The Flash S2x05 “The Darkness and The Light”

WARNING! SPOILERS! 

Well, things just got about a hundred percent more awesome with a pretty intense episode, “The Darkness and the Light” which further explored the concept and consequences of Earth 2 characters having different personalities to the ones that they know. We also got to see a different side to Harrison Wells (Tom Cavanagh) this week as we met his Earth 2 counterpart who, although may be a bit of a jerk, (especially to Jay Garrick) actually becomes quickly invested in Barry despite Jay’s warnings that the Wells on Earth 2 is of course hiding as much secrets as the Wells who died.

We learn that Wells himself is responsible for the creation of the Earth 2 metahumans and Zoom as a result of the Particle Accelerator, which is naturally something that Jay’s annoyed about. The rest of the team doesn’t trust Wells at first (why would you, given his track record) and even getting to the point where Joe’s first instincts upon meeting him for the first time are to shoot him point-blank. Barry naturally uses his super-speed to prevent Wells from being killed and catches all the bullets, allowing for an interesting reaction. Speaking of interesting reactions, Wells’ character was handled pretty well indeed and one part that worked was how he reacted to the news about his Prime Earth Counterpart, which allowed for an interesting development storyline wise. But things became even more complicated when Zoom launched another metahuman into the mix in the form of Doctor Light, Earth 2’s version of Linda Park. Although things start of well, they quickly go downhill and in the end Barry has to work out how to stop her.

However, he can’t due to her powers, which makes things even more complicated when Earth 2’s Linda attempts to kill off the Prime Earth Linda which would mean she can assume her life. The plan doesn’t quite go down like that though and in the end she’s foiled by Barry’s team even though Linda’s boss is a casualty. It’s an interesting development that has knock-on effects when Cisco’s metahuman powers are revealed by Dr. Wells, a secret which he’d been kept hidden from the rest of the team. This naturally allows them to find out Light’s location, and Barry ends up defeating Light thanks to some help from Wells & Jay, who throughout the episode, haven’t been getting along on the best of terms. The episode itself works pretty well as a result and it sets up a nice and early teaser towards next week’s episode, “Enter Zoom”  with the ambitious plan to lure the speedster into a trap and stop him. But this plan is too dangerous for Jay, who decides to leave the team due to his past experiences with Wells.

Naturally, this is going to be easier said than done and I for one can’t wait to see how the following episode turns out. This was a very exciting, action packed and suspenseful episode that makes the most out of the Parallel Earth concept and you have to wonder the identity of who the real Zoom is. Would he be someone with close connections to Barry? Would he be even Barry himself? It’s worth noting that Zoom has something planned for Wells however, as a teaser showed that he is holding his daughter captive, something that will be very interesting to see what the consequences are of this captivity next time around.

What did you think of The Darkness and The Light? Did you enjoy seeing Harrison Wells’ proper introduction? Let me know in the comments section below.

Next week’s episode airs on November 10 on The CW at 8pm.