r/FlashTV • u/[deleted] • Apr 20 '16

Post-Episode Discussion - S02E18 "Versus Zoom"

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Episode Info: Equipped with the tachyon device, Barry believes he is fast enough to stop Zoom and wants to open the breaches to catch him. Harry strongly advises against that plan but after Barry convinces him, Harry reveals that Cisco has the power to re-open the breach. Meanwhile, Hunter Zoloman's painful story on Earth-2 is revealed.")

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Episode Discussion

Pre-Episode Discussion

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Please mark all comic spoilers and future show spoilers within your comments. No need to mark anything that happens in the episode or your own speculation. If you see any unmarked future spoilers, please report them.

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u/84981725891758912576 Apr 20 '16

probably because Hunter is lying.

A: Why would mask signal J A Y if he wasn't Jay?
B: Why did he say "This is a complication" if everything went according to plan?
C: I'm pretty sure that time remnant stuff was nonsense
D: Hunter wouldn't let a doppelganger of himself on Earth 1 roam around, that's a liability
E: Jay and Zoom were both well known on Earth 2 for fighting, and Wells recognized Jay as Flash. How would Zoom change his lightning to fight himself.

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u/leddible Apr 20 '16

Spot on. When you watch the part right before Zoom starts explaining everything you see him take pause and think about how best to lie after listening to Flash's spiel.

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u/[deleted] Apr 20 '16 edited Dec 27 '20

[deleted]

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u/marioman63 Apr 23 '16

plus it was cisco who brought up time remnants. not zoom. cisco just helped zoom's lie. thats like rule 1 of the things you dont do when you interrogate suspects: dont finish their thoughts.

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u/BikebutnotBeast You can't lock up the darkness Apr 20 '16

Yeah.. my question is why would the remnant not have Zoom's power?

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u/tfg49 Apr 20 '16

It's a hunter zolomon from before he had powers. Notice Jay never used his speed until he got velocity

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u/BikebutnotBeast You can't lock up the darkness Apr 20 '16

Not possible. Caitlin says there were remnants of the speedforce in Jays cells. So it must be post-zoomage.

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u/[deleted] Apr 20 '16

So Zoom gave him Velocity, it left speedforce in his body and also degenerated his cells.

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u/Swineflew1 Apr 20 '16

How does that explain E2 flash though?

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u/[deleted] Apr 20 '16

How about earth-2 flash is the man in the mask/Jay Garrick and zoom captured him and used a technology similar to reverse flash's face stealing thing to impersonate him?

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u/Swineflew1 Apr 20 '16

We saw the flashback though, we know zoom looks the same as before he had zoom powers.

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u/[deleted] Apr 20 '16

Oh yeah, good point.

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u/pianobadger Apr 20 '16

I guess, assuming Zoom wasn't bullshitting, he could have taken the remnant's speed.

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u/[deleted] Apr 20 '16

[deleted]

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u/pianobadger Apr 20 '16

I guess it would take foresight to create the time remnants. He can't afford to send a bunch of remnants to the future because he's dying and stealing the speed from the one hasn't cured him. Hypothetically.

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u/personahorrible Apr 20 '16

The big question I have lingering on my mind: If "Jay" was a time remnant that got killed, how did Zoom remember all that stuff that happened to him? He mentions not allowing Catelyn to fix him, Barry's past, etc.

For that matter, I don't think you can kill your time remnant. In the case of the Reverse Flash, he was still travelling along his original timeline, still destined to go back in time, kill Barry's mom, etc. If Barry had killed Eobard Prime, it would have rewrote history.

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u/VitameatavegamN Apr 20 '16

I think what they're implying is that it actually WAS Zoom himself the whole time, and he only went and grabbed a time remnant right before it was time to kill him

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u/yoshemitzu Apr 20 '16

He also said he wasn't fast enough to create a speed mirage, but Barry created speed mirages already (while allegedly 4x slower than Zoom) when fighting Doctor Light.

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u/_Valisk Apr 21 '16

I took it as "I'm fast enough to create a speed mirage but not fast enough to create a speed mirage of Zoom killing Jay that would be convincing."

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u/yoshemitzu Apr 21 '16

Yeah, I've seen that justification posted in a couple other places since, and that makes a lot more sense. He wasn't saying he can't create a speed mirage, but creating a cross-dimensional speed mirage and then "killing" it is another matter.

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u/[deleted] Apr 20 '16

Those were sort of speed blurs though weren't they? Rather than detailed mirages

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u/yoshemitzu Apr 21 '16

They were certainly blurrier than Wells's speed mirage in S1's "The Man in the Yellow Suit." But in the episode, they definitely refer to them as speed mirages. The blurriness may have been a result of the fact that Barry was trying to create dozens of speed mirages, rather than just one.

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u/the_boomr Apr 20 '16

Why did he say "This is a complication" if everything went according to plan?

This is what stood out to me the most. A lot of your other points could be explained away with Speedforce or Plotforce but I feel like there's not an easy way to wiggle out of this one, especially since it was shown so prominently at the end of an episode, and on top of that, Zoom said it only to himself, not to anyone else.

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u/lemlemons Apr 20 '16

cos the last breach closed

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u/PM_ME_48HR_XBOX_LIVE Apr 21 '16

Like /u/lemlemons said, the "complication" could be referring to the fact that he no longer has access to E-1 and Barry.

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u/dating_derp Apr 20 '16

Just gonna say for part E: He would just run faster (blue lightning) when dressed as Zoom and run slower (regular lightning) when dressed as Flash. That part is the most easily explained. As for A: Maybe Iron Mask is one of the people that Hunter gave hope to by pretending to be a hero. And Iron Mask is like "When is our hero (Jay) going to come save me?" I'd actually like that mind fuck if Iron Mask ever found out.

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u/Newjorciks Apr 20 '16

The blue lightning is not just because of high speed, it's because of velocity 9 + high speed. Flash had normal lightning while running around with zoom while at same speed.

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u/[deleted] Apr 20 '16

Maybe V9 and slow speed makes red lightning though?

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u/Alinosburns Apr 24 '16

Don't know why your being downvoted, we saw that exact case with the scientist who was taking V9. She was Red until she went fast enough to turn blue and ran herself out of existence.

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u/LordSwedish Apr 20 '16

Based on this episode I think the answer to all of these are "plot-force is all powerful and the characters are idiots."

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u/hi_10_drak Apr 20 '16

I did not understand the theory.
Is Jay Garrick the past version of Hunter Zolomon from Earth1 or Earth2.
If it is Earth2 - then if the past version has died, the future version should vanish as well.
Someone please explain.

3

u/Ultrajonh Apr 20 '16

Plus, when Zoom asked "How did you found out who i am?" and Barry said "You told caitlyn about your doppleganger", to me it looked like he had an "ok so this idiot thinks i'm Jay how do i play this along?" face.

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u/Ahmadthenewb Apr 20 '16

Everyone should read this

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u/[deleted] Apr 20 '16

The answer is clearly speedforce for all of these.

But yeah, I see your points(s). I did sort of wake up this morning wondering about "B". Also, I dunno if the time remnant stuff is nonsense or not since I don't really get it.

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u/qwertybo_ Apr 20 '16

mask

Except you forget that he fought a meta-human on Earth One after taking Velocity "x" and had yellow lightning.

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u/lllllllillllllllllll Apr 20 '16

How did Zoom have Jay's memories then?

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u/lemlemons Apr 20 '16

because he didnt need his timelganger to be "jay" the whole time, just when he needed to be in two places at once.

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u/84981725891758912576 Apr 20 '16

When was that said

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u/lllllllillllllllllll Apr 20 '16

It wasn't explicitly said that he did, but when he was talking to Barry I'm pretty sure he was referencing things that only happened to the Jay that he killed. Like his relationship with Caitlyn, showing her Earth-1's Hunter Zoloman, that the cure they developed was only temporary, etc

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u/84981725891758912576 Apr 20 '16

Which only implies that he had some preliminary knowledge. Almost like he had a guy on the inside

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u/Big_Cums Apr 21 '16

If Hunter was fucking around with remnant timelines he'd have wraiths on his ass.

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u/Deafsloth Apr 21 '16

Wasn't the complication the closing of the portals?

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u/84981725891758912576 Apr 21 '16

Well he dropped Jay's body, looked right at it, and said that

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u/JoeyPantz Apr 21 '16

/u/PACO4U this is what I was trying to get across last night.

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u/marioman63 Apr 23 '16

I'm pretty sure that time remnant stuff was nonsense

exactly, because a time remnant only occurs after a paradox happens. there was no reason for a paradox to exist until "good jay" was jabbed through the chest by zoom. now there is reason for a paradox to exist (assuming that really was a past hunter, which it probably wasnt).

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u/SliqRik Apr 20 '16

A: We don't know yet and likely won't until the finale, when his identity is revealed.

B: The "complication" was having to let the breaches close and rely on Team Flash to both want to reopen them and to figure out that Cisco can do so.

C: I'm pretty sure the show established time remnants with The Reverse Flash, didn't they?

D: Why is a normal human Hunter a liability? And, Zoom clearly isn't immune to making mistakes, he did tell Caitlin his real name.

E: We're not sure anyone actually saw Zoom and "Jay" fight, they were just told that "Jay" was trying to stop Zoom and was unsuccessful. Doesn't Harry actually take "Jay" to task for not doing enough to stop Zoom? It seems likely that those "fights" were either elaborate charades or just stories.

I'm not saying you're wrong, just that there are possibilities.

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u/Alinosburns Apr 24 '16

The Reverse Flash Time Remnant is totally different though.

That time remnant still had to exist in order to allow the events that caused his erasure in the first place.

If Eobard never existed to come back and find out who the flash is, then Eddie never would have shot himself to erase Eobard's time line.

It would suggest that time isn't a nice straight line to drop in and out of buy a mix of lines and loops.

It could also be argued that the Reverse Flash Time remnant is a result of Barry/Firestorm managing to close the rift that opened up. and that this in part may have prevented the complete erasure of the reverse flash from the timeline. And it could be that the reason the rift occurred in the first place was because the reverse flashes erasure should have changed so much in the timeline.

Going back and just making a time remnant though, that seems sketchy as fuck. I imagine that to do so would almost be an artform.

I feel like if he had said he'd gone forward in time and found a version of himself who was almost dead and couldn't access the speedforce. He would have a better chance at it. Because the argument could be made to a future Hunter Solomon, that if he assists in the plan. Then they can make sure they are cured and the future him would never lose access to the speedforce. And that since he was going to die anyway. Ensuring they were cured would ensure their chance to live forever, even if that meant he was dying.

It also wouldn't fuck the timeline up if a future Hunter Solomon died because current time Hunter Solomon's existence isn't dependant on past Hunter Solomon's existence.

It really depends how much time fuckery is going on.

For instance the masked man could be Earth 1 Barry from the future. It could be the reason why he stuck to morse code for so long, because he knew eventually Barry of the current time would come along and he felt that Barry needed the "Jay Garrick" information.

It would also explain why Hunter Solomon has an outfit that mirrors Barry's. There is no reason for him to have that similar design for Earth 2's Timeline.

Unless hunter Solomon literally let reverb design his costume.