"King Shark" was a rather silly episode, befitting of the titular man-shark who terrorized Central City and Team Flash, but it was notable for its ending tag. That tag revealed to the viewing audience that the season's Big Bad, Zoom, was actually Jay Garrick. Or Hunter Zolomon. Or some other Earth's Jay Garrick. There was no clarification based on what was presented in the brief scene (consisting of the unmasking and one line: "Well, that's a complication."), and the show was sent into a month-long hiatus with more confusion (at least on my part) than excitement over the cliffhanger. The indifferent feeling about such a big reveal is surprisingly key to what happens in this episode. By the end, Team Flash will have caught up to the knowledge of the audience.

 

 

I really think that's where the writers erred in terms of working the rhythms of this particular season. They surprised a lot of us with the overall quality of the first season and so that builds expectation for the following season to either match or even improve on what came before. Don't get me wrong, I still think Zoom is a great bad guy. His introduction into the Flash universe was something quite memorable. But since then, it has been largely questionable as to how Zoom has been deployed, and it culminated in the awkward reveal that Zoom is Jay Garrick. The Jay Garrick that has been apparently playing everyone on Team Flash for fools. It's sort of a twist on what came about with the Reverse-Flash, although not all that effective because the movement of Zoom's plans resemble what happened last season. This effectively de-fangs Zoom's threatening presence in a way. There is still time to correct this, although I can't see how. I just don't agree with the decision of putting the audience in the know ahead of the characters. It makes Team Flash look dumb, or slow to put together the pieces of the season's central mystery.

 

So the writers are trying to make up for that with the introduction of yet another speedster, this time a twisted female version of the Flash, awkwardly named "Trajectory." Trajectory is the psychotic alter-ego of scientist Eliza Harmon, a former colleague of Caitlin's at Mercury Labs (I had actually forgotten that Caitlin used to work at Mercury Labs, and that was how we first met her and Cisco back in the second season of Arrow). The true identity of Trajectory is played as a bit of a mystery at first, although it ceases to be that way once Caitlin and Joe investigate her as the most obvious (and only) suspect. There are certain aspects of Trajectory that I do like. She's faster than Barry, although at this point, most everyone introduced as a speedster is faster than Barry except for Jay, and she engages in petty crime for the briefest of moments. The petty crime is something of a smokescreen, as her true motives involve the continued acquisition of Velocity-9 since Eliza cannot engineer any more.

 

 

Like the comic books, Velocity-9 is widely condemned as an addictive drug -- with the obvious parallel to steroids used by professional athletes -- and Trajectory will do anything in order to get her hands on it. That includes once again threatening Jesse to get what she wants. After the prolonged imprisonment and torture that Jesse endured on Earth-2, and thus was used as motivation for our heroes' actions, I'm tired of Jesse playing the victim. That whole mindset plays into what happens here between Jesse and her father. She rightly sees that her father is holding her back from exploring this new world that she and him are stuck in, at least until Team Flash can somehow find a way to open a breach to let them go back home to Earth-2, and takes action in order to go see the world without him.

 

Meanwhile, Team Flash had to find a way to combat Trajectory once she got her hands on the rest of the Velocity-9. She destroys a bridge in Central City, and Barry runs fast enough to traverse the length of the fallen bridge in order to bring Trajectory to a stop. He seems to half-heartedly try to convince Eliza to give up her addiction to the Velocity-9, which then results in her final injection of the drug and her eventual dissolution into nothingness afterwards. Barry recognizes that the lightning surrounding Eliza started to turn blue, much like Zoom, which indicates a sick speedster. Since Zoom is all blue lightning, he must be a sick speedster too, and the only sick speedster Team Flash has encountered before Trajectory was Jay Garrick. Two and two together -- along with more vibing from Cisco on Jay Garrick's helmet -- confirms what the audience knew for a month in real time. So what happens now? It'll have to wait because the next time the Flash will appear onscreen, it will be in a highly-anticipated universe crossover with Supergirl!