Tuesday night’s episode of The Flash may
have been titled “King Shark” but the meta-
human played second fiddle to the night’s
biggest revelation: The true identity of season
arch-villain, Zoom.
"The breaches are closed. All the breaches are
closed." Despite everything that has happened
(Zoom, Jay's death, the masked prisoner), Harrison
Wells gets the episode rolling by telling us all that
the breaches to Earth-2 can never be opened again.
Courtesy of a comic-science explanation (quark
matter!), the breaches are done, and everyone
simply has to let it go. More than that, even, Wells
tells Cisco and Barry not to tell the others about
what happened. With Zoom trapped in the other
universe and it closed off, there's just no point.
However, it's not that easy to leave everything
behind. Barry and Cisco were deeply affected by
what happened, and spend most of the episode
clearly upset by it. It's a deeply sad episode for
Barry, because despite trying to just forget it, he
can't. He's taking the weight of the world on his
shoulders (just like Oliver, as Diggle points out).
There's also a new member of Team Flash courtesy
of Earth-2: Jesse. Wells's brilliant daughter is stuck
here, and isn't thrilled about it.
Caitlin opens the episode the way that fans finished
the last one — hoping, desperately, that that didn't
just happen. That Jay Garrick isn't dead. But we
know, just as well as she does, that Zoom killed
him. Caitlin spends most of the episode attempting
to deal with this incredible loss — just as she was
starting to open up and love again after losing
Ronnie (twice!), Jay is murdered in front of her
eyes.
As the episode builds, we see Caitlin becoming
more brusque, cold, and even rude to Cisco. When
she and Cisco head to Nautilus Labs on King Shark
business, Caitlin is so rude to the researcher they
have come to see, that they barely get the info they
want. Having seen Killer Frost on Earth-2, Cisco is
terrified that this latest blow to Caitlin's spirit may
turn her evil... and it looks like he might even have a
point.
At home with the Wests, Barry is clearly miserable,
struggling to cope with what he knows happened to
his Earth-2 family. He has more than that on his
plate, though, as Wally is part of the family now,
and the two boys are not playing nice. Literally, as
Barry doesn't want to play a game called Stack
Attack with Wally, and Barry reveals the he doesn't
think Wally likes him.
The two try to connect over Wally's admissions
essay about a turbine-powered car. However, it's
not easy. Both men are prickly, with Barry
attempting to "fix" Wally's work (and not being too
subtle about it), while Wally is clearly defensive. The
two manage to work together for a while, but when
Barry starts to take over the project, Wally lets
loose. He's angry that Barry is the prefect son to
Joe, and there's obviously a little jealousy there.
This jealousy rears its ugly head a short while later,
when he gleefully accuses Barry of being a coward.
Despite promising not to tell the others about their
Earth-2 experiences, both Cisco and Barry crack.
Cisco lets slip his fears that Caitlin is acting "like
her," before spilling the Killer Frost beans. Caitlin,
however, reminds Cisco that she isn't a metahuman.
She's just a woman who is grieving, and who needs
to be a little shut off for a while.
After Wally calls Barry a coward and walks out, Iris
and Joe demand to know what is going on with
Barry, and he tells them everything. That he was
married to Iris, that Joe hated him, that Joe-2 died
because he was there. In a heartbreaking scene,
Barry breaks down as Joe attempts to console him.
It's incredibly sad, but hopefully, it can be cathartic
for Barry. Now that he isn't keeping his grief to
himself, he can move forward.
The newest addition to the show's main cast, Jesse,
makes only a brief appearance in this episode.
Initially miserable at her new home, she starts to
come around and help Harrison Wells.
The two work on a way to find King Shark, and to
use his abilities against him. They develop a Barry
lure and a way to track the shark, but otherwise, we
don't see a lot of them.
King Shark
ARGUS, in its infinite wisdom, has apparently been
keeping King Shark (a half-shark metahuman that
Barry has battled in the past) in a tank closed off
with lasers. At feeding time, they decide to just...
turn those lasers off because he isn't moving.
Smart. Unsurprisingly, King Shark was faking. He
leaps from the tank, slaughters everyone in sight,
and runs off to kill Barry.
Guest starring this episode are Diggle and Lyla, as
Lyla has taken command of ARGUS, and is
responsible for bringing King Shark to justice. Once
they see King Shark fleeing, they head to Central
City to warn Team Barry. It turns out that ARGUS
was attempting to weaponize King Shark, and
although Lyla expects ARGUS to deal with it on their
own, Barry is determined to go after him.
Barry and ARGUS are patrolling the waterfront in
search of King Shark, but miss him, and he kills two
ARGUS personnel. Barry gives up for the time being
and heads home to try and help Wally with his
project. The two aren't doing too well when King
Shark rips the roof off the building in the search of
Barry. Although Barry tells him that the breaches
are closed, Shark is still after him, and manages to
knock him down before running away from the
ARGUS convoy.
The team figures out that King Shark uses his
powers to track Barry by sensing the electricity
generated by his body. They figure out not only how to use this as a lure, but how to track King Shark at the same time. Their little bait trick doesn't work when King Shark doesn't eat fake-Barry (who is stuffed with tranquilizers), but the Flash is up to the challenge.
He leads King Shark out into the open water, in an
absolutely incredible scene where King Shark is
speeding below the water as Barry races ahead of
him on top of it. Once out in the water, Barry races
around him in circles. He traps him in the current
and electrifies the water (!) with his speed,
electrocuting King Shark and knocking him out so
that ARGUS can take him back. It's a much longer,
more dramatic showdown than we have seen
recently, and it's fantastic to see the show doing
more hero/villain combat again this week. More
than that, it's amazing to see Barry win! After so
much time coming up against Zoom and failing, he
needs this.
So much of this episode is about recovery. It's
Barry and Cisco recovering from what happened on
Earth-2, Barry recovering his confidence, Caitlin
recovering from Jay's death, and Jesse recovering
from... well, everything. In a small way, we are also
seeing ARGUS recover from the damaging control
of Amanda Waller, as Lyla attempts to clean up the
organization. In the final scenes, we see Joe and
Wally talking, and Joe attempting to help him in his
relationship with Barry, Caitlin screwing with Cisco
by pretending to be Killer Frost, and Barry making a
rousing speech to his team that ends with a vow to
return to Earth-2 and take out Zoom for good. 'King
Shark' cleans up the mess left by previous
episodes, collects the characters, and settles them
back into a cohesive team, ready for the next threat.
When we think it's all over, and everyone has come
to a happier ending... there's one scene left. Back
on Earth-2, Zoom strides into his lair, the body of
Jay Garrick cradled in his arms. His masked
prisoner, on seeing the body, starts freaking out.
We don't know why. Why was the prisoner attempting to tell Barry Jay's name? What is going on?!
It's this. Zoom, after 15 episodes, finally takes off
his mask to reveal... that he is Jay Garrick . That is,
he looks like Jay Garrick/Hunter Zoloman, and at
this point, we're not sure what that means. Except,
of course, that things are about to get awesome.
