You’ve seen Godzilla versus King Kong…and Mothra, and…you get the idea. But did you ever envision THIS kaiju battle? It’s King Shark vs. Gorilla Grodd, in Season 5 Episode 15 of THE FLASH! Who would win that battle, and why would they fight in the first place? It’s not as simple as you may think. And, you may never look at this version of King Shark the same way again. Want to know more? Follow us after the jump!
SPOILERS AHEAD!
NOTE: This review is posting prior to THE FLASH being aired in the Pacific Time Zone USA. If you haven’t seen the episode yet, STOP NOW and come back after watching the show. You’ll be glad you did!
This episode actually starts near the end of the story. Barry and Nora are incapacitated by Grodd when King Shark appears! It looks bad all the way around for our favorite speedsters. But, we need to go back 12 hours to learn the rest. Let’s bullet point this to save some time:
- The metahuman “cure” is ready but must be tested. They think of King Shark as the most likely person to volunteer.
- They contact him through A.R.G.U.S. and with the help of Dr. Tanya Lamden. Her late husband is the Earth 1 doppleganger of King Shark (who is from Earth 2). She communicates with King Shark through a “telepathic crown”
- After Barry uses the “cure” on King Shark without permission, creating a temporary rift with Cisco and Caitlin. It does work, though, and he is now human!
- Grodd arrives at S.T.A.R. Labs and steals the telepathic crown. This will amplify his powers enough to take over all of Central City…and possibly the world!
- Now that he is human again, King Shark and Dr. Lamden finally share their feelings for each other (after some encouragement from Sherloque). That moment doesn’t last for long, as…
- Grodd uses the crown to take over the city! Barry and Nora are incapacitated by Grodd, and there is little hope left. The only hope? The one being that Grodd can’t control – King Shark!
- Of course, King Shark isn’t very shark-like right now. He volunteers to change back to King Shark in order to save the city and to make up for all the bad things he had done before. It does work, and Grodd is back in A.R.G.U.S. custody, but now King Shark can never change back to human form again.
After all is said and done, they at least know that the “cure” can work. What to do next? Barry wants to offer the choice to Cicada, hoping he will voluntarily gives up his meta powers. A bit hopeful? Naive, perhaps? We’ll learn more next episode.
NOTES:
- King Shark comes off as more of an anti-hero in this episode. He is made more tragic by his all-too-brief return to human form. That said, he is now more than a one-shot character – it would be good to see him working with Team Flash sometime down the road.
- The CGI was about as good as you could expect to get on TV these days. Of course it isn’t up to a big movie budget version, but then you are talking about the budget a CW show would have. For the money, it was okay.
- As a side story, Joe returns and helps Iris deal with her own fears. She has been afraid to return to her office after all the issues in that time-rewind episode. With Joe’s encouragement (and a session punching the heavy bag), she is back at work in her office. Of course, she finds that she has missed the BIG story as her social media feed is blowing up with King Shark vs. Gorilla Grodd.
SUMMARY: This episode veers far away from the main plot of the season, but it’s still more than worth the view. Getting both Grodd and King Shark in one episode was a lot of fun, and kept it from feeling like the “filler” episode some weeks have been before. I’m always up for either of these bad guys (although King Shark may no longer qualify as a “bad guy”). And, while I do want to see the overall season plot move forward, this was still a fun change-up for the show. I’ll give it an 8/10 – but of course that’s just my opinion. What do YOU think? Leave your comments below!