Vibe has officially entered the building. The latest episode of The Flash was all about darkness and light. Or, I’m guessing good versus evil would be another way of looking at, too. We officially meet the Dr. Harrison Wells from Earth-2, Cisco is “outed,” Barry and Patty go on a date, and more on The Flash: “The Darkness and the Light.” Spoiler alert.
The New Dr. Harrison Wells
Last week on The Flash, we saw the Dr. Harrison Wells from Earth-2 creeping around town much of the episode until he finally made his dramatic entrance at the end, saving Barry/The Flash from a beat down at the hands of Shark Man/King Shark. This week, the storyline resumed with Dr. Harrison Wells (from Earth-2) being formally introduced to Barry and the gang at S.T.A.R. labs, and that didn’t go so well, either. Aside from his really cool saving of the Flash last week, the new Dr. Harrison Wells is kind of an ass. Well, Cisco called him a different name—it rhymes with prick, but starts with the letter D—but nonetheless the sentiment is still the same. Dude has serious problems in the realm of social skills. But then again he doesn’t really seem to care about that and he’s super smart so everyone lets it slide, just a tad. He just wants to kill Zoom. Yeah, take a number, right?
You know who else wants Zoom dead? Our other Flash, Mr. Jay Garrick. The only problem with Garrick, besides the fact that he lost his speed force when he came to Earth-1, is that even when he had his speed force on Earth-2 he couldn’t take out Zoom. Maybe it was a lack of confidence or dare I say a lack of skill, but at the end of the day, because he didn’t or couldn’t handle his business on Earth-2 and no thanks to the singularity breach, Earth-1 now has a huge problem by the name of Zoom. And our new Dr. Wells had no problem pointing out that fact over and over again to Jay and everyone else. Those two totally hate each other, as we saw when they actually went to blows at one point in the episode. They almost hate each other as much as Earth-1 Flash and Dr. Harrison Wells/Eobard Thawne did. Just saying.
Dr. Light
As intense as Jay and Wells’ many heated arguments and eventual altercation was, it was no match for the intensity that is the force of light—ok, that was cheesy, but you get the point. Enter our not-so-villainous villain of the week, Dr. Light. While Cisco and Barry were apparently both experiencing epic fails in the romantic department at the coffee shop, Cisco had a vision—or vibe—where he saw yet another metahuman, Dr. Light, come through one of the 52 breaches that resulted from the singularity. And, of course, the Flash (our Flash) went to take care of the “problem,” only to have the “problem” sort of take care of him. The light wielding villain escaped unscathed. Round one went to Dr. Light.
Back at S.T.A.R. labs, Barry and Cisco gave Dr. Wells and Jay the deets about this new Zoom contractor in town, which then sparked yet another disagreement between the Wells and Garrick, as once again the conversation came back to whose fault it was that Zoom was still a threat, and whose job it was to take care of him—ahem, Flash from Earth-2. Friction aside, there was still the greater issue at hand: what to do about Dr. Light? Despite Cisco and Jay’s reluctance to listen to much less follow Dr. Wells’ lead regarding the handling of Dr. Light, he was the only one with a solid plan, and since he is responsible for creating all the metahumans on Earth-2 in the first place, it was only right that he help solve the problem anyway. At least Barry was open to it.
Too bad Dr. Wells’ plan was a little short sided, being as though his focus was on luring Zoom into a trap. During the second confrontation with Dr. Light, in which the Flash tried to reason with his ex-girlfriend Linda’s Earth-2 doppelganger, he walked, no stumbled, away blinded by her light. As romantic as that sounds, it’s not, he had a bad case of solar retinopathy. Not to worry, slight inconvenience to his date with Patty aside, Barry/the Flash was finally able to best Dr. Light, with the instruction of Dr. Wells and endorsement of Jay in tow. And in the end Dr. Light was off to the metahuman prison in S.T.A.R labs.
The Date
After taking care of Dr. Light, Barry had some personal business to attend to, of the romantic variety: his date or “creeping and peeping” as Cisco referred to the evening. Barry finally got the nerve to ask out Patty…and all was right in the world again. After an epic fail at an opportunity to ask her out when they first ran into each other in the coffee shop, Barry finally seized an opportunity to ask out Patty to dinner, who by the way was too cute and so ready for that moment to happen already. As you can imagine, the date was pretty much imperfectly perfect—those two are adorbs together—and even ended with some hand holding and wait for it…a good night kiss. Cue the fireworks. Those two might actually have a fighting chance, especially since everyone seems to give them their blessing, including Ms. Iris West. No real surprise there, she’s a classy broad. Barry and Patty couldn’t be on better footing, right? We shall see.
Code Name
Also on The Flash this week, the writers finally stopped teasing us with Cisco’s superpowers and now his secret is out in the open. Oddly enough, we have Earth-2 Harrison Wells to thank for that one. Using his special Apple Watch-esque metahuman detection device, he not only figured out that Cisco was a metahuman, but then outed the man in front of everyone. That was cold, Wells. But, it all worked out, because now everyone knows, he got a cool nickname of his own, Vibe, and he can start working on honing his “vibes” and dare I say it, a costume. Hopefully, they update it from the 80s look he was sporting back when he first appeared in the DC Comics. Yikes. It’s all love, though. Like at the end when Cisco returned to the coffee shop, where his previous advances towards the barista were shot down, and this time he scored her number. So, all in all, it was a good day for Mr. Cisco Ramon; although, his new love pursuit with Kendra Saunders is likely won’t go anywhere since she’s already eternally in love with someone else and all. After all, she is Hawkgirl and we all know how that story goes.
We’re seeing more and more of Zoom, so next week should be another good one. The Flash airs Tuesdays at 8:00pm EST on CW.