'The Flash' recap: A tale of two Earths
Spoiler alert! The following contains spoilers for Tuesday night's episode of The Flash.
The inter-universe travel we've been building up to all season is finally here, and boy, it paid off. Last episode of The Flash finally brought the show back on its feet after a disjointed season, and built us up to this week's episode, "Welcome to Earth-2."
Half of Team Flash traveled to an alternate universe where up is down, black is white and everyone dresses like they're in an art deco piece. Thankfully, it looks like this won't be the last we'll see of Earth-2, as the end of the episode bodes for a long and arduous journey for Team Flash. But one that happily includes jazz clubs, a much better utilized Iris and Barry in glasses.
Unto the breach
Harrison whisper-monologues to his audio log about closing all the breaches and promises that he's coming for Jesse as Barry quickly closes all 40 breaches in one night. At a goodbye dinner with the Wests before Barry heads to Earth-2, Iris puts on her therapy hat again and asks him if it's about Patty and that he's not on some sort of suicide mission. Barry denies it, and she reluctantly lets him go.
Jay shows up after being MIA for three (?) episodes to give Barry a pep talk about Earth-2 and brief him on not get sucked in emotionally. Barry, Harry and Cisco load up to go through the speed cannon, but as soon as they pass through, the speed cannon malfunctions, almost crushing Caitlin and potentially trapping the three of them in Earth-2 forever.
After some adorable reactions from Barry and Cisco to the yellow-tinted Earth-2 and some brief exposition from a news show, Cisco puts on his Vibe glasses only to find they don't work because of plot contrivances the different frequency vibrations on Earth-2. The trio immediately spot geeky Earth-2 Barry speaking for the CCPD on the news, and Barry's hit with an idea. Barry speedily kidnaps Earth-2 Barry who, confused at his sudden presence at S.T.A.R. Labs and in front of his hero Harrison Wells, fanboys but gets knocked out by Barry.
Alt (universe) that jazz
In disguise as the bespectacled Barry, the Flash goes over to CCPD to find information about where Jesse could be. However, he gets distracted by a villainous version of his Captain Singh, a poor marksman and cop version of Deadshot, and a very handsy and swaggering Detective Iris West, who quickly pulls him aside for a makeout sesh. Turns out she and Barry are married in this universe, and this little discovery makes Barry lose all sight of his mission at hand.
Across town, Caitlin Snow, aka Killer Frost, is up to some evil shenanigans with her equally evil boyfriend Ronnie Raymond, known on this Earth as Deathstorm. They sense the presence of a "breacher" from another universe and are on Barry's trail.
At alt-Barry and alt-Iris' home, Barry is in awe of his other life, getting emotional during his call with his alive alt-mom and getting jittery around an undressed Iris. Barry and Iris head to a jazz club where Joe West is a lounge singer, but the joy of this discovery is immediately extinguished by alt-Joe's obvious disdain for Barry.
Barry struggles to reconciles alt-Joe's hatred for him, but his internal conflict gets interrupted by an alert on everyone's metahuman tracker app -- and Killer Frost and Deathstorm crash the jazz party. Barry tries to endear to Killer Frost by calling her Caitlin, but she attacks him and Iris draws her weapon on them. Joe gets hit by a fireball as he and Iris try to escape, but Barry grabs Frost and Deathstorm and speeds them out of the club. After a brief tussle, Barry gets called back to Joe's side by a distraught Iris.
Not so Earth-shattering
Checking back on Earth-1, a metahuman is threatening Central City by the name of Adam Fells/Geomancer. Geomancer demands a showdown with the Flash, but unfortunately, the town is currently Flash-less. Joe orders Jay to take Velocity-6 to get his speed back, but Jay refuses, confessing to Caitlin that he took Velocity-6 before to make himself faster, but it started to kill him.
With no superpowered back-up, Joe briefs Captain Singh on Geomancer and they prepare to take a squad out to him. Wally walks into CCPD just in time for the whole building to shake, and Joe has to brush off his son in the name of justice. The CCPD find Geomancer and stand off with him, but Jay appears as the Flash after taking some Velocity-7 courtesy of Caitlin. He fights with Geomancer for a brief spell before the drug wears off. Jay is nearly defeated by Geomancer, but Joe shoots at him and Geomancer flees.
In a sexy post-fight medical treatment scene with Jay and Caitlin, it's revealed that Barry, Harry and Cisco have 24 hours to go before the breach is completely destabilized, and they're trapped in the alternate universe forever.
Doppelgangland
Harry yells at Barry for getting emotionally involved with alternative Iris, Joe and Caitlin, but Barry just cares too much and needs to follow through with them. At the hospital, Joe is not recovering from his Deathstorm-inflicted wounds. In a final confessional, he weakly tells Iris that every song he sings is for her. As he tells Barry to look after her, Joe dies and Barry watches helplessly as Iris weeps over her father.
At Earth-2 CCPD, Iris is gearing up for war while Lawton/Deadshot is being hilariously inept with a gun. Barry brings Cisco in with an instrument to help defeat Killer Frost and Deathstorm, but Iris is reluctant to bring a civilian out to the field. Barry convinces her to bring him along, and she, Lawton and Cisco head to a warehouse that she was tipped about.
Iris, Lawton and Cisco are quickly confronted by Killer Frost and Deathstorm, who reveal that their boss is the one who works for Zoom. And out of the shadows comes evil, guylinered Cisco. Going by the name of Reverb, alt-Cisco tries to bring him over to the dark side with talk of greater power, but Cisco calls for Flash to save them and Barry comes speeding in. Barry fights Deathstorm as Iris incapacitates Frost with Cisco's special gun, but Reverb and Deathstorm knock Barry down. The two of them relentlessly beat Barry, deaf to Frost's calls telling them to stop because Zoom wants him unharmed. All of a sudden, Zoom arrives and kills Ronnie and Reverb for disobeying him, and nearly chokes Frost just for fun.
Zoom kidnaps Barry, and Cisco is left without his Flash while Harry is left without his way to his daughter.
Later, Barry wakes up in a cell with other Zoom's other prisoners and sees Jesse. Across the cell, he promises that he'll get her out to her dad but Zoom interrupts him and threatens him, telling him this cell is the last place he'll ever see.
Flash Faves
- "I'm not just quoting Jaws, my mouth is really dry right now."
- Supergirl glimpse during the speed cannon! Also what looks like the '90s version of the Flash and Smallville Green Arrow.
- Mayor Snart.
- I like that we're getting an art-deco alternate universe and not your regular steampunk. Nice visual choices, Flash.
- Aw, Barry's phone call with his mom. And once again, when Barry cries, I cry.
- They're finally making use of Jesse L. Martin's singing chops. We need a Flash musical episode STAT.
- I wasn't expecting Earth-2 Deadshot and now I want more.
- "Are you Cloud City Vadering me right now?"
- Cisco's pop culture references were a little over the top this episode, but I enjoyed his deep cuts.