So last week I said that The Flash season 2 episode 15 was probably going to be another filler episode without much going on, well I was wrong! If you haven’t watched the episode you should stop reading now because spoilers follow!

What the heck so Jay Garrick is Zoom???? Okay I just needed to get that out of my system, because first I’m just going to quickly talk about King Shark.

And so King Shark returns, and he looks pretty freaking awesome! The producers talked about how expensive it was to have that King Shark cameo a few episodes ago, so I can’t even imagine how much this episode cost.

King Shark is an awesome character who is a total savage. I like how he was written in the New 52 Suicide Squad comics, where he was a monster, but showed remorse as well. The Suicide Squad King Shark was also a bit of a dope, he could be pretty hilarious at times.

This King Shark was no laughing matter (if you can get over the whole giant walking and talking shark wearing pants thing). It was a lot of fun seeing the showdown between The Flash and King Shark. You forget how weird the world of The Flash is, until a character like John Diggle shows up and is completely in shock with everything.

The other part of the episode focused on Wally West. I hope we’re going to be moving on from the angst-filled Wally now, and see some other emotions from him. Similar to what the New 52 did, I’m sure we’ll see Barry and Wally eventually bond, with Barry perhaps becoming a mentor figure to him. Barry was told he needs to find something in common with Wally, I don’t know, maybe something like the Speed Force? There haven’t been any indicators as of yet that Wally has the powers of the Speed Force, so we probably won’t see that until either the end of this season, or until next season.

Okay now let’s talk about the Zoom reveal! Once again my theories were completely wrong, because Zoom is Jay Garrick! Well kind of anyways.

The two theories I have agreed upon the most are as follows:

Zoom is Earth-2 Hunter Zolomon and the man in the prison is the real Jay Garrick. As for the Jay Garrick we’ve been seeing for the past season? I don’t completely know yet, but many are thinking that he may be a clone.

In an interview with EW, Kreisberg said when talking about Jay Garrick, “Part of the reason he was able to do that was because there was a hole in the center of their group, and he knew that. He was able to step in because they wanted it so desperately”.

So looking at the way Kreisberg is talking about Jay, this Jay was clearly manipulating them. But there’s no way they would make the actual Jay Garrick a villain. Jay Garrick is a hero, he is the original Flash, and I’m sure we’ll see the heroic Jay Garrick Flash soon.

Maybe on Earth-2 Hunter and Jay are twins. For some reason they end up on very different ends of the moral spectrum and become enemies. Hunter eventually captures Jay and puts him in a cell, and makes a clone of himself to steal Barry’s speed. This could explain why this Jay was dying, because he was a faulty clone (kind of like when in Smallville Lex Luthor made a bunch of clones, most of which ended up being very sick and dying).

This is one possible explanation for the Zoom reveal, but I don’t particularly like it.

First of all, it’s very similar to what happened last year. Kreisberg explains it has dramatic irony, but I don’t really consider it very good storytelling, it just seems a bit cheesy and lazy. Maybe if a few seasons down they did this it would be okay, but back to back? I don’t know.

Also if they do go down the road of twins and clones, it starts to get very convoluted. Yes the show is already pretty complicated with time travel and different Earths, but after a while all the plot twists and weird explanations just become silly.

I mean maybe they have a much better explanation than what I gave, something that makes a lot more sense and doesn’t involve doing pretty much the same thing as last season. I hope so! Because good storytelling isn’t just about having some huge plot twist that completely shocks everyone. Yeah Jay being Zoom had the shock value, but really it all comes down to the execution. It all depends on how they explain it.

Because if this Jay was just a fake Jay, then that means we spent the last season developing and connecting with a character that wasn’t even real. Which wouldn’t be that big of a deal, if they hadn’t just done it last season.

I don’t know, maybe this is just a knee-jerk reaction, I just need to wait and see how they explain it all. Which apparently won’t be until the end of next month! I had no idea the show was going to be taking a month-long break, so that sucks.

The other theory is a little more simple: There’s 2 sets of Jay Garrick/Hunter Zolomon twins. Earth-2 Hunter Zolomon is Zoom and Earth-2 Jay Garrick is the one we’ve been with. Earth-1 Hunter Zolomon we saw on the park bench and Earth-1 Jay Garrick is the prisoner. But here’s when things don’t make sense: why would Jay not mention he has a twin? Seems a little odd. Maybe he doesn’t know he has a twin, could be the case if they were separated and Zoom had the mask on every time they met. But from the way Kreisberg talked about Jay, like I said, he’s talking about Jay as if he manipulated them, so the Jay Garrick we’ve seen can’t be good. 

Most of you are a lot better at theorising than I am, so let me know what you think!

Overall The Flash season 2 episode 15 was a big and shocking episode that involved talking sharks and major plot twists. I definitely want to know how they’re going to explain this whole Zoom thing, hope it’s not too confusing!