I will always the best Flash episodes are the ones that ground themselves with realistic and well-paced emotion. I love the episodes like a few weeks back when it was easter egg after huge action sequence after awesome superhero moment, but I also love the episodes that bring the show back to a real life story about a man who carries the weight of the world on his shoulders, and that's where tonight's episode really thrived.
Diggle and Lyla made an appearance tonight for no real reason other than telling Barry King Shark is back and Dig giving Barry some necessary advice. Pretty much stuff he could have called him about but that's okay, I think we all love a good Diggle-speed freak out moment anyway. It turns out King Shark has been in ARGUS' possession all this time and has come back to finish the business Zoom set him out on months ago.
So as we all expected, this episode was clearly a tribute to the film Jaws, and the arc of the episode tied closely to the film and we even got some Flash altered Jaws quotes along the way. I was worried about the quality of the effects and to the extent at which they would use King Shark in regards to their budget restraints, but I thought it turned out pretty decent. Although it wasn't nearly as crisp as some of the Grodd effects, especially when you take into account the final action sequence which started out okay but then finished with too much slow motion and brutal CGI.
We got the confirmation that all of the breaches are closed for good, according to Wells, which shut down my fears of this episode feeling unnecessary when you have bigger problems at hand with Zoom. But I obviously expect them to come up with an idea to open breaches back up within the next 2 episodes or so, especially after hearing Barry's closing speech to the team. As far as Jesse and Harry go, I kind of expect them to end up staying on Earth-1 by season's end.
Barry and Wally got to spend some quality time together this week as Wally needed some help with his plans for a 'super-car' project. This seemed a bit overdue but I don't expect this to be the end of that conflict. Joe's speech to Wally was nice, but Barry and Wally didn't really have time to figure things out themselves, so I'll be interested to see where that goes in the coming weeks. The other mini arc this week was Cisco and Caitlin's. I was glad to see that they didn't drag out Caitlin not knowing about Killer Frost for several episodes as I do expect her to at some point to become Frost. Don't we all know you never say never, come on Caitlin.
I was also pleased to see that Barry's feelings about what happened in Earth-2 bleed over into this episode. He saw a lot of crazy stuff go down and plenty of things that normal people don't just get over on the spot, and it also gave this episode the emotional backbone that last week was missing. The idea that Barry feels guilt for leaving Earth- 2 at Zoom's mercy made sense to me. And it's something that a superhero wouldn't really let happen so that felt right. At the same time, the reveal of having Jay or Hunter Zolomon rather be Zoom for some reason didn't sit right. Jay has never been all that impressive on the show to begin with and so seeing the same actor play Zoom just felt off. I'm willing to give it a shot of course, but I just hope they clear us up on the whole identity thing soon.
So overall, the first installment in CW's mini crossover week was pretty good. With the King Kong and Jaws tribute episodes, I can only assume Godzilla will be the next one down the line at some point. After all, I'm pretty sure Cisco was wearing a Godzilla shirt. It's always nice seeing Diggle lay down some needed advice for our favorite heroes and freak out over Flash's speed. Caitlin had a big week but so did Barry as Grant Gustin's performance really stood out to me this week. Him and Stephen Amell really do an incredible job leading their respective shows. It's too bad we have to wait 3 weeks for another episode of The Flash, because it's starting to build momentum.
+Gustin
+Fun King Shark/Jaws moments
+Dig giving advice
+Caitlin's arc
-The Zoom reveal didn't hit the highs I hoped
-Some minor bad CGI moments
8.7/10
