The CW says of tonight’s “Back To Normal”:
A meta-human with super strength named Griffin Grey mistakes Harry for Earth-1 Harrison Wells and kidnaps him, demanding that Wells cure him from his current condition. Realizing another brilliant Wells could help track Griffin's location, Barry asks Jesse to help. Meanwhile, Wally corners Joe about The Flash.
Longtime talkbacker Shermdawg recaps last week’s “Versus Zoom”:
Quite a few shows seem to be riling up their viewers as of late... The Walking Dead, The Blacklist, Arrow, The 100, and as of last week, you can add The Flash to that list as fanboys across the web cried foul at the notion of "Jay Garrick" (DC's original Flash) being nothing more than an alter-ego of the villainous Hunter Zolomon aka "Zoom." So much so, Executive Producer Greg Berlanti had to calm things down on Twitter...
For those inquiring, we love Jay Garrick and would never make him a baddie. No reinvention. Keep watching :) love that you're asking q's.
— Greg Berlanti (@GBerlanti) April 20, 2016Much like part of the controversy surrounding one of the shows listed above, this felt like an overblown reaction stemming from an instance of viewers not paying attention. Berlanti and Co. have been pretty up front with what they're building towards for awhile now, and when it was revealed that both Hunter Zolomon (and his time remnant) had been posing as Jay Garrick, nerd rage somehow made a lot of folks forget about the man in the iron mask being held captive by Zoom. Y'know, the one that resembles actor Teddy Sears and spelled out "J-A-Y" in code?
Just because we got an origin sequence for Zolomon (more on that in a bit) that doesn't mean Jay's out of the picture, and instead of taking Zoom's explanation as an absolute truth, it should've made the identity of the man in the iron mask even more obvious...especially considering the fact he's a MAN IN AN IRON MASK. Didn't anyone watch the Leo DiCaprio movie? Or y'know, read the book? Hunter is most likely Jay's twin brother...separated at birth, who he swapped places with, and the reason why he became addicted to speed enhancing drugs as he was jealous of Garrick's newfound abilities. The way people blew up though, you'd think it was the season finale or something. We've got five episodes left, there's still plenty of time for twists and turns in the story including the big reveal of Jay being alive and well.
But yeah, we got a flashback of a young Hunter Zolomon waking up to see his war vet father kill his mother when she tells him she's leaving him. After which he's sent to live in an orphanage, and as he grows up takes on homicidal tendencies as he kills twenty three people before being committed and given electro-shock therapy the night of the particle accelerator explosion.
That incident leaves behind enough electromagnetic energy it makes it a prime location for a trans-dimensional breach as Barry convinces Cisco to open a portal when they realize his Earth-2 doppelganger could sense "breachers" which meant certain meta-powers were connected to trans-dimensional energy. Something Barry found out for himself as he made the leap to Supergirl's reality when trying out the newly constructed "tachion amplifier" which made him four times as fast....but a whole lot dumber as he later attempts to lure Zoom back to Earth-1 without a solid plan of containing him, which ultimately backfires and ends up getting Wally captured...
Once subdued, I would've boxed him up faster than you could say "Reddington." When Zoom makes the ultimatum of Wally's life for Barry's speed, Barry (and Team Flash) once again fail at turning the tables on Zolomon, and give in to his demands as Wells equips the lab's treadmill with the speed absorption device he used earlier in the season. Once it draws all of Barry's speed force, Hunter injects it into himself giving him a case of speed rage and then goes after Barry choking him until Caitlin begs him to stop. He does, but turns his attention to her and ends up taking her prisoner.....back to Earth-2!
