‘The Flash’ Recap ‘Welcome to Earth-2’
The Flash Recap ‘Welcome to Earth-2’
Oh my goodness, I don’t even know where to begin.
Barry, Cisco, and Harry travel through the main breach in S.T.A.R. Labs (after Barry successfully closes all the others) to Earth-2. Despite all of Jay’s warning about not getting caught up in what they will see in Earth-2, Barry gets caught up in Earth-2 where his doppelgänger (that he kidnapped and is now posing as) is married to Detective Iris West, his mother is alive (and they have a really sentimental phone conversation), and Joe doesn’t like him. To make matters worse, Killer Frost, aka Caitlin Snow, and Deathstorm, Ronnie Raymond, appear to take out the breacher. A fight breaks out and Joe is killed in the crossfire by Deathstorm.
Barry makes it his mission to protect Iris, even though Harry says it is not his problem. He is going to reveal himself, Zoom will realize that he is here, and it blow the element of surprise. Barry and Cisco go anyway, and then what little of their plan was still hanging on, falls apart.
Deathstorm and Killer Frost show up again to take out Iris, Cisco, and Floyd Lawton (more on that later). They reveal that they don’t exactly answer to Zoom, and that is when someone else, their “leader,” appears on the scene, his glasses glowing blue. I flipped. Earth-2 Cisco appears as a villain, his powers fully realized, and going by the name of Reverb. He tells Cisco that he knew he was going to come because he saw it, and then offers to teach him. Cisco declines and calls for Barry. The fight begins, but Reverb is just way too powerful. He and Deathstorm then pummel Barry with their powers. Killer Frost yells at them to stop because Zoom wanted him unharmed, but it is too late. Zoom arrives and kills both Deathstorm and Reverb. He spares Killer Frost, grabs Barry, and runs off.
Meanwhile, on Earth-1, something happened to the Speed Cannon when they travelled through, so now it is up to Jay and Caitlin to fix it. Unfortunately, a metahuman called Geomancer is threatening Central City and demanding to see the Flash. Caitlin suggests that Jay use Velocity-7 to temporarily get his powers back and stop Geomancer, but then Jay drops a major bombshell. He didn’t have his powers stolen by Zoom. He lost them because he was greedy and used Velocity-6 to get faster and now the side-effects are slowly poisoning him. This explains why Zoom is now so focused on Barry, why he kept him alive, and why he was using Harry to steal his speed. He can’t actually take the speed on his own. He has to use another mechanism in order to gain it. Anyway, Jay does end up using Velocity-7 to stop the metahuman and shows up in all his Flash glory, only to have it stop working and he fall on his face. Geomancer escapes to fight another day. Caitlin says that she will keep working on the serum until she has perfected it. Now they’re back to trying to fix the Speed Cannon or Barry and Cisco will be stuck in Earth-2 forever.
There were so many doppelgängers and Easter Eggs in this episode. We get to see the Earth-2 versions of three different characters who play completely opposite personalities. One of the first people Barry and Cisco run into is Henry Hewitt, who was almost the second half of Firestorm, but turned evil. Their reaction is priceless. Hewitt is a scientist at S.T.A.R. Labs and is happy-go-lucky. Next up is Captain Singh, who is actually a criminal. And lastly, my favorite, is Floyd Lawton as Iris’ partner, who is actually a really terrible shot. He is nicknamed Deadshot out of irony. I love Lawton and he has been missed on Arrow so I am glad that The Flash took the opportunity to cleverly work him in. Another doppelgänger that is mentioned, but not seen, is Leonard Snart, who is Mayor of Central City. I liked the twist on his character. In the comics when he takes a turn toward heroism, he goes by the name of Citizen Cold, but instead they decided to make him mayor.
When Team Flash traveled through the Speed Force, we once more caught glimpses of other scenes. The first three were pretty easy to figure out. First we had Green Arrow. We
don’t know if it is Oliver Queen under the hood, but it was definitely someone in green shooting a bow. Next there was a shot from the ’90s Flash series with John Wesley Shipp (who plays Henry Allen) in the suit. And lastly for that set, Supergirl. It was announced that Barry would appear on CBS’ Supergirl and now we have a glimpse of the Girl of Steel on Flash. The second set of images were a little less obvious. First was Grodd, who last we saw had been thrown through a breach and into a civilization of gorillas. Next a man in a hat with a gun. His face bore a severe scar so it was hard to determine exactly who it was, but I believe that it was Johan Hex. The bounty hunter is rumored to make an appearance on Legends of Tomorrow. Lastly, we have some sort of pendent thing. I couldn’t quite determine what it was, and at first thought it might have been a ring. I stared at it for a while but couldn’t figure it out.
We didn’t get a Zoom reveal, but we have considerably narrowed the field. All I know is that I love this episode and now want a series that takes place entirely on Earth-2. I really enjoyed all of the play on characterizations. Anyone else hoping for Robert Queen as the Hood to show up in Central? That would be so cool, and they are going to need all the help they can get to save Barry from Zoom’s prison. My favorite thing that The CW did was distracting us with images of Killer Frost and Deathstorm. We were so focused and excited for them that we didn’t even think about who else they would bring in, like Lawton and Reverb. It made for a really nice surprise.
The next episode is entitled “Escape from Earth- 2.”
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