FLASH SPOILER Review: Episode 2×06 – “Enter Zoom”

Written by: Brooke Eikmeier and
Gabrielle G Stanton

Directed by: JJ Makaro

After teasing a battle between Barry and Dr.
Light, we travel back in time three days to find Barry questioning her in the
Pipeline.  She explains that she was
supposed to kill him then throw something of his through the breech and Zoom
would take her home.  Barry asks for her
help stopping Zoom, but much like Jay, she wants no part of Zoom.

Barry goes with to the team with a plan that
essentially uses Light as bait and unsurprisingly everyone save Wells think
it’s a bad idea.  Wells even believes
that he and Cisco can develop a wait to cut off Zoom’s speed.  Caitlin points out the similarity between
that idea and the folly of Cisco’s Cold Gun but it seems that Barry and Wells
have swayed the others and Barry puts them to work before he and Joe are called
back to the Police Station.

However, after Barry leaves Joe calls Cisco and Caitlin
over and asks them to help him figure out what Wells is up to using Cisco’s
power.  At the same time, Wells thinks
back on his time at E-2STAR Labs talking with his daughter, Jesse about his
fight with the Flash in the lobby last week.

Then at the Police Station something wonderful has
happened, it’s as though all the joy in the world has coalesced into one
person.  That person’s name is: Patty
Spivot.

 

Patty explains to Joe that she’s been research
light for the Dr. Light case and believes that one of the reasons no one has
been able to find her is that light can be bent to create invisibility.  Joe stops her and explains that the cases is
closed then storms off.  Joe leaves then
Barry arrives to talk to Patty about their date last week.

At the News Paper, Linda tells Iris she’s going
nearly mad with worry but Iris promises that the Flash has things in hand.  Back at STAR Labs, Cisco is heading down into
the Pipeline with lunch for Dr. Light but we quickly learn that Patty has a
pretty good grasp on Light’s powers as she’s turned herself invisible to trick
Cisco into opening her cell so she can escape. 
She’s also used her powers on the fiber optic cables to manipulate building
security.  By the time Barry arrives to
contain her, Dr. Light has blasted her way out of the Lab and escaped.

The Team gather in the Hub and it seems the plan
is about to come apart at the seams. 
Light is gone, they haven’t finished their counter to Zoom’s speed and
Joe’s starting to think the plan was rather stupid to begin with.  Barry puts his foot down.  He’s tired of waiting around, they have to
take on Zoom now before anyone else dies.

Later, Wells is working on his part of their Zoom
trap when Cisco comes down to talk to him. 
He makes a pretty clumsy attempt to touch Wells and get a vibe off him
and Wells stops him and warns him away. 
He then flashes back to his past on Earth-2.  One night while working, he overhears a news
report that his daughter’s college was attacked by Zoom.  He calls Jesse but it goes to voicemail and
he then sees her phone in the wreckage.

Barry heads home and finds that Linda is
stress-cooking them out of house and home. 
When he and Iris talking about it she mentions that Larkin was killed by
someone that looks just like Linda and Barry gets the idea to use Linda in
place of Light.  Officially moving his
plan from kind of crazy to kind of crazy and pretty reckless.  However, Iris thinks it’s a good idea and
brings Linda to STAR Labs to clue her in to the plan.

Cisco rigs up a way to mimic Light’s powers, and
they spend some time working on her aim and we’re treated to a good
old-fashioned training montage.

Later, Joe pulls Barry aside to talk about his
plan.  He thinks it’s because Barry
wasn’t the one to stop Thawne in the end. 
He just wants Barry to be sure of what he’s doing and that he owes Linda
that much.  Barry returns home and talks
to Linda to help build her confidence before he reveals himself as the Flash to
her.

Back at the Lab, Cisco tries get a read on
Wells.  This time he’s successful, he
sees that Zoom has Jesse prisoner somewhere on Earth-2.  At the Police Station, Patty confronts Joe
about Light and her suspicions that he knows where Light is and that Joe
doesn’t trust her.  Joe asks her to hang
on just a little longer.

That night at the docks, we see that the fight
from the start of the episode was actually Barry’s sting operation.  Linda “defeats” Barry and throws
his emblem through the breech and…

Nothing happens. 
A lot of nothing happens for the next hour.  Zoom didn’t take the bait. Well, that’s
okay.  Plenty of time left this season
for Barry and Zoom to face off.  Let’s
just go into wrap-up mode.  Barry
explains to Joe that he needs to stop Zoom because like Eobard told him nothing
will ever be enough for him.  Joe then
tells him that he needs to let failures go and work towards what makes him
happy.

Like all those who love things that are good and
pure, what makes Barry happy is Patty Spivot. 
Barry heads back to the Police Station to find her and lay a pretty
serious liplock on her. 

Meanwhile at the Newspaper, Iris and Linda talk
about the dilemma of being an investigative journalist and the friend of a
costumed crime-fighter with a secret identity aka “The Lois Lane
Dilemma.”

Linda leaves the paper and is captured by Zoom?! But
we were in wrap-up mode!  Iris calls
Barry and he races off to find Zoom.  The
evil speedster has taken Linda to the roof of Star Labs and when Barry arrives
he drops her off.  Barry saves Linda and
sends her away before Zoom arrives and the two face off.  The fight starts off with Barry throwing
lightning only for Zoom to catch the bolt and throw it back at him.  As if that weren’t cool enough, Barry leads
Zoom around the building and into the air and they fight in freefall. 

Which was probably a mistake, since Zoom quickly
overpowers Barry and beats him bloody. 
Wells tries to shoot Zoom with the anti-speed dart but he catches it and
uses it on Barry.  He then takes Barry’s
battered form around Central City to show them their defeated hero before he
takes Barry back to STAR Labs to kill him in front of his friends.

Before he can deliver the killing blow, Cisco
manages to shoot Zoom with the dart and Zoom escapes.  Caitlin manages to stabilize Barry, Joe and
Wells nearly come to blows before Cisco asks Wells about Jesse.  Wells explains that his only hope of getting
Jesse back is by defeating Zoom and he’d hoped to do it with Barry’s help.  Wells then storms off.

Presumably the next morning though it could be
quite a while later, Barry wakes up to find Caitlin and Cisco with him.  When Cisco touches Barry’s leg Barry sits up
in shock.  He tells them that he can’t
feel his legs.

Well, that was a lot of bang for your buck.  I’m almost tempted to review and rate this as
two separate episodes since even without the last ten minutes the episode was
pretty damn solid. 

The season long plot was moved along, we got a
look at what Wells was up to, we got some fun stuff with the Linda sub-plot and
the Barry/Patty romance and Joe/Patty partnership.  We even got some fun Earth-2 Easter Eggs.  Also, did I mention a training montage?  

So by the time Linda and Iris are joking about
joining CrossFit, you’re actually pretty satisfied with the episode.  Then Zoom shows up and much like the appearance
of King Shark you’re shocked out of your seat as the Episode takes a hard right
turn.

This is far and away the biggest defeat Barry has
ever taken.  Physically he’s beaten
nearly to death and he may have to deal with being crippled “for
life.” (My guess is they’ll have this wrapped up by the end of next week’s
episode.)  The emotional damage may be
even worse as Zoom paraded Barry in front of those who love him and since the cameras
were rolling at the Newspaper (Video camera at a newspaper?) Zoom might as well
have gone door-to-door to show everyone.

So while separately these two mini-episodes might
have been really good and satisfying, together there’s pretty much
only one score to give this week’s episode.