Oh, my friends. Oh my dear, dear friends.
“King Shark” is the season two episode.
Let’s start with the titular baddie himself. I know that The Flash can’t always be dumping loads of its budget into FX work, but even with that aside, King Shark works the way a villain of the week should. He’s memorable, genuinely threatening, and feels like a natural part of the story instead of just an obstacle that Team Flash has to conquer. It doesn’t hurt that he bites a dude’s head off. Or that he busts open Joe’s ceiling like a pissed off giant looking for snacks. Or that he rockets out of the water like a bullet made of greatness. Or that he has a slow-mo breach out of the water while chasing a running-on-water Barry. Thanks to King Shakr alone, this episode may be one of my happiest moments of the year.
Do the Jaws references get a little tired? Yeah, I’ll cop to that. But it’s never annoying enough to prevent me from smiling when an ARGUS guard says, “Looks like Bruce has gone belly up.” Or when Harry dryly says, “You know Quint dies in the end?” Those were my favorites. The other stuff — all from Cisco — was a little too on the nose.
Even the soap wasn’t too sudsy this week. For the first time, I’m really starting to warm to Wally, and I hope he and Barry’s relationship continues to grow in interesting ways. I love seeing that Jessie is her father’s daughter, wanting to help solve some scientific problem rather than sit around and do nothing And have we already seen the start of a Cisco/Jessie fling? ‘Shippers, get crackin’!
And finally, this episode gives us the identity of Zoom. After much theorizing, we now know that Zoom is Jay Garrick. …Or is he? Is he actually Hunter Zolomon and the “real” version of Jay is the man in the iron mask? Last season’s main villain was masquerading as someone he wasn’t, so my money is on Zoom having a similar setup. It’s nice to finally have this bit of mystery out of the way, though I hope the show starts dealing out the answers little by little each week.
Is season two finally on the upswing? Maybe. These last three episodes have definitely been a kick in the ass, and here’s hoping the show pans to maintain that energy. Seeing as how we have to go on break for two weeks, they better come back with some juice. The IMDb description for the next episode sounds like that will be the case, so now the wait becomes interminable.
Favorite moment: Impossible.
Unfavorite moment: Joe dubbing King Shark’s attack on his house as a Sharknado. Joe, I love you, but fuck you.
Next Episode: Trajectory
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