Entertainment

'The Flash' Reveals Zoom & It's "A Complication"

by Caitlyn Callegari

Everybody ready? Scream with me in 3... 2... 1... AH! Finally, Zoom was revealed on The Flash, and, oh my freakin' god, it's Jay Garrick. Zoom, evil speedster from hell, is actually Jay... I think. In an otherwise campy episode centering around a giant man-shark with legs, those 30 seconds back on Earth-2 made it all worth it. In fact, I'd watch another episode where poor John and Lyla Diggle are forced to leave Star City in order to help Team Flash chase around a sea animal if we can get more "gotcha!" moments like this one. Sorry, John and Lyla. It's for the greater good.

While the Zoom reveal is all sorts of exhilarating and anticipatory (let's get this story moving, peeps) it does raise more questions than it answers. For one, remember how we watched Jay get possibly murdered in last week's episode? Yeah, he still looks pretty murdered as Zoom drops his lifeless body to the floor of his cliff prison. Which, you know, makes things weird considering that Zoom takes off his mask to reveal a face identical to Jay's. *Scratches head*

But, don't worry. Our bud Zoom was equally was perplexed as I was. He even said as much. When Zoom-Jay looks down at possibly-dead-Jay, he laments that this death (?) is, "a complication." And, while it isn't readily apparent how there can be so many Jays (both dead and alive), Executive Producer Andrew Kreisberg kindly cleared the air for those of us who have our heads spinning. He explained to Entertainment Weekly that Zoom "...is Hunter Zolomon, a.k.a Jay Garrick." You may remember Hunter Zolomon as that unassuming Jay Earth-1 doppelgänger we saw on the bench. That one. But does that mean Hunter is Zoom, or the Jay we know is? Kreisberg's interview implied that Zoom had infiltrated the group, saying, "They let this person in ... Jay’s one charming, smooth guy and he was able to manipulate them in that way." So if the Jay we knew is Zoom, who's the apparently dead Jay?

While I appreciate Kreisberg's candidness on the big bad reveal, I can't help but think we've been duped again. Would we really find out everything there is to know about Zoom in Episode 15 of the season? We've still got a hefty eight episodes to go. I have a feeling that there is more to this Jay/Hunter/Zoom debacle. But, still, this is some crazy news, and I'm going to need some time to process everything that just happened on The Flash.

Image: Dean Buscher/The CW