The Flash S02E02 Review: Jay's nice hat

The Flash, Season 2, Episode 2: Flash of Two Worlds

Whoo boy, where to start? I knew this season was going to introduce Jay Garrick, Earth-2 and multiverses, but I don't believe just how upfront is is being with, well, practically everything. We even have Martin Stein doing an explanation that seemed right at home in a comic book with Earth-1 and Earth-2 straight-up being named and the Multiverse being named. It's just a shame that like last episode the general plot is still pretty episodic, though this episode deals with a lot more introdumps and whatnot, so what can you do.

But honestly what is the biggest appeal of this episode is the introduction of Earth-2's Flash (a.k.a. Flash I for comic book geeks), Jay Garrick. Or the Crimson Comet to Barry's Scarlet Speedster, as this episode actually references. And this episode, oh, what a comic book-y episode this feels, and one that actually makes sense even to someone new to the greater DC comics universe. There's a bit of an annoying 'Barry refuses to trust Jay' moment for the first half of the episode, and it's honestly getting a bit old that Anti-Social Barry is a subplot we've reused twice in this season now, but the comparisons that Barry makes to Harrison Wells actually kinda-sorta makes sense and he gets over it quickly.

Jay Garrick himself, while not as old as his comics counterpart (he's young enough for Caitlin and Iris to be happy to look at) is still older than Barry and feels great in his place as a mentor. Really getting comic book vibes from their interaction. We get Jay and Stein giving us some information about the multiverse, and some backstory about Earth-2. And this season's apparent main villain, Zoom.

Stein explains Earth-2 as an alternate version of Earth-1, where it's still got basically the same amount of people, but they take different paths -- Jay Garrick becomes Flash instead of Barry Allen, Al Rothstein becomes Atom Smasher instead of being some nobody, et cetera. And one of Jay's main villains there is Zoom, which seems to take some visual cues from the comics' Black Flash, Zoom and the Rival, among others. Zoom is basically a black-costume blue-lightning version of Barry's (not Jay's, interestingly enough) costume, but a screaming writhing mass of shadows where a face should be. And when Team Barry opened up the multiverse portal at the end of season one, Zoom and Jay were engaged in mortal combat -- explaining Jay's helmet showing up during last season's finale which he gets back in this episode.

Also I bet Earth-2's where Ronnie Raymond was sent to. 

Zoom's apparently got this obsession about being the only speedster and has an awesome, demonic guttural voice. And he can apparently freely travel between the 52 (I see what you did there, showmakers) portals to travel between Earth-1 and Earth-2, and he's just using the metahumans of Earth-2, in this case the villain Sand Demon, to get them to kill Barry Allen.

Why can't he kill Barry himself? Why can't Jay Garrick use his speed in Earth-1 beyond rule of drama? No idea.

And, yes, the fact that Jay Garrick doesn't have his speed is kind of a bummer, but I guess it makes sense for the more experienced Flash not to be able to do much otherwise he can just finish up the entire plot of this season by himself. He gets to dress up in his costume, though which is awesome. Again as with everything in superhero-TV-land, it's darker than it should, but hey I'd take something that's a darker version of the comic book design than Daredevil's fugly bullshit he got in his show.

Sand Demon's a pretty standard psycho villain with, y'know, sand powers. He's a minor Firestorm villain in the comics, and we get some mishap with the Earth-1 counterpart of Sand Demon. Barry and Jay team up to beat him, with the costumed Jay showing up to distract Sand Demon (which honestly is a bad tactical move but we see Jay in costume so yay) while Barry rescues the hostage Patty Spivot... and Jay teaches Barry to manipulate the lightning and lob it at Sand Demon to turn him into Glass Shards. Which is the standard way to deal with any sand-powered enemies in superhero comics. I can't remember if Barry can actually launch lightning in the comics, but it's a power that makes sense with the Speed Force and everything, so yay for that!

We get a shit-ton of comic book references here, including something called War of the Americas (I assume it's DC's version of WWII which involved superheroes and shit) that Jay's father participated in. Jay's origin story with lightning striking him while he's researching hard water is basically 100% his comic book origin story. And, of course, there's Jay and Barry recreating the iconic 'Flash of Two Worlds' cover that's apparently the very first Earth-1/Earth-2 crossover story, like, ever. So it's appropriate that the first adaptation of the DC Multiverse also features the two Flashes. 

Jay's awesome. Barry's awesome. That's all I can say.

Cisco gets some nice moments here bonding with professor Stein, who's permanently in "geek out over crazy science stuff" mode which is absolutely a blast to see. Cisco himself is trying to channel his Vibe powers (he namedrops the word 'Vibe' when he describes his powers) by touching the sand particles from Earth-2 Sand Demon, so I guess he's learning to channel his see-through-spacetime powers? He's freaked out by it, though, and for whatever reason wants to keep it secret even though, y'know, there's no harm in telling it to the others, so okay.

A sub-plot running throughout this episode is Patty Spivot, the newly introduced character who's desperate to join Joe's anti-metahuman task force... and the show's really trying too hard to shove her down our throat. She's great at detective work, and she gets along well with Barry, and she did her own investigation and tracked down Eddie Slick before Joe, and she is everywhere and she's got a tragic backstory and... she does get her ass handed to her by Sand Demon (no idea why he thinks kidnapping Patty instead of Joe will work better) and I honestly don't like her all that much. I don't hate her, but she is rather on-the-nose. Hopefully future episodes will tone her down.

Easter Egg time! We get a TV screen with a crossover from Arrow where Green Arrow is making a proclamation to Starling City and whatnot. I haven't watched Arrow yet! Thankfully it's not as spoilery as the crossovers in season one.

We get another DC Easter Egg. Sand Demon hides out in Woodrue plants or whatever. Jason Woodrue is the DC comic-book Floronic Man, who is basically a plant-man dude. You might know him as the asshole scientist that is involved in Poison Ivy's backstory (and killed by her) in Batman and Robin. 

To close this off... we also get a triple cliffhanger this episode! We've got Joe being visited by his wife, who is apparently estranged from him... so that's where Wally West will show up from! Huh. Martin Stein also randomly faints while giving an introdump, so we might get that Ronnie-in-Earth-2 thing addressed fairly quickly. And finally, we have our shot at Earth-2, which looks more comic-book-y than the realistic Earth-1, and apparently in that universe Harrison Wells is alive and well looking as sinister as fuck. Now the question is, is this Earth-2's Harrison Wells, or did our Eobard Thawne take over the position of that dude's Harrison Wells when he disappeared within dimensions and shit in the season one finale? And how will he factor into the plot of this season? So many questions.

Overall... it's a good episode. And while the first two episodes of season two doesn't exactly impress as much as the first season's episodes, they are still good episodes and I may be biased due to my little fangasm over multiversal stuff but hey.