The Flash Episode #215 - "King Shark"

Note: There will be spoilers ahead!

On this week's episode of The Flash, Barry wants to head back to Earth-2 to save Jay Garrick, but there's no way to go back because the portals are closed. However, now King Shark has escaped from ARGUS and is off doing what King Shark does best: terrorizing people and trying to take out The Flash because Zoom wants Barry dead.

The issue starts off kind of weird as the characters try to sweep Earth-2 under the rug. That's part of the appeal of the episode is that these characters are frustrated and feeling helpless because there's nothing they can do. However, it feels like weak writing as the aftermath of this giant Earth-2 story is "oh well, there's nothing we can do." It conflicting for the characters as well as the audience. Obviously, by the end of the episode, we all know they're going to find a way back to Earth-2, so it's something that we all saw coming.

Because Harrison, Cisco, and Barry have seen Earth-2, Cisco thinks that Caitlin's behavior is the first step in her journey to become Killer Frost. It's an interesting point, as maybe Caitlin thinks that the only way to truly stop evil is to kill it and maybe she's headed that way too. Caitlin is very standoffish with Cisco throughout the episode too, which really leads us to believe that she could go to the dark side.

While it's really cool to see King Shark in this episode, the CG looked a bit off. It didn't seem like he was actually in the scene but merely pasted over it. In addition, his dialogue was bad. This whole story is a bit weird in the fact that Shark out exceptionally easy in an earlier episode, but here, they have to hunt him down and spend a lot of time waiting, just like fishing. However, once again, he's eventually taken out pretty easily.

Diggle and ARGUS felt pretty inconsequential to the episode. Diggle does deliver the news about King Shark, but their backup for Barry was pretty pointless. There's a lot in this episode that simply felt like filler for the overall story. In fact, this episode, as a whole feels like filler between the last story and what's coming next. Regardless, it's solid filler. It's not one of the best stories but easily not one of the worst.

The final closing scene reveals who Zoom actually is. Warning... massive spoilers. Zoom brings Jay's body into his prison and drops him on the ground. Zoom takes off his mask to reveal that he's Jay Garrick. How did this happen? Is Zoom from another Earth? We won't be able to learn more for a couple of weeks though. Regardless of who you thought Zoom is, this is still a big shock and a nice payoff.

This was a filler episode, and it was fun, but aside from the giant reveal at the end, this was a very middle of the road episode of The Flash. King Shark was cool, but he looked a little rough around the edges and felt like he didn't fit well into the scenes. Plus, his dialogue was really rough. The good parts of the episode came from how theses characters dealt with what the know about the world as well as moving forward after Jay's dead.

I thought the CG was amazing for a TV show. Did not see the ending coming though, I thought for sure Zoom was going to be Barry's dad

WARNING: BLACK OUT SPOILERS FOR THE SHOW SO IT DOESN'T SPOIL IT FOR PEOPLE WHO HAVEN'T SEEN THE EPISODE BUT FOR SOME REASON ARE IN THE COMMENT SECTION.

Thank you!

Yea.....three stars is about right for a filler episode. Kinda expected the final scene reveal.....interested in watching them explain it though. Show continues to impress.

Id give it 4 stars. Sure it was a filler episode but so are over half of them. And it was a good one. Also it effectively dealt with all the fallout from the earth 2 trip, which makes it less filler than usual. Plus king shark/diggle was awesome.

Kind of funny how useless ARGUS is against King Shark. The first two guys stare for a silly amount of time and then they continue to arm themselves with regular guns while going after a bulletproof enemy. Yeah tactics! On a more positive note, Grant Gustin did a terrific job in that one scene where Barry finally opens up.

This show will be remembered as one of the best comic-book shows. IT'S ON CW BRUHHHH CW STEPPING UP THERE GAME.

3 stars is about right. The whiney bitch they're calling Wally is really bringing this show down for me. I pray to the TV gods that he doesn't become a regular.

@Pokeysteve: Agreed

@Pokeysteve: no more whiney than barry Allen who whines every episode.

The Zoom reveal really wasn't much of a shock, as that was one of the leading theories as to his identity (although I was personally hoping they'd go in another direction).

A decent episode, although it's hard to believe King Shark survived his first appearance. As I recall, he exploded into bloody chunks when E2 Wells blasted him.

Some nice performances from Gustin, Pannebaker, and Valdes.

Not a good episode. I want to see Barry grow in strength and character and the show has failed to do either of those. I see no way for Barry to defeat Zoom at this point.

I didn't expect the surprise reveal of Zoom, but I also do not like who Zoom is. This is getting way more complicated than it needs to be.

Barry whines every episode. In just the last episode he was too mopey to phase through a cage until somebody encouraged him.

I'm pretty sure zoom is hunter zolomon. The show has already established their identical appearance

If Jay is actually dead the predictable scenario of Zoom posing as the real Jay can be seen a mile away. Hopefully he is not dead and can be revived. The lack of other heroes on Earth 2 seems to place the writers squarely in an Earth 3 environment and may limit the strong writing they have been providing overall with story arcs.

True, they also had Cisco and Diggle meet (meet for that episode, not for the first time) since Cisco has updated Green Arrow's costume, Black Canary's weaponry, made the White Canary suit, it's about time Diggle got an upgrade.

I also agree with the opinion of others saying the CG was good, it was surprisingly good. It reminded me of how impressive the Grodd CG has been

because the zoom reveal make me confuse and curious as to what his motivations are.

Zoom maybe a clon from Jay Garrick.

I retract from my previous theory, what if Zoom is Jay's Twin brother.

He's wally west

He's going to become a flash lol

I also think that this episode deserves a higher score (to each their own) because It's extremely fitting for the break they are taken (the show returns March 22nd), they couldn't have advanced the plot line much. It's best that they resolve all of the issues on the past few episodes, for them to be able to move foward and I think that this episode was great for that purpose.

Barry rarely whines. He's more of a moper as lurk pointed out. Wally is being a dick about it.

That was one of those plot things that's annoying. Spider-Man 2 did it also. Thankfully it was a great episode otherwise.

@Pokeysteve: bs.

I'm blown away at the special effects almost every week.

For a TV show on the frickin CW channel, it's amazing.

~MiB

Kevin Smith directed!

3 stars? Come on, this episode deserved a four.

Anyways, the Zoom reveal was quite impressive. This looks like the writers are taking a similar approach of the Reverse-Flash's identity, except there's no hidden face mask here. Now, I think we have three Jays on the side of the equation. The question is this, which Jay Garrick are we seeing here?

I'm assuming the real Jay Garrick is still held captive inside the cage, and his doppelganger or clone, was killed by Zoom, who turned out to be Hunter Zolomon. If you think about it, Jay's doppelganger/clone invented a story that Zoom came from Earth-2 and stole his powers. It's possible that Hunter Zolomon is in fact from Earth-1, made a similar experiment that turned himself into Zoom. But that doesn't make sense. If Hunter Zoloman was Zoom, then how did he manage to put the original Jay Garrick inside the cage on Earth-2? It must be that Zoom had somehow entered Earth-2 due to the wormhole breach back in the season 1 finale. Zolomon found the real Jay Garrick, stole his powers, put him inside the cage, took his DNA, cloned him, and brought him to Earth-1, so that the Jay clone could work with Team Flash.

Didnt Wells once said that he know who Zoom is?

@kalorama: King Shark definitely didn't explode. He simply fell forward in front of Patty after Harry blasted him from behind.

The character moments were amazing in this episode and King Shark was great but the Zoom reveal wasn't all that shocking for me.

With Jay's odd behavior and his frequent disappearances, he was a quite obvious choice, despite his history in comics.

The question I have is: Will his story be as compelling as the Reverse-Flash's and thus far it simply hasn't been but maybe more info will change that. Also, is he actually Jay, is he Hunter Zolomon (Earth 1 or 2) masquerading as Jay, Jays twin, clones, what?

I can't BELIEVE no one has made a joke about "jumping the shark" yet. You should all be ashamed of yourselves.

I liked this episode more than I thought I would, all the Earth 2 fallout stuff was really good. But my god I cringed everytime Wally spoke to Barry, he needs to go.

Probably because most have never heard of that saying. After googling it im pretty sure no one really uses that phrase.

Personally, I think Zoom is E2 Hunter Zoloman. Like, E2 Zoloman kidnapped E1 Jay sometime around or after E2 Jay entered the breaches. Because didn't team flash go six months without closing the breaches after the season 1 finale?

Hm, interesting. I must admit that this has been one of my favorite episodes, not sure why it's only "good"

But... E2 Hunter Zolomon is Jay Garrick. Jay Garrick's E1 doppleganger is Hunter Zolomon.

Different tastes. Most of the other reviewrs that I have seen gave this episode a really high score.

Have a look at the link below. Yet another theory:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqN7JTbNzms

@dreadpool10: So confusing ;_;. I read somewhere they were twins xD.

@nightwingdg143: Twins? Multiverses? I don't even know anymore, lol.

I wanna know who the heck is the guy in the metal mask.

@dreadpool10: Right! I hope its some version of Jay. Who do you think it is?

Season 2 of The Flash has been fine, but overall it's been lacking the awesome smart cinematic setpieces and to a degree the fun of seeing Barry expand his powerset. The latter idea is more linked to the very structure of season 1 but the awesome direction isn't. Overall I feel like it's lacking a clear unity, it's slowly getting there with the whole predesitnation/destiny of the dopplegangers and Earth 2 but I'm not sure something feels lacking.

This episode was fine, they did King Shark for crying out loud adn he looked awesome. And the overall moments of finally talking about Earth 2 worked. Maybe not Barry being so distraught over E2 Joe because of how E2 Joe death scene was presented but it makes sense that it would affect him.

Nice seeing Diggle and Lyla around.

So far on the show we have 4 versions of Jay. Jay as Hunter Zoloman on E1. Jay as possibly the masked man. Jay as "Jay garrick the supposed E2 Flash" and now Jay as Zoom. It'll be interesting to see which direction they go with this storyline but I was really hoping they didn't do the Zoom reveal because he could easily be the overarching villain for the show

Ha! I told you all that Earth-2 Wally West was Zoom. Should have listened to me! In all seriousness, I am thoroughly confused about all this Jay Garrick is Jay Garrick, but isn't Jay Garrick because he is Hunter Zolomon, who is also Zoom, who is Jay Garrick.

Also, New Wally theory, he is the man in the mask. That Wally is a speedster do to Zoom running the Velocity tests on him. I mean, he has to have been brought into the show to be more than just a side story.

I've heard theories that's it's another Jay Garrick, so I've pretty much gone with that to some extent.

@dreadpool10: Yeah, same.

@nightwingdg143: Found this on youtube:

"My name is Jay Garrick and I'm the fastest Jay Garrick alive. To the outside Jay Garrick, I'm an ordinary Jay Garrick scientist, but secretly, with the help of Jay Garrick, I fight Jay Garrick and find another Jay Garrick like me. I hunted Jay Garrick who killed my Jay Garrick, but in doing so, I opened up our world to new Jay Garricks. And I am the only one Jay Garrick enough to stop them. I am.... Jay Garrick!"

@dreadpool10: Oh my god. Perfection!

Stop with this clone/twin bull$@@ already.

I agree, the CG was pretty darn good. King Shark was a pimp, but filler isn't what we need right now.

Pretty sad that they erased a post that called out the lack of fact checking before criticizing something from the episode.