- Title: The Flash – Flash of Two Worlds
- wiki: link
Continuing the theme which began in last week’s season premiere, “Flash of Two Worlds” deals with the fallout of the singularity which brought Atom-Smasher (Adam Copeland) to Central City by introducing another visitor from Earth-2 and giving the show’s non-comic-reading audience an introduction to the Multiverse. Jay Garrick (Teddy Sears) isn’t the only new face to get attention in the season’s episode. The Flash from another world is unexpectedly overshadowed by a more recent comic character as Patty Spivot (played here by Shantel VanSanten) makes her first appearance as a member of the Central City Police Department while also teasing an upcoming romance with Barry Allen (Grant Gustin) which can’t start soon enough for me.
While Sears is miscast in the role of Garrick (as the show makes Arrow‘s similar mistake by casting a far too young actor to play a more experienced and grizzled veteran hero in Wildcat) VanSanten is charming and steals every scene in which she appears. Of course it doesn’t help that this version of Jay Garrick is without his speed for the entire episode meaning the episode cheats us a bit by not giving us the two speedsters working together. In a moment that’s almost too cute, “Flash of Two Worlds” even brings the classic comic cover to life from the first time the Golden Age and Silver Age characters met in comics.
Even if the episode doesn’t quite give me the Golden Age Flash I was hoping for there’s plenty it does right. Barry’s distrust of an older authority figure given his history with Harrison Wells (Tom Cavanagh) is handled perfectly. And although we don’t get much of Earth-2, I did like the Tomorrowland look of the alternate Earth and the surprise return of a series regular (be it either as a hero or villain this time around). I do have some concerns about the season’s new big bad in Zoom (who appears initially to be a darker-colored retread of the Reverse-Flash) but I’m certainly open to waiting to see how the show plans to develop the character.
