel of seeing Barry in a wheelchair after Harrison's whole stint in the first season.

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