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‘The Flash’ Recap ‘King Shark’

The Flash Recap ‘King Shark’

Poor Caitlin.

This episode picks up right after Jay was dragged through the= breach by Zoom before it closed. Everyone is in shock, and Harry asks Barry and Cisco to keep what happened on Earth-2 a secret. It could push the others down a path to becoming what they say, mostly Caitlin, who shuts herself off from the rest.

Over in Star City, ARGUS has King Shark, who was sent to Earth-2 by Zoom to kill Barry, locked up. Amanda Waller (rest in peace) was running experiments on the giant shark to turn him into a weapon. King Shark plays dead and when the guards lower the shields, he escapes his holding aquarium. Diggle and Lyla, the new Director of ARGUS, follow King Shark to Central City.

Barry and Cisco struggle with what happened on Earth-2 throughout the episode. They both end up cracking. Cisco tells Caitlin that her doppelgänger went by the name of Killer Frost and took the killer part literally. Caitlin says she has been reserved and cold because she doesn’t want to let herself feel. Barry tells Joe and Iris about their Earth-2 versions, and says he feels responsible for Joseph’s death. If Barry hadn’t have been there, he would still be alive. Joe tells Barry not to think like that, but all of Barry’s choices since the end of last season have been weighing heavily on him. Diggle even offers Barry some advice to not take on the weight of the world.

Barry and Wally are having a rough start to their relationship. Barry has been portrayed as “the perfect son” and Wally resents that. To try and kickstart the friendship, Wally asks Barry to take a look at his mechanical engineering project, but it doesn’t go well as Barry just finds ways to criticize and fix it. King Shark crashes their awkward encounter, like literally comes through the West’s roof, demanding the Flash. Barry gets away from the others and shows up in his suit. He fights him, but King Shark smacks him into a car and flees once ARGUS shows up. When Barry returns to the house, Wally wants to know where he went and calls him a coward. The whole time I was just like, “Tell him the Truth!” Later, Joe tells Wally about Barry’s past, so maybe he will ease up a little bit. I do think that Wally will find out the truth soon.

The acting was fantastic from everyone this week, especially Grant Gustin and Danielle Panabaker. They both had some really emotional moments that rip your heart out. After subduing King Shark, Barry confronts all of Team Flash and apologizes for the way he had been acting. He takes full responsibility for his choices, and vows to stop Zoom. Barry doesn’t know how yet, but he will stop him.

And then we get the end cap scene. Zoom shows up in his lair bearing the body of Jay. The man in the mask reacts as he dumps the body and says, “This..is a complication.” Zoom reaches back and removes his mask. The camera spins around and reveals…Jay Garrick.

There’s a lot to process with Jay being the man under the black mask. It was hinted that he was Zoom because his Earth-1 doppelgänger is named Hunter Solomon, who in the comics is Zoom. We dispelled that theory because there was evidence that he was not in two places at one. The end scene itself shows that there was a Jay Flash and a Jay Zoom, two different people. If you think that this is similar to the deception of last season, it is, but that is because Zoom “saw” the hurt created by Eobard/Wells and filled that void in order to get at Team Flash.

But why? Jay Flash may have explained some of that. He said he was hungry for more power and used Velocity-6 to do that, but damaged his cells. Zoom also craves more Speed Force, but perhaps he can only steal it from different versions of himself, not others. That’s why he needed Harry to steal Barry’s power for him. I wonder why he was so set on killing Barry originally, but then didn’t, and instead wanted Harry to do it for him. Zoom might have wanted to rid the worlds of all the other speedsters, but take the power from other versions of himself. Earth-1 Jay, Hunter, didn’t have any Speed Force abilities, so Zoom settled for Barry.

How can there be two Jays on Earth-2? Maybe they are twins. Earth-1 found Hunter in foster care, so maybe the same thing happened, separating the siblings. We know that the same face for Jay Zoom is Jay Flash because of Harry’s recognition. The other explanation is Zoom has been living a double life since the particle accelerator exploded, but I don’t think so. Seems like a lot of wasted time for Zoom.

Now the last question, who is the man in the mask? I believe it is the real Jay Garrick, as in Flash Jay. Zoom is using metahumans to his advantage so he could have easily contracted a shapeshifter to pose as powerless Jay Flash. Trick everyone into believing he’s good and gain not only their trust, but the formula for Velocity-9, which equals more speed. But why kill him? Now that we know a Jay is under the mask, maybe this other version was starting to reveal too much to Team Flash. Just like he told Barry to not let his emotions get the better of him on Earth-2, his emotions got the better of him on Earth-1 and Zoom had to act. Otherwise, I don’t think Zoom would have removed him from the equation.

All I know is that when the team finds out, it might be an even worse betrayal than Harrison. Caitlin may be on her way to becoming a different version of Killer Frost if the truth is enough to kickstart her metahuman abilities. She’s carrying a lot of hurt right now.

Unfortunately, we will have to wait a couple of weeks for more as The Flash goes on a mini-hiatus. It will return March 22 with episode 16, ‘Trajectory.’

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