Flash Facts – “Escape from Earth-2”
“This is a rescue, right? This isn’t some elaborate set-up for a gangbang?”
Escape from Earth-2 picks up right where the previous episode left off and everyone is licking their wounds. Zoom knows Team Flash is on his turf and is on the hunt while Caitlin is struggling to perfect the Velocity serum to help Jay defend Central City from Geomancer.
Thankfully, the Harry and Cisco Show is still in town so the situation isn’t quite as dire as you’d think.
Zoom gets the most screen time we’ve seen all season and, maybe it’s just me, but is he getting less intimidating? Yes, he’s powerful but his insistence on playing the ultimate villain hinders his credibility. Couple that with his almost addict like compulsion for Speed Force and you’ve got less of a force of nature and more of a regular bad guy. Zoom is relatively weak, but he overemphasises his capabilities to make up for it but as each episode goes by, I’m starting to see the desperation in his actions.
Jay, meanwhile, seems to have his mojo back fully thanks to the newly perfected Velocity 9. Great, a stable formula, now give it to Jesse and Wally! That said, it’s great to see Jay at his best once again after seeing him side-lined for the better part of the season. Not that it makes a difference because Caitlin and Iris take-out Geomancer with The Boot.
Now here’s some mysterious bullshit… The masked man presents quite the enigma and what little we can gleam from him makes for some interesting, but scary theories.
Flash Fact: Did you know that Jay Garrick has his own Reverse-Flash? In the comics; Rival, aka Edward Clariss, was a guy who believed he created the process that gave Jay his speed but was shunned by the scientific community and became a criminal (as you do) in Golden Age Flash’s image. Knowing that and the reaction he gives when Barry says Jay is on Earth-1, it’s within the realm of possibility that this masked stranger with POW knowledge is the old man Jay we’ve been expecting and the “Jay” we’ve been following is Edward Clariss. Considering the hoops we jumped through with Wells/Thawne, it’s not out of the realm of possibility, right?
Team Flash, with the aid of Barry, Iris and Killer Frost, make their way to Zoom’s lair and manage to free Jesse and Barry but are interrupted before they can free the stranger. Seeing Barry give himself the pep-talk of the episode is certainly surreal but the Harry’s reunion is every bit as heart-warming as you’d hope.
The episode ends with a seeming kick to the gut as “Jay” stands a little too close to the collapsing portal and is skewered by Zoom before disappearing for good. Now, in any other episode, this would be cause for concern but given the information we’ve been given, I can’t help but eye it with suspicion. That’s what this show has done to me!
Escape from Earth-2 is a fantastic follow-up and overall, the Earth-2 saga has been pretty enjoyable but with the breaches gone, does this mean an end to all the multiversal shenanigans? Probably not since we’ll be visiting National City in the near future but I’ll be interested to see how and where any new breaches will open but that’s a worry for the future because next week sees the return of John “Not comfortable with Metas” Diggle and we sink our teeth into King Shark.