Quick note: as you may have noticed, I am not Brian Salvatore. I’m just stepping in for Brian to cover The Best Episode Of The Flash Yet™.
As you might guess, spoilers follow.
1. “My name is Jay Garrick.”
I honestly, not once in my life, thought that I’d see a live action rendition of Jay “Crimson Comet” Garrick, yet here we are in 2015 and there’s Teddy Sears donning the Mercury helmet. While this episode didn’t utilise Garrick as much as I thought it would, relegating him mostly to being tested by Caitlin because, y’know, when a guy shows up claiming he’s from an alternate Earth you kind of want to make sure he’s not delusional, I thought what they did with him was pretty smart.
Teddy Sears does a good job of harnessing the same energy that Grant Gustin brings to Barry while emitting a sense of world-weariness before of how long he’s been The Flash compared to Barry. And he did a great job of very easily sliding into a new kind of mentor role for Barry. While Harrison Wells was always pushing Barry to be faster (for much more sinister reasons than we first thought), Jay has the oppurtunity to impart some Speed Force wisdom to Barry and let him be a better Flash, not just a faster one.
2. “Zoom won’t be your only enemy.”
Last week, we saw a forlorn Barry who was very torn over the fact that he isn’t able to save everyone all the time. This week we see another side to Barry as some of his (actually very justified) trust issues rear their head. After the utter betrayal of Harrison Wells as a mentor and father figure and his actual dad bailing on him as soon as he’s free from prison, I can see why Barry is very skeptical of Jay at first, especially without proof.
It gives the two a really interesting dynamic throughout the episode and means that the show had to earn how awesome their team up was by showing Barry grudgingly coming to trust Jay and using his knowledge to defeat Sand Demon. It also showed a bit of depth and change to Barry as he was usually the one to be more trusting last season and here we see how the effects of Wells’ betrayal of trust had on him.
3. Patty Spivot is love, Patty Spivot is life.
I have immediately fallen helplessly in love with Patty Spivot. Hands down, she stole this episode for me over even Jay freaking Garrick. That’s pretty impressive and it came down to the combination of the charming, determined, capable and funny writing of the character that showed a real wide range of emotions throughout just one episode and the performance by Shantel VanSanten who nailed every beat and brought them together in one of the best I’ve seen on the show.
Seriously, her Holy Grail scene with Barry? I had actual heart eyes. I looked like an anime character. Patty Spivot had a better debut than Jay Garrick did. That’s unbelievable.
4. Zoom Zoom Zoom!
This point was originally going to be about Sand Demon, but it devolved into me giving out about how he was just Sandman from Spider-Man, let’s be real here. I mean, I know Sand Demon is an established DC villain with ties to Firestorm, but as a one-off villain he reminded me a lot of Flint Marko due to the removal of the whole “boxing manager who is a lookalike of Martin Stein” thing. Guess they couldn’t convince Victor Gerber to play double duties.
Instead, I want to talk a little about what we see of Zoom, this season’s Big Bad, in this episode. I think the tease we got this episode was actually really effective in setting up Zoom, who he is and what he wants. Instead of the obfuscation and mystery of Reverse-Flash, Zoom is pretty straightforward in his intentions to kill all other Speedsters. Adding to that the amazing costume and visual effects that bring a monstrous quality to the character along with Tony Todd’s amazing voiceover and he comes off as a genuine threat that Barry should be worried about facing. I mean, if Zoom is able to almost kill Jay Garrick and Garrick has over a year’s worth of experience on Barry then they’re really setting him up to be a formidable for for the Scarlet Speedster.
Continued below5. Setting Up For More
Last episode seemed to be pretty focused on being an epilogue to last season’s finale, showing the aftermath of the singularity and the impact it had on Barry and Team Flash. There was only a slight tease of things to come with the appearance of Atom Smasher, name-dropping Zoom and the appearance of Jay Garrick at the end. This episode, however, was wholly focused on setting up plot points that will be followed up on throughout the season. From Patty Spivot’s connection to the Mardon brothers to Jay being stranded on Earth-1 to Joe’s (ex?) wife and Iris’s mother showing up to Stein outright collapsing at the end of the episode, the end of this episode set up a lot of plot points that are likely going to be a focus in the coming episodes.
It was a good plan as this episode and last almost act as a two-parter to set up the new season as a whole while acting as an epilogue to the last season. With The Flash continuing to impress more and more with each episode (I mean, they were able to adapt “Flash Of Two Worlds” for television and introduce Jay Garrick and the multiverse in one episode without drowning the story with comic book technobabble), this pseduo two-part opener promises a lot of great things for this season to come.
Bonus Thought: That New Suit, Though
Like Martin Stein said, the white behind the logo is a small detail, but it is such an important one. Not only does it show Barry’s evolution into becoming The Flash we know and love from the comics, but from a visual perspective it brings a dynamism to the suit in action that it didn’t have with the red circle.
Also, while Jay Garrick’s suit would definitely benefit from a solid yellow lightning bolt instead of just the outline that blends into the suit in motion, they did a really great job of translating that suit to screen.
