The Flash, S2 Ep06 – Enter Zoom

Zoom has been referred to as a demon, a monster, and just someone that Barry shouldn’t jump right into fighting without a lot of careful planning. Unfortunately Barry believes he can and should jump into a battle with Zoom as soon as possible, despite warnings from Jay Garrick, The Flash of Earth-2. After 5 episodes “Enter Zoom” pits the Scarlet Speedster against the demon that is Zoom, and although his identity is yet to be revealed he does prove to be a highly formidable opponent for Barry.

Who’s behind the mask?

Before we get the inevitable battle between The Flash and Zoom, “Enter Zoom” sees a determined Barry try and loosely put together a plan involving the use of Linda Park as bait. There are a few humorous scenes where we see Linda wear her Earth-2 doppelganger’s Dr. Light costume and practice shooting light beams at life-size cutouts of The Flash. Even though she’s clearly not ready to pretend to be Dr. Light and make it appear as if she killed The Flash in order to trick Zoom, Barry still decides to go forward with his plan.

What follows is another humorous scene where we see both The Flash and Linda Park as Dr. Light putting on a very bad performance with some very terrible dialogue. Cisco even jokes around stating he will write the dialogue next time. It’s no surprise Zoom doesn’t fall for their act and doesn’t come through the breach when Linda throws Barry’s emblem into it.

Surprisingly, “Enter Zoom” and this season so far have taken a lot of cues from the classic Batman story-arc Knightfall, originally published from 1993 to 1994. In Batman: Knightfall, which also served as inspiration for The Dark Knight Rises, the villain Bane breaks some of Batman’s most notorious villains out of prison in order for the extremely arrogant Batman to take him down and tire himself out in the process. Once Batman was good and tired, Bane was waiting for him to take him down and literally break him. The Flash is similar in the sense that Zoom keeps throwing meta-humans from Earth-2 at Barry, but instead of tiring him each meta-human is supposed to try and kill him, almost as if Zoom is too lazy to do his own dirty work. Just like Batman in Knightfall, Barry is arrogant and will stop at nothing to take his enemy down, despite the warnings from his friends and teammates.

The comparison becomes even more obvious when we get to the actual battle between The Flash and Zoom. After failing to lure Zoom using Linda Park as bait, Zoom kidnaps Linda as she is leaving work. He brings her to the top of S.T.A.R. Labs and threatens her life by throwing her off the roof. Fortunately, Barry does save her, but then has to fight Zoom not knowing enough about his opponent to actually have a chance. Barry enters the fight determined and without fear. He even does the lightning trick that Jay taught him. Once Zoom actually catches that lightning and throws it back at Barry we know that Zoom is a highly superior speedster to Barry. What follows is barely even a fight as Zoom takes down Barry punch after punch.

No match for Zoom

Once Barry is incapacitated, Zoom parades him around Central City showing off Barry’s limp body on the news and to the police at the station. By the time Zoom makes his way back to S.T.A.R. Labs to continue taunting Team Flash, Cisco shoots him with a tranquilizer dart and Zoom speeds off. Much like Knightfall, “Enter Zoom” concludes with the overambitious Barry paralyzed without the use of his legs. This was certainly a tragic and shocking conclusion to the episode, but I’m sure he will be back in action soon. With their first battle out of the way Barry now knows Zoom is not someone he stands a chance against. Battling Zoom makes battling the Reverse-Flash look like play time.

Another development that arose from “Enter Zoom” was Cisco’s revelation that Zoom has kidnapped Harrison Wells’ daughter. With that information now out in the open, Team Flash should probably be able to sympathize more with Wells, but ultimately should trust him less as Wells would probably do anything and sacrifice anyone to get his daughter back. We also find out his daughter’s name is Jesse Quick, a significant character from DC Comics with ties to The Flash. It’s unclear whether or not this version of Jesse Quick will go in the same direction as her comic book counterpart, but we can hope.

“Enter Zoom” featured a good blend of humor in the first half of the episode, but once Zoom came into frame the episode changed entirely. Seeing how badly The Flash was taken down by Zoom places this week’s episode with some of the darker episodes of the series. Being a fan of Batman: Knightfall I enjoyed the subtle nods to said story-arc, and would say it probably paid homage better than The Dark Knight Rises. I look forward to seeing Barry overcome his paralysis and will himself back into a stronger condition in the episodes to come. Hopefully next time he’ll take Jay Garrick’s advice and learn to crawl before he runs.

Next week the telepathic gorilla that is Grodd returns to Central City, but unfortunately Barry is powerless to stop him. Check out the promo for “Gorilla Warfare” below and feel free to let us know what you thought about “Enter Zoom” in the comments.