
The whole theme of family plays a key role this week, not only with Barry and Zolomon but also with Cisco and Wally. Cisco’s reluctance to use his powers stems from his Earth-2’s version becoming evil. Barry convinces Cisco that his family (Barry, Caitlin, Joe, Iris, Wells) would never allow that to happen. Wally and Joe begin to strengthen their bond as Wally moves in with his father.
As much as I loved most of “Versus Zoom” there were some trouble spots. Barry is said to be able to run up to four times faster with the tachyon accelerator and yet he is only shown to be slightly faster than Zoom when they run through the streets. This would suggest then that Zoom was about four times faster than Barry previously which didn’t seem to be the case unless we surmise that Zoom had just been toying with Barry. But if Barry’s increased speed is due to the tachyon device how is Zoom going to steal it? Did I miss where the device actually transfers an increase in the Speed Force to Barry?
There is also a bit of mind-blowing wackiness about how Zolomon used a time remnant duplicate of himself to apparently stage Jay Garrick’s death a few episodes back but my brain is starting to hurt trying to figure this all out. And are we to assume that Hunter’s murderous father was The Golden Age Flash? After all, he returns home wearing the costume and mentions having fought in the war. Was that Earth-2’s World War 2 and why was the pristine Jay Garrick made to be a spouse abusing murderer?
And then there is the continuing mystery of the man in the Iron Mask. Barry asks Zolomon point blank who he is and Zolomon blithely tells Barry he wouldn’t believe it. I know it’s easy to think the man could turn out to be a key player in the series but part of me thinks it’s all a red herring. Zolomon appears to get what he wants, in the end, a little too easy leaving me to believe that Wells and Barry have something up their sleeves.
Loved the performances this week, especially from Carlos Valdes and Teddy Sears. They were both able to sink their teeth into a more dramatic script. Aside from some glaring plot holes “Versus Zoom” was worth the wait.