The Flash S02E15 Review: Jaws

The Flash, Season 2, Episode 15: King Shark

One of the biggest gripes I had with the Flash's second season is that King Shark literally only showed up for a minute before being shot in the back by Harrison Wells of Earth-2. We don't even get an explanation to what happened to him. Is he dead? Is he captured? Is he in the Pipeline? And more importantly, why didn't he get an entire episode to himself?

Well, all of these are answered in this episode, as we get the follow-up to the Earth-2 two parter. And honestly, despite the focus of this episode centering around King Shark, it is a great follow up to the Earth-2 stuff, with King Shark being a legitimate threat whilst still being filler-y enough to not be distracting from the more emotional stuff. 

Da King

The big reveal that Zoom was Jay Garrick (or Hunter Zolomon, really) ended up being kinda bad, though. We really could've done more with Hunter Zolomon, make him do some red herring thing before dismissing him as a candidate for Zoom, but no. We just have Zoom unmask himself and boom Jay Garrick. It came kind of out of nowhere, too, and it really could've been done better in a more dramatic environment. 

But hey, King Shark!

We get some nice tie-ins with John Diggle and Lyla Danvers having to hunt down King Shark. Apparently before her (*cough*WB*cough*) death Amanda Waller had captured King Shark and probably intended to use him in her own Suicide Squad or whatever. Diggle and Lyla are trying to inspect this when predictably, King Shark breaks loose. King Shark is just an awesomely weird and surreal villain as this big-ass musclebound shark man, and yes, he poses a threat! And his awesome speedboat-style speed-swimming near the end is awesome, as is Flash creating a giant water tornado and lightning bolting him in the face. The hunt for the elusive big shark-man was fun as ARGUS agents end up inevitably becoming fodder, while Lyla gets some nice development as the show paints her as a competent ARGUS leader, and Diggle's just always fun to be around. 

Man, that last battle, though. I think I liked it more than the big Doomsday battle from Batman V Superman, as far as superheroes fighting a giant CGI muscle monster goes. 

My happiness regarding all things King Shark aside, though, the rest of the episode was unexpectedly filled with darker character moments. We've got Barry being your guilty-feels superhero, regarding him opening the portal between the two Earths, and feeling (rightfully) responsible for Earth-2 Joe's death. We get a lot of nice moments about Barry feeling guilty, threading the fine line between good guilt and emo shit. But Barry and Joe in particular got a lot of great scenes together.

The bit between Barry and Wally is a bit iffy, but I still mostly like it. Wally is somewhat needlessly hostile against Barry at times, and I groan a bit when he doesn't realize that, hey, Barry just disappeared, Flash shows up, Flash disappears, Barry reappears and doesn't put two and two together. 

Thanks google for the gif

Cisco's little subplot with an ice-cold Caitlin is also nice, as he is worried that the loss of Jay would drive Caitlin into embracing Killer Frost, and I do like how Caitlin tells Cisco that it's a stupid idea... for the moment, anyway. Maybe with further character development? I dunno, I like my happy go lucky Caitlin Snow. The two get really great moments throughout the episode, with Caitlin being exasperated that Cisco's carrying this ridiculous theory for so long, and trolling him at the end of the episode, being really great moments. 

So yeah, really not a lot to say beyond the fact that I really liked this episode. King Shark is awesome.