HOLY CRAP! That’s not how I usually start a review, but if you aren’t saying something similar after THIS episode of THE FLASH, I don’t know what show you are watching. This is the penultimate episode of Season 2, and I cannot think of a better way to absolutely guarantee you will be there for the finale than what happens this week. There are so many things to say…after the jump!
SPOILERS AHEAD…YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!
Note: This review is being posted prior to THE FLASH airing in the Pacific Time Zone USA. If you haven’t seen the episode yet, we STRONGLY recommend you wait before reading the rest of this article.
Zoom’s army of Earth 2 metahumans are taking over the city, and the press is calling it the “Metapocalypse”. Flash is doing all he can, and so are the police, but it’s an uphill battle. Wally is joining in the fight, even against Joe’s and The Flash’s advice. And to add to it all…the Earth 2 doppelganger of Laurel Lance!
Yes, we see a canary cry in action…but THIS is no good guy. She is Black Siren, and she works for Zoom! She takes down Mercury Labs, and quite nearly defeats an overconfident Barry before Wally saves the day (yes, you read that right…but no powers, he just uses his car to give The Flash a chance to get to safety).
Just a note about Black Siren…THIS is what Black Canary SHOULD have been on ARROW. Katie Cassidy is much more relaxed playing Siren, and everything about her character is cooler. Even her version of the Canary Cry works better here. The Kreisberg machine does so many things well, but I wish THIS had been the basis for the Black Canary character on ARROW.
Back to the show…
Barry is very confident…maybe overconfident, and that’s the recurring theme in an episode entitled “Invincible”. No one is truly invincible, and everyone close to Barry keeps trying to get him to be a little more careful. Even so, Barry is extremely optimistic after his time in the Speed Force, and he believes (more strongly than anyone) that they can defeat Zoom.
The whole team is back together, including Caitlin, whom Zoom let go. Caitlin is still dealing with the after-effects of her time in captivity. However, with the off-screen help of Pied Piper, the team comes up with a way to bring down all the Earth 2 metas at once. It uses a special frequency that will only impact Earth 2 inhabitants. While they try to set up the device to make this work, Black Siren is spotted ready to take down a group of buildings…does Barry run to stop her or does he set up the device to stop all the metas? Who dies in the process?
Cisco has a better idea…or so he thinks. He and Caitlin dress up as Reverb and Killer Frost and manage to delay Black Siren just long enough for Barry to get the device set up. Just as their ruse fails, they get a temporary reprieve from the first use of Vibe’s “reverb-like” sound wave…but he can’t replicate it. Not to worry, because the device kicks in and impacts every Earth 2 human…even Zoom!
It affects Jesse, even with the headphones, and Harry gives her his set to save her. Zoom saves himself by jumping to Earth 2. Everyone else from Earth 2 is incapacitated…not killed, though, which is very good news for Harry. The Flash rounds up all the bad guys, placing the most dangerous metas at S.T.A.R. Labs and the rest in Iron Heights.
This is a time of celebration! The police have control of the CCPD Headquarters again, Henry is staying in Central City, Barry and Iris decide to give their relationship a try, Jesse seems a little sweet on Wally, Henry seems a little sweet on Tina McGee, and as they celebrate…
Cisco gets another Vibe…he’s been seeing dead birds all through the episode, and now he sees Earth 2 splitting right down the middle! But, even THAT isn’t the last horrible sight in the show as…
Zoom shows up at the West house, grabbing Henry Allen and running off! Barry chases immediately after him, marking the first time that Wally has seen Barry running (finally!). The chase is on…and it leads to the old Allen house.
Zoom believes he and Barry are “the same person”, and he’s determined to make Barry into a killer like himself. He believes that killing Henry in front of Barry will make that happen. Barry begs for his father’s life…
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And Zoom kills Henry!
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I did NOT see this coming. Maybe some of you did, but I certainly did not. Now we are set for the finale next week, and I’m definitely going to be glued to my set when that show comes on!
NOTES:
- The show had some slow moments early on, as each character took a turn with “you’re not invincible, Barry”. But, as the show progressed we got past those slightly clunky moments and revved up the pace and the intensity of the show.
- Wally is starting to come into his own as a character, and I really like the direction in which they are taking him. It will be most interesting to see what he does now that he has seen Barry running at superspeed.
- Black Siren is everything Black Canary should have been (except the obvious of being a bad guy instead of good).
- I have truly enjoyed John Wesley Shipp’s turn as Henry Allen, especially since I was a fan of his turn as The Flash back in the 1990’s. This was a real shocker, and I can only hope we will see him in flashbacks (no pun intended) in future seasons. RIP Henry Allen.
- Kudos to the writers and actors for this episode. You have ripped our hearts out, but you really delivered an excellent episode!
That’s my opinion – what do YOU think? Leave your comments below!
I saw it, what en ending
So… Whos the man in the iron mask? My guess is the 1990 flash played by shipp
Pretty good episode. Great set up for next week but I wish just a little more of that end of season goodness could’ve spilt into this episode.
Wally is really coming around. Now all he needs is a sense of humor. Hopefully the speedforce also comes with a joke book. Naw, this is a character I love and am bound to be hard on but he’s slowly bringing me around. Wonder if this is how fans reading back in the Messner-loebs era felt as Wally became less of a jerkoff and more of a likable hero.
I love an overconfident Flash so that was fun for me to watch. Glad him and Iris are finally getting together! Sad about Henry but if you check the comments for last week’s review, I totally called it, so I was kinda more happy that I got something right for once.
Theories for the finale:
Ironmask=JayGarrick=JohnWesleyShipp
Wally will use his powers
Caitlin will kill Zoom
Yes, you did call it last week. I didn’t believe it then, but I have to give credit where credit is due. You called it!
I Kinda saw Henry’s fate coming as he said…”You’re stuck with me…I’m not going anywhere.” and then the preview for this episode ended with barry screaming “NO!!!”
I’m hoping JWS will be revealed to be Jay Garrick somehow (if Garrick was Henry’s Mother’s maiden name there may be hope.)
This is the first show (and by that i mean the First show on TV altogether not just the first Flash-related etc…) I’ve seen in a long time that made me feel hollow afterward. Not because it was bad, but because it hit me emotionally to the point that i feel the loss just as Barry does.
I definitely knew that Henry was going to die too. In the extended trailer, it shows Barry screaming NOOOO!! in his childhood house. Plus, Zoom has always been trying to prove that he and Barry are the same.
When Wally say Barry running, I jumped out of my seat and was like YES! FINALLY! XD
Pretty sure we haven’t seen the last of JWS. Hope to see both Wally and Jesse make their own rendezvous with the speed force next week. And hey, nice 4th wall breakage between Henry and Doctor McGee.
I’ve been watching the original Flash and in the next to last episode (“Alpha”), Tina hacks into the security system of a government lab and Barry says “you’re beautiful” and she says “I’m glad you finally noticed.” It sure looked like something was finally going to happen between them this time.
Sometimes I think Henry Allen is the longest-suffering character in the Flashverse (comics and TV). Great episode, though.
Big fan of the Wally West moments. Not such a big fan of how tense crises always seem to deflate by the next episode so we can take time for more villain of the week stuff. When Zoom or Barry get distracted, the urgency takes a nosedive. Glad that the final moments kicked things into high gear again, but i would hope the next episode does not begin with Zoom giving everyone a breather so that Barry can mourn.
Thanks for all the stuff you post here. Really enjoy it
There was a metahuman on the stairs near Zoom when the frequency weapon kicked in. He wore a hat and a trench coat. He sure looked like Nightshade, a character in two episodes of the original Flash
I loved black siren. I hope we get to see her again and maybe she turns good sort if like the comic book plot with black canary. Her scenes are what I always wished for on arrow. Zoom is definitely one of the best villians on all these comic book tv shows I watch.
Having Black Siren in this episode was a bad decision. For people like me who don’t give a peep about Arrow (that is, the show, not the character so much when he appears on the Flash, and by extension, no peep about Black Canary), this was especially dumb. With everything all season long about Earth 2 villians, and we get an evil version of an Arrow character leading up to the finale. You know, we don’t all watch Arrow. It would’ve been nice to have the Flash stand up on its own. All the talk about Laura Lance this episode was pointless for all us non-Arrow watchers. We didn’t see her die, or whatever happened to her, and we barely knew Laura Lance, so we really have no reason to care. It would’ve worked better had the Flash established its own character in this episode.
I completely agree. I think Barry met Laura once, maybe twice, and he and everyone were all acting like she was a regular on this show. And I hated how Barry ran up to her and just slowly walked around her and talked to her for like 10 minutes instead of immediately tying her up and gagging her. If you know who she is, you know what her powers are! Just take her down quickly!
But I guess we needed to set up Wally’s heroic save by driving away at like 5 miles per hour. And the really stupid part of Cisco and Caitlin pretending to be Vibe and Killer Frost, then being exposed because he’s right-handed. Oh, so much of this episode was so lame.
I guess Henry’s death might have been shocking if it wasn’t so heavily telegraphed, and if we didn’t have several ways to bring back at least the actor if not the character proper. Maybe I’m just too cynical, but I feel like this show is slowly but surely getting worse.
And how long would it have taken them to get into their cosplay? Especially Caitlin’s makeover! Unless, of course, Barry did it for them at superspeed and then ran them over to the building that was currently under attack but getting there in time to save the day… I just don’t see Barry having those kind of make-up artist skills…
Where is Mirror Master, where!
Didn’t someone in this episode saying something about doppelgangers being mirror images?
Laurel was connected to more than one episode of Flash… Cisco even improved her weapons…Siren was awesome!!!
I swear, my heart sank when Zoom killed Henry. I was screaming the entire time, No, Don’t Do IT!!!!!! What a Douche. 🙁
But still, this was a great episode, Loved everything about it from the character interactions to Cisco and Caitlyn playing their E2 Countet parts. Just not the ending.
Man I hate Zoom. Rotten, I swear man. lol.