The Flash – The Race of His Life

By starrymag | May 28, 2016

By: Stacy Miller

 

The season finale of “The Flash” saw Barry Allen (Grant Gustin) dealing with unimaginable grief after a tragic loss. He must also battle Zoom (Teddy Sears) to not only save his Earth, but the multiples of Earths.

 

The episode picked up from where it left off, right after Zoom murders Henry (John Wesley Shipp). Then, Zoom takes off with Barry in hot pursuit. He catches Zoom and comes close to allowing his rage to turn him into a killer. But, luckily, Barry stops himself just in time. Suddenly, another Zoom appears and kills the first one. Well, Zoom wanted Barry to give into his murderous urges.

 

At Henry’s funeral, Barry is so emotionally distraught that Joe (Jesse L. Martin) has to give the eulogy. Barry vows Zoom will pay, but worries how he can make that happen without crossing over to the dark side.

 

At the West house, Zoom appears and challenges Barry to a race to prove once and for all who is the fastest man alive. If Barry refuses to race him, he’ll kill more people he loves. And if Barry wins, Zoom promises to stop killing. Of course, since he’s the villain and villains lie and never tell the whole story, the team learns that Zoom has something called a “magnetar” that can destroy Earth 2 and the many Earths in the multiverse. The magnetar will be powered by their combined speeds. Barry tells Joe he has no choice, but to race Zoom if he wants to save the many worlds. Because Joe doesn’t like where Barry’s head is at within his grief, he and Wells (Tom Cavanagh) tranquilize him and lock him in one of the Meta Human cells. They explain to Barry that in his current state of mind, there was no way he could have won in the race.

 

So, the team will take on Zoom without The Flash’s help and formulate a plan. It starts with Caitlin (Danielle Panabaker) coming to Jay and pretending that she wants to be with him and can except the evil inside him. She lies that she was just scared before when he told her about her own darkness. But for Zoom, it’s too little too late and he puts his hand through Caitlin’s chest to kill her! Fortunately, it was just a hologram. Phew!

 

The next stage of the plan requires the precision of the entire team. Cisco (Carlos Valdes) has opened a portal and Joe plans to use his tranquilizer gun on Zoom, but the gun locks. It seems he will have to get close enough to Zoom to inject him. Unfortunately, Wells shoots Zoom through the portal, but the evil speedster pulls Joe in too!

 

Wally (Keiynan Lonsdale) learns that his dad is on Earth 2 with Zoom and that everyone, including Iris (Candice Patton), agreed not to open the portal ever again if something went wrong. So, he arranges a prison break and lets Barry out of the cell.

Meanwhile on Earth 2, Jay taunts Joe about how Barry has so many fathers to kill. He then provides the origin of how he became Zoom. He was struck by a particle accelerator too and after he had powers he easily conquered his Earth. But he wanted more power, which proved unstable. So, he developed Velocity 9, but that ended up weakening him the more he took it. Trying to get powers via the speed force didn’t work so he found another speedster and tried to take his powers. When that too didn’t work, he kept the man as his prisoner (The man in the mask, who viewers met when Barry traveled to Earth 2). He then took the man’s name, Jay Garrick.

 

Meanwhile, Cisco helps Barry speak to Zoom through the speed force and Barry agrees to the race only if it happens on his Earth and Joe is returned. Zoom accepts the terms.

So, back on Earth 1, the race between Zoom and Barry is about to begin near the magnetar. Barry wants his friends to go home and not watch because if he loses, Zoom will immediately kill them. They refuse to leave. Zoom also reveals the magnetar will destroy all the Earths, except Earth 1 which is a Nexus of power. Besides, he needs some place to rule!

 

The race begins with the speedsters neck-to-neck. But Barry actually cheats and creates a speed force version of himself to guarantee victory. It also looks like Barry will kill Zoom. But he instead allows the time wraiths to get his revenge for him. They take Zoom away where he will never hurt anyone else again.

 

Back at Star Labs, the team has rescued the real Jay Garrick, who removes his mask. It turns out he is the doppelganger of Henry Allen! The writers of “The Flash” are brilliant as John Wesley Shipp played the title speedster in the 1990s series “The Flash.” Jay Garrick is from Earth 3. Barry is at a loss for words and missing his father more.

Jay Garrick puts on his speedster uniform and after they say their goodbyes, he takes Wells and Jesse (Violett Beane) back home to Earth 2.

 

Later, Barry tells Iris he needs time to figure out his life. She says she’ll wait however long it takes because he waited for her. When Iris goes back inside, Barry says “I’m sorry.” He then runs as fast as he can…to the past and the moment before the Reverse Flash killed Nora Allen (Michelle Harrison). The Barry Allen who traveled there back in Season One smiles seeing his mother has been saved and then disappears. Nora is frightened, but Barry assures he’s not going to hurt her. “You’re safe,” Barry says.

 

Okay, The Flash just changed their mythology and started from the beginning. I’ll be curious to see where this leads next season.