Ok, let me get this out of the way, no King Shark this week. It was heartbreaking, but, we sadly need to move on. Not sure where King Shark himself moved on to…but I digress.
“Darkness and the Light” was another strong episode for Flash, and yes, it was one they needed in numerous ways as it brought the Earth-2 version of Harrison Wells into the fold. And oh what fun this character is. It would’ve been so easy to just bring in the Earth-2 Harrison Wells and have the Earth-1 personality before Reverse Flash took his life. But no! They did one better, and made Harrison Wells E2 (or “Harry”) be an obnoxious, arrogant, forceful, jerk. And boy did it work!
Once again, Tom Cavanaugh totally was the start of the episode. From the “8 Months Ago” sequence on Earth 2, to his confrontations with Barry, Cisco, Caitlin, Joe, Iris, and more! It was all fantastic. Every scene he was in was incredible. What I also appreciated was that we got to see basically everyone’s reaction to him being “alive” in our world. Joe’s instinctive shooting of him may have been a little out of character in a way…but it worked with how he and Barry talked about it afterward. You can imagine, or maybe you can’t to be honest, how hard it must be to see the man who ruined so many lives back from “the dead” in a way because of the breaches, and I’m glad the scenes with him and Team Flash were dredged out.
Which then brings us to the “villain of the week” Dr. Light!…the female version! Ok, I might have seen the article that said that Linda Park was going to be Dr. Light in this episode…but I totally forgot, so seeing her unmasking was very surprising. And this also brought another aspect of the show from a previous episode, the breachers killing their dopplegangers. While I’m still not sure why Atom Smasher did that, for Linda it was much more believable. She wanted to be free of Zoom, and to “assimilate” as the Earth-1 Linda gave her a way out.
The fun byproduct of this confrontation was the arrival of Cisco’s full blown powers (which was only teased once before), and him getting outed (by Wells no less) as a metahuman. And yes, he’s calling himself Vibe now. YES!!!!! #VibeLives. Oh, and did anyone notice that not only did Caitlin not register as a metahuman via Wells’ tech, but she said “I dont’ think any of us would turn evil if given powers?” Hmm…
Which sadly brings me to the biggest downpoint of this episode. Caitlin and Jay. I haven’t liked this relationship since it was hinted at early on, and I like it even less here. I just don’t know why these two are even trying to be together, when we know that (most likely, let’s be honest here) Ronnie will either come back, or Jay will leave for Earth-2 after Zoom is defeated. Which brings me to the other problem, through Wells (whether it was justified or not) they made it look like Jay was not only a coward, but very, very, weak as a hero. What’s up with that? Now true, he hadn’t defeated Zoom in two years. So what? Barry never defeated Reverse Flash, Batman never truly defeats Joker if you think about it. Yet the way that Jay not only refused to help Barry in regards to trying to take down his nemesis, but how he (quite cowardly) walked away from the team when his expertise would’ve been invaluable, was very uncharacteristic of the hero we all know Jay is. He went up against SandDemon without his powers! Yet he can’t provide moral support for Barry? Really?
On a plus side, Barry had a “blind date” with Patty that honestly was both charming, funny, and a GOOD start to a relationship. I hope these two stay together for a while. And I also liked how both Cisco and Iris not only approved of this, but helped him with his “blind date”. Oh, and Cisco is apparently going to be dating Hawkgirl! Yes, that is Kendra Saunders who will be Hawkgirl in Legends of Tomorrow! You’re welcome.
In the end, “Darkness and the Light” brought an old frenemy to the fold in a fresh new way, and with a plan to see Zoom (who we got a true good look at here) now in place. Things are finally getting back on the track many of us hoped it would be since episode one.
Todd Black
Todd Black is reader of comics, a watch of TV (a LOT of TV), and a writer of many different mediums. He's written teleplays, fan-fictions, and currently writes a comic book called Guardians (guardians-comic.com). He dreams of working at Nintendo, writing a SHAZAM! TV series, and working on Guardians for a very long time!
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