This week, The Flash's "Enter Zoom" turns out to be just as strong as last week's outing, while Arrow's "Lost Souls" was entertaining, but had some glaring problems.
The Flash: "Enter Zoom" (Season 2, Episode 6)
You'd think that for an episode hyped up to feature the first confrontation between Team Flash and Zoom himself it would be an intense build-up to an even more intense battle. But, "Enter Zoom" is actually a light-hearted episode leading to a very exciting climax. Is that a good thing, though? Let's take a look...
The episode's opening scene, featuring the Flash being defeated by Dr. Light, fell flat straight away for me. The promos had already revealed the plot point that the team would be using Linda as a decoy Light to attract Zoom, so there was no curiosity or surprise from me there. I'm sure even someone who avoids the weekly promos would be able to guess it was Linda or that things weren't as they seemed.
Luckily, things pick up after that. The Flash crew is going along with Harry's plan to use Light to lure Zoom to Earth-1. Light escapes, so they get the idea to disguise Linda as her and stage a fight between her and Barry. What follows is a pretty hilarious training montage, as Linda learns how to use her doppelganger's beam-gloves by using cardboard cut-outs of Team Flash, which makes the sequence that much more hilarious. When we get to the actual "fight" between Linda and Barry, it actually makes up for the episode's opening. The two share awful hero-villain banter written by Cisco, and Linda inevitably has some trouble with her beam-gloves and it's funny. Really funny. But, then they realize Zoom ain't coming, so they pack up and head home.
THEN ZOOM ARRIVES, and, boy, does he mess things up. The fight between him and Barry was so cool, especially when Zoom catches the lightning Barry throws at him. Obviously, lightning doesn't work that way, but WHO CARES.
The best scene in the episode has to be Zoom dragging a battered, broken Barry throughout Central City and showing him off to the press and the police force. There's a giant sense of dread hanging around the show during that scene. Zoom has just proven himself to be pretty much unstoppable, and the faith the city has in the Flash will no doubt be shaken to its core. To make matters worse, once Barry recovers from his defeat the next morning, he is horrified to find that he can't feel his legs. Things aren't going to be too peachy for our Scarlet Speedster for the next few weeks.
(source)
Other Thoughts:
- Another highlight of the episode was Cisco's attempts to "vibe" Earth-2 Wells. You can tell Tom Cavanagh and Carlos Valdes were having a hoot filming those scenes.
- It shouldn't be too until Patty learns about Barry's powers. We see her start to question both him and Joe.
- The scene on Earth-2 with Wells and Jessie Quick was really dumb. There was a ton of out-of-place exposition and Violet Beane, the actress who plays Jessie, can't act.
- How could Linda not recognize Barry when he's in his Flash costume? The voice disguise isn't that concealing and he's not even blurring his face. It was Laurel not recognizing Sara as Black Canary all over again.
- When Linda does learn Flash's identity, her first reaction is "I have made out with the Flash!" Good. I needed a reminder this show is on the CW.
- Fun reveal: On Earth-2, Oliver died after The Queen's Gambit sank and Robert survived and became the Arrow. I guess we won't be seeing a meet-up between the two version of Oliver then.
- Wouldn't it be cool if they introduced Earth-2 Robert into Arrow somehow? It would shake things up, that's for sure.
Rating: 8.7/10 Sergeant Slows
Next week, Barry's in a wheelchair and Grodd returns.
Arrow: "Lost Souls" (Season 4, Episode 6)
"Lost Souls" featured the return of Ray, saw Sara back in action, and put Oliver and Felcity's relationship to the test. For the most part, this was another solid episode for Arrow's fourth season, but there were some stumbling blocks it had trouble getting over.
Let's talk about Sara first. It appears that the writers don't care about Sara, and that enforces my theory that she was shoehorned back into the show only so that she could be in Legends of Tomorrow. Last week, the characters almost literally moved heaven and earth to bring Sara back, and her reunion with her family was completely glossed over. This week, no one seems to care that a friend, a sister, and a daughter was brought back after a year of being dead. Yes, we do see Sara struggling with the same sort of bloodlust Thea has been struggling with, but that's the thing, it's the same thing. There's nothing interesting being done with her here. I would have loved to see an episode, or at least a subplot in an episode, where we follow Sara's recovery and her being caught up on what happened in the last year. But, instead, all we see concerning her recovery is her finishing up an obviously emotional phonecall with her mom. That's it. Was Sara nervous about calling her? How did Mrs. Lance react? Wouldn't she have been freaked out? There are questions raised from that quick snippet that would have been more interesting to explore with Sara rather than what we ended up getting. And I'm probably not getting my Sara-centric episode any time soon because she leaves at the end, WHICH IS ALSO CRAZY STUPID. She's dealing with this rage and she decides she's going to leave town and go exploring or something, and everyone's totally fine with it! "Yeah, Sara. You should totally roam outside of Star City, away from our supervision,while you have this bloodlust thing goin' on, and just after being raised from the dead. Bon voyage!" I'm hoping, really hoping, Legends of Tomorrow will explore the emotional effect resurrection had on Sara instead of completely disregarding it like Arrow did. End rant.
Phew, that was one long rant. Now, what was good about "Lost Souls?" Ray's return was an obvious highlight. He was one of the best aspects of the overall dull third season. Though it was kind of spoiled in the trailer for Legends of Tomorrow, the reveal that Ray had been shrunken down was still fun. I thought it was a great touch to have his "cell" just be an upside-down glass box on some guy's desk. Ah, visual humour.
I'm happy that the romance between Oliver and Felicity got some drama. Since they've been a thing, they've been portrayed as this perfect couple. It was good to see them deal with a rough patch and the arguments between the two about Felicity's mother were hilarious. Speaking of which, Charlotte Ross returned as Donna Smoak. I'm not as keen on the character as others are, and I felt her appearance here was bit intrusive. That being said, some of her lines here actually made me laugh, and her heart-to-heart with Felicity was touching.
Other Thoughts:
- Neal McDonaugh is still killing it as Damien Darhk. The size difference between him and Ray made the interrogation scene hard to take seriously, though.
- The conversation between Oliver and Diggle in the Arrowcave was a good touch, showing that their friendship has truly been mended. I liked Oliver's regret over losing his bottle of Russian vodka too.
- I did like seeing Sara back in action and fighting alongside Laurel and Thea. There's a shot somewhere in the episode that shows the three back to back and beating up a horde of HIVE goons. Awesome.
- During those action scenes, though, it was hard to tell which Canary was which. Not awesome.
- It was great to see Curtis have a big role this week and actually be part of the episode's main plot. He's also an expert at parachuting as well, I guess.
- I'm not sure how to feel about the tease that Lance and Donna are gonna be dating. I hope it's something that is just a joke for an episode or two and not an actual thing.
- It's good to see that Constantine had an impact on the flashbacks, which are starting to ramp up. It looks like there was some magical tom-foolery going down on Lian Yu before Oliver stopped by.
Rating: 8.0/10 single-tear emojis
Next week, it appears Andrew Diggle wasn't as dead as everyone thought he was...
Noah
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