The Flash: He’s Not Evil Just A Jerk

Warning:  Spoiler Alert

Although I thoroughly season one of the CW Network series “The Flash,” it seemed rather ironic that a show about the “Fastest Man Alive” moved at the pace of a glacier. After all the series revealed there was something shady about Dr. Harrison Wells in the pilot yet the situation wasn’t resolved until the season finale. That situation’s been rectified this season, with changes, information  and new characters getting introduced at warp speed. That trend continued in the latest chapter entitled “The Darkness And The Light,” as Team-Flash had to deal with some familiar faces in new roles.

The action opens on Earth-Two, as we’re alerted to when we once again see the shot of the bullet trains. A graphic informs us we’ve jumped back eight months as we attend a press conference held at STAR Labs. We hear the voice of the man speaking before we see his face, he greets the crowd with false modesty saying for those who don’t know him his name’s Dr. Harrison Wells. His words are met with appreciative applause.

He tells those gathered that it’s been an amazing couple of years in Central City, as they’ve witnessed people known as Meta-Humans who possess incredible abilities including flight and super-speed. Unfortunately many of those blessed with these gifts have gone down a dark path and proven to be a danger to the city. He says that STAR Labs has utilized all it’s forces to their mission of helping to keep the public safe and he’s gathered them to announce a wearable Meta-Human detector-app. Wells straps the over-sized wrist-band on his right arm and says that the signal picks up any Meta-Humans in the near vicinity such as Zoom….

His words get interrupted as the detector starts beeping and a whoosh of air enters the hall and soon the crowd applaud Central City’s Super-Hero Jay Garrick The Flash. We see an attractive young woman with some connection to Wells show the excitement on her face as the Crimson Comet arrives. Garrick however doesn’t look happy as he confronts Wells and asks him when he’s finally going to admit that he’s responsible for all the Meta-Humans including Doom. The crowd gasps as Garrick says that 11-hours before the first sighting of a Meta-Human STAR Labs had released tons of Dark-Matter gas underneath their facility, one of the side-effects of his actions created the Meta-Humans.

Seething at Wells he spits out that perhaps when Wells can admit all the damage he’s done he can then help Garrick in his quest to defeat Doom. Wells caustically laughs and says he’s just the planet’s number one tech entrepreneur, it’s the Flash whose the Superhero. He says it’s time for him to do his job and capture Zoom. A look of shame crosses Garrick’s features and he leaves the facility at super-speed. The attractive young woman shouts across the hall to Wells asking her Dad if he’s okay and he responds he’s fine, then goes back to talking about the future.

Back on Earth-Prime in the present, Earth-Two’s Harrison Wells sits in our version of STAR Labs along with Barry Allen and an incredulous Cisco and Caitlin as he skims through the autobiography of the deceased Harrison Wells. Cisco’s trying to come to grips with the man in front of him didn’t murder Nora Allen or lead to the deaths of Eddie and Ronnie. Wells tells the trio he’s completely clueless about what they’re talking about and that the Wells they knew isn’t him.

Ramon asks Barry why they should believe anything he says and Allen responds because he saved his life the previous night when King Shark attempted to devour him. Barry then turns to Wells and asks him why he decided to go through the breach, as it certainly wasn’t to meet him. The scientist says that Allen’s exactly the reason he traveled through the dimensions as he’s going to help the speedster defeat his greatest enemy. Cisco says he already did that when the Reverse Flash got bested. Wells says he’s not referring to the Reverse Flash he’s talking about Zoom and sees by the look in Caitlin’s eyes that they know the name.

Allen tells him that Zoom’s sent a series of Meta-Humans through the breach to kill him. The scientist says that the beings he sent are just the symptoms, Zoom’s the plague. He’s been wreaking havoc on his world and now he’s got his sights set on defeating Allen and having a field-day on our planet. Barry asks him how much he knows about Zoom and Wells says everything. He says he created Zoom and all the Meta-Humans by releasing Dark-Matter from his particle-accelerator, a responsibility he wouldn’t previously accept but now he’s going to do something about it.

Detective Joe West walks in sees Wells standing there and instinctively pulls out his service revolver and fires three shots at him, Barry’s quick enough to catch all three bullets leaving the scientist unharmed. West stares Wells dead in the face and asks him how he’s alive and Harrison responds probably because West missed. Allen puts his arm around Joe’s shoulders and suggests they take a walk.

Barry finally convinces his surrogate-dad that this Wells is a completely different guy and has no connection to the guy they spent last year fighting. Joe tells Barry that he’s got to talk to Iris and let her know that there’s a guy back at STAR Labs with the same face as the man who led to her fiancée’s death. Joe explains it to his daughter who handles the news far better than he did. Still not ready to accept that this Wells is a good-guy he gives Iris a pistol to carry just-in-case.

Ramon and Allen head down to CC Jitters and run into Joe’s partner Patty Spigot. Barry was all set to ask her out last week before getting grabbed by King Shark and then realizing Wells was the guy that killed the creature. Spigot’s outwardly shown her interest in Barry since they first met but the situation with King Shark shook his confidence. Patty heads back to her station house feeling a little dejected and Cisco tells Barry he blew that big-time. He then turns around and he’s enchanted with the new woman at the register and asks her out. She says no and he feels like he’d wish the ground opened up and swallowed him.

Seconds later however Ramon gets another vision, he sees a female Meta-Human robbing the Central City bank and tells Barry he’s got to go immediately. The Flash arrives just as the Meta-Human’s about to leave, she hurls an energy bolt at him which he bends out-of-the-way of and says to her she’s got his attention. The robber than slams her hands down on the floor creating a concussive blast that throws two customers into the air and the Flash catches them both but the Meta-Human’s escaped.

Allen returns to STAR Labs and describes the Meta-Human he encountered and Wells tells them the villain’s from his Earth and goes by the name of Doctor Light. She was a petty-thief before she got doused with the Dark-Matter and now she’s got the ability to siphon power from stars. Cisco’s impressed and says cool to which responds that given the temperature that a star burns at and it’s iridescence it wouldn’t be cool at all. Cisco shows the disgust on his face when he says “You know our Dr. Wells was evil, but you’re just a Dick.”

Wells tells the pair that they need to capture Dr. Light and hold her as a prisoner to lure Zoom to this Earth. Garrick walks out of the hallway and says to Wells that he’s insane and they’re not going to lure Zoom anywhere. The man whose accident gave Garrick his abilities says like everyone else on his Earth he thought Garrick died, he says he should have realized that he ran away and was hiding from Zoom an entire universe away.

Garrick snaps back that he didn’t run away that Zoom had him on the ropes and stole his speed when the Singularity opened up and sent  him to this universe. Then the two start arguing about what they should do with Dr. Light once they capture her. Jay tells Barry she’s a thief not a killer and all he’s got to do is reason with her. Allen ends the discussion when he says they don’t need to decide anything until they capture her and they have to locate her to do that.

Barry finally gathers up his courage and asks Patty out for dinner and she says she hopes she’s not going to get all excited and he calls at the last-minute begging off with a science-project to complete. He laughs and says he’s been wanting to do this for a while, the  conversation ends as both of their cellphones ring. Allen’s call’s  from Cisco saying that the silent alarm just got tripped at the bank.

Barry finds Dr. Light in front of a palette of cash and she tries taking him out with another energy-bolt. He tells her to calm down he knows who she is and he’s aware that the only reason she’s on his Earth’s because Zoom took her there and left her with instructions to kill the Flash if she wanted to go home. He says that he and his people can protect her from Zoom, she says nobody can stop Zoom and he asks her to hear him out.

She removes the visor that covers her face as a sign of good faith and reveals that she’s the Earth-Two duplicate of Linda Park, the girl Barry briefly dated last year and who works as a reporter with Iris. Shocked he says her name and she freaks out wondering how he knows her name. She says she knew she shouldn’t have trusted him and emits this blinding light and escapes. Cisco contacts Flash via their audio-com and the speedster says he can’t see.

Back at STAR Labs Barry’s vision still hasn’t returned and Caitlin tells him he’s fortunate he escaped the incident without permanent blindness. Jay says because of the speed of his metabolism his eyesight will return in hours, Wells chimes in that it will return in exactly 6.25 hours. Barry’s now concerned that he put the Earth-Prime version of Linda Park in danger and says he’s going to the paper to make sure she’s safe. Unfortunately Barry resembles a human-mole as he’s squinting and all he can detect is light and colors. Garrick and Caitlin say they’ll drive the van over and make sure she’s safe and sound.

Suddenly Allen’s cellphone rings and he tries to find it, Iris tells him to calm down and she’ll get it. She tells her he received a text saying running a few minutes late, P. She asks who that is and Barry tells her he had his first date set with Joe’s partner Patty in a couple of hours, but she’ll likely never speak to him again as he’s got to cancel. Iris smiles and says you’re at STAR Labs, surely there’s something or someone here that can help you. Barry calls Cisco for assistance.

Barry’s wearing a pair of Ray-Ban’s equipped with a microscopic camera and an audio feed from Cisco. Cisco guides him through the date with voice commands as if he was operating a remote control robot. It appears that Allen’s pulled things off perfectly when Patty tells him she realizes he can’t see a thing. Barry laughs and takes off the sunglasses off and puts them in his pocket. He tells her he got his pupils dilated but he didn’t want to cancel. She’s enchanted that he tried to pull it off just to keep the date.

Caitlin returns to the van with fresh coffee for her and Jay. She asks him what Wells was referring to when he said that Garrick had run away from Zoom. Jay opens up to her and tells her that he’s actually terrified of Zoom, they fought several times and each time he barely escaped with his life. He then stole his most precious possession his speed and he’s afraid he’ll do the same to Barry or perhaps kill him. Snow says she doesn’t trust Wells but she trusts him.

They start discussing  Earth-Two and she asks if they have a Tahiti. He says they do but he’s never visited, but he’s been to Atlantis. Caitlin’s eyes grow wide as she asks the mythical sunken continent? Jay smiles and says on his Earth it’s above the water, in fact one of his best friends live there. Caitlin sighs and says she’d love to see it. Jay says it’s so beautiful when you arrive you never want to leave. The two lean in to kiss each other, but Dr. Light arrives at that precise moment and sets off another concussive blast, knocking the van on its side and Jay and Caitlin unconscious.

Dr. Light walks into the newspaper office and orders everybody to leave except for Linda. Linda’s editor says that’s not going to happen and Iris says Park’s going with them. Dr. Light says she’s sorry but the only way she can live is by killing Linda. She then produces a small ball of energy that levitates over her palm. Garrick and Snow regain consciousness and race into the office. Dr. Light says to the Earth-Two Flash she thought she took care of him outside.

Jay says to the Meta-Human she’s not a murderer and she says he’s right. However she says it isn’t really murder if you kill your duplicate. The editor tries to intercede but Dr. Light accidentally hits the elderly man in the chest with the ball of energy and he falls to the ground dead. Iris grabs the pistol Joe gave her and fires at Dr. Light knocking off her visor. She slams the floor with both her hands setting off another concussive bomb and she escapes.

Iris takes Linda home while the other four head back to STAR Labs and  confer with Wells. He asks what the visor is and they tell him it’s from the Meta-Human, Iris knocked it from her face with a gunshot. Wells says they can find her using that and Ramon asks how does he propose to do that. The scientist looks Cisco dead in the eye and says you’re going to find her with your ability. He then tells the others he’s wearing a Meta-Human detector and he’s known Cisco had abilities since the moment they met.

Ramon explains that he gets visions usually by touching something belonging to the Meta-Human. Wells tells him to touch the visor. Ramon braces for the vision but nothing happens. Wells tells him to try it again and once again Cisco fails. He says he can’t control his powers and Harrison says of course he can he’s just too afraid. He yells at Cisco to man-up and thrusts the visor into his gut. Cisco yells out she’s at the South Plaza Train Station on platform 15.

Flash arrives and finds her and she asks why he won’t leave her alone, he replies she killed an innocent man and she says she needed to kill Linda to make Zoom believe she was dead. She says otherwise she has to kill him. Wells speaks to Flash through the com-device he says he has to run fast enough create a spectrum-mirage multiple-images of himself so she doesn’t know where to blast. He tries it and it works for a bit but she figures it out and just misses him with an energy blast.

Jay Garrick gets on the com-device and gives Barry a win one for the Gipper pep-talk. He says Allen’s faster than he ever was and better than Jay will ever be. He says he can defeat her because he is The Flash. The confidence boost does the job and Barry defeats her and they put her in a Meta-Human cell at STAR Labs.

Barry’s now convinced that Wells’ plan’s the one to follow and he says they’re going to set a trap for Zoom and lure him to Earth-Prime. Jay apologizes but he says he can’t stay in good conscience as he believes Barry’s heading for a date with death. Before he leaves STAR Labs he asks his friends to ask themselves why Wells denied he was responsible for Meta-Humans for two-years and now he’s obsessed with Zoom?

We find out the answer to that in the episode’s final scene as we see Zoom’s holding Wells daughter prisoner in a cell. He taunts the young woman saying her father’s abandoned her. She says he hasn’t and her father’s the smartest man in the world  and he’ll soon rescue her and kill Zoom. The speedster says he can’t die, as for she and her father that’s to be determined. We finally get a good look at his mask and Garrick’s correct, it is the stuff of nightmares.

The Story Continues Next Tuesday Night at 8:00 pm on The CW Network.