TV Review: The Flash (2×16) “Trajectory”

Welcome back to my weekly review and recap of The Flash. To catch up on previous coverage, click here.

And we’re back!

I really miss The Flash when it’s not on my screen on a week-to-week basis. It is, without a doubt, my biggest comfort series and the one where weekly I’m wondering what’s going to happen next. While it’s had its pitfalls in season two, it has more than picked itself up and dusted off as of late, and this week’s episode “Trajectory” follows suit with the high quality trend, while also delivering some big reveals.

Aren’t we all happy that Jay being Zoom was discovered so quickly by team Flash? They all fall on some end of the genius spectrum; so rather than beating around the bush to amp up the tension, I’m glad that the writers decided that the best move was for the secret to be revealed.

But before all that happens, we have to deal with Barry tirelessly training to get fast enough to beat Zoom as well as a new speedster in town, going by the name of Trajectory. While I thought she was an interesting character and played with just the right amount of menace to make her a realistic threat, I do think she was a character that could have warranted an extra episode to be fleshed out. The “Eliza Harmon is Trajectory” reveal isn’t all too shocking, especially if you know how procedurals work, you know that any character introduced randomly in an episode – one that a series regular apparently knows well – they’re going to have some other significant part to play in the episode. However, it’s her reliance on the Velocity Nine that Caitlin created and how it’s played as a legitimate and debilitating addiction that makes her so compelling. She is the halfway point between Barry and Zoom – the former being someone who through guidance could avoid using the drug and the latter someone who consumed as much as the artificial speed as possible and has managed to somehow contain it.

Something that Trajectory very much failed to do is after her last hit she ran so fast that she disintegrated. It’s something that we as viewers can hope warns Barry off from ever wanting to get a taste of V9 himself.

This also would have benefited as a two-part episode because just about all of the plot points were touched upon, but barely, and they all end up feeling rushed. Iris getting a potential love interest could have taken up more than two full scenes. and instead we’re forced to believe in their connection because it befits the series to do so. Barry grappling with whether or not he should take the V9 could have been an entire plot, especially since he believes he’d be doing it for noble reasons while Harrison can immediately see the physical and emotional consequences that the drug could have on him. Jessie decides to leave (to Opal City, comic fans) after realizing her dad sacrifices too much of his humanity when he’s protecting her, and oh, yeah, did I mention we get the big Zoom reveal?

As is the case with any episode of The Flash, a lot happens and some of it works while other bits fall flat. Personally I could have seen Iris’s plot line being bumped to another episode and maybe even the Zoom reveal could have waited one more week, but overall it’s another solid episode. While I can see people making fun of the ending moment as Barry screams into the river below him, I saw it perfectly as a character moment. How else do you respond when you’ve once again been duped by someone you thought was a friend, and how do you find a way to stop someone who is also ten steps ahead?

It was a mixed bag of an episode. On the one hand, I wish the show could have trusted in their actors’s charm and just have it be an hour-long installment about them all recuperating, going to clubs (dancing in Cisco’s case) and training to be able to beat Zoom. While the Trajectory storyline was fun, it was also unnecessary in the grand scheme of things, and we don’t always need a “baddie of the week.” On the other hand, this is The Flash, and there’s always going to be a “baddie of the week,” so we might as well come to expect it at this point.

The big plot development with Jay worked not because we had so much investment in the character – which let’s be honest – we didn’t, but because Cisco was able to vibe and discover the truth after logic began to string it together for the rest of the gang. Think if it had been just that reveal along with the group trying to regain their emotional and physical strength for the entire episode prior, it would have left a much greater impact.

Not bad, not great, but somewhere in between, this week’s episode of The Flash reminds me of why I love the show but doesn’t offer anything as thrilling as the past few episodes.

But it’s back! That’s good news.

7/10