A new speedster is in town for Season 2 Episode 16 of The Flash, with the name of Trajectory. She is out to give the Flash a bad name, while having a little fun along the way. Barry has to figure out how to stop her. Check out Josh’s recap of the episode, and our thoughts!
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Episode Recap of The Flash, Season 2 Episode 16: Trajectory
This episode of The Flash begins with Barry really trying to get his speed game up. He is determined to get back to Earth 2 so he can stop Zoom. His plan? To leap across a gorge, which looks pretty dangerous if he can’t make it. Barry seems to be concerned about not making it, but the team tries to give him reassurance. Unfortunately, he does come short on the attempt, but luckily Cisco has some drones with a net that are able to catch Barry before he plummets to his doom.
Back at STAR Labs, Cisco insists on a night off so they can recharge. Barry isn’t excited for it, but the team seems set on doing so. Jesse, meanwhile, tries to convince daddy Wells to let her go, and he eventually does—on the condition that Jesse wears an oversized safety-watch device, thing. Grudgingly she accepts these terms.
At the club, Barry, Caitlin, and Cisco realize this club isn’t quite their scene, but they make the most of it. Iris and Wally show up, and it looks like we have a bit of a crush developing between Wally and Jesse. Jesse becomes embarrassed by her oversized-watch, which keeps beeping, though. She heads to the restroom and tries to get it off, but inadvertently triggers a recording of Wells, where he says he would kill to save his daughter. This freaks Jesse out.
Cisco gets his groove on, on the dance floor with Caitlin, and it makes me wonder if there is anther possible romance developing there. Iris and Barry watch Cisco being a goofball while Caitlin dances with him. Iris makes some comments about their Earth 2 marriage, and possible future marriage, which leads me to think their romance might progress, too.
A speedster interrupts all this fun the group is having though, and it is not one we have seen before. It winds up stealing personal items from everyone in a flash. It glows red like Barry, but clearly isn’t him. Barry tries to catch up to this speedster, but is unable to. He does see that it is a woman speedster though…
Back at STAR Labs, the team tries to figure out what happened to create another speedster. The only viable solution is offered by Caitlin, where she says she sent a part of the Velocity 9 formula to a friend at Mercury Labs named Eliza Harmon for assistance in helping Jay Garrick.
Caitlin and Joe decide to pursue their only lead, and have a chat with Eliza. Eliza says she followed all protocols, and doesn’t know anything about anything—so she says. After Joe and Caitlin leave, we see she is a big liar. She also seems to be a little mentally unstable, as she seems to have a Doctor Jekyll/Mr. Hyde persona going—having one side arguing in favor of using more Velocity 9, the other side trying to talk herself out of it. She seems to be running out of the drug though, which leads into further troubles with STAR Labs…
But meanwhile, Iris at her work has been given the task of writing a piece on the Flash turning to the dark side, as her boss, Scott, believes this new speedster is in fact the culprit, refusing to believe any other explanation. Iris tries to get out of it, but is unable to. When it comes down to it, Iris invites Scott out for a cup of coffee to try to reason with him. Scott takes this as a date though, which eventually leads to both being embarrassed, and yet again Iris must write the article about the Flash she doesn’t want to.
Picking back up on the female speedster—who eventually reveals her name as Trajectory, winds up invading STAR Labs, and locks Barry in a meta-human containment cell. Threatening Jesse, she demands more Velocity 9 to be made. Wells and Caitlin agree, and get it produced. Trajectory, worried that it might be poisoned, she decides to have a test run with Jesse. She injects her, and speeds off.
Barry is freed, and thankfully, Caitlin put some trackers in the Velocity 9 (although I am pretty sure her mischief would make the news pretty quickly). Trajectory is running back and forth on a bridge, which is going to eventually structurally compromise it.
Barry arrives at the bridge, and rushes to get the bystanders to safety, and then the bridge collapses, with Trajectory on the other side. Barry decides now is the time he has to make this massive jump, and is able to do so, tackling Trajectory once he lands. Barry tries to reason with Eliza, telling her the dangers of Velocity 9.
She seems to think about what Barry says, but her dark side takes over, and she uses more of Velocity 9. She speeds off to escape, but as she does so, her red streak begins turning blue, and she disintegrates into nothingness, until she disappears completely.
Back at STAR Labs, Barry explains what he saw, and people start putting things together, and Barry says that Jay must be Zoom. They don’t know how yet given he has been in two places at once, but it seems to be their conclusion in the end. This seems confirmed when Cisco “vibes” Jay and sees him in the Zoom costume on Earth 2.
Meanwhile, Wells’ daughter Jesse is pretty upset about her father’s darkness he showed in the recording she heard, and decides to move away. She heads to Opal City, a place we have not been to in the DC TV Universe yet. Also, we see Iris is actually a little attracted to this Scott guy, leaving the door open for a future date with him it seems, after she presents her “Flash is a good guy” article to him.
Josh’s Thoughts: The Flash, Season 2 Episode 16: Trajectory
Well, unfortunately, aside from the end of this episode, this Flash episode felt like a filler one to me. I also thought it was a pretty weak villain, as we have had plenty of “Speedsters” lately. On top of that it sort of felt like an “after school special” with the “don’t do drugs” message heavily pushed. A good message to convey of course, but it felt a little too cheesy for me.
This episode felt reminiscent of Spiderman though—with Scott acting as J. Jonah Jameson trying to paint The Flash in a bad light, and turn Central City against the Flash. I didn’t really like this bit, as it felt too “copycat-y” to me, and just seemed off, considering how much good the Flash has been doing for the city.
Iris also puzzles me. We see that there is definitely a future where the two get married, and an alternate timeline where they already are. Why not just have it happen already? I guess the counter-argument to this is that they lived together as children, so they feel too brother-sister now, and it would be weird. I can see that I guess, but they keep laying hints of a romance, then all of a sudden having one character veer off to a new character that is introduced, such as Patti Jenkins, or Scott, or Eddie, or …you get the idea.
I did enjoy the end of this episode, where Barry begins to put things together. They are now aware of who their enemy is—or so they think at least. I am still wondering who is in the mask, and why there have been two Jay Garricks. I don’t think this is a case of Jay creating a double of himself—I think it is something else, like my clone theory, or that the Jay from Earth 2 is rounding up all of the Flashes from different universes. This makes sense, as perhaps Jay Garrick is the Flash in most universes, but in Earth 2 he turns evil, into Zoom, and in Earth 1 Barry happened to take this mantle rather than Hunter Zolomon/Jay.
I am ready for Barry to get back into Earth 2 and confront Jay though. What I really wonder though, is will Barry have to take Velocity 9 to be able to take on Zoom? Then will we have a potential for Barry to get hooked on the drug and possibly become evil himself? Hmmm….
Violet’s Thoughts on Season 2 Episode 16 of The Flash: Trajectory
I wasn’t too excited about this episode. While it was cool that they brought in a new female metahuman villain, it was not so cool that they killed her off by the end of the episode. Plus, again, the show has killed off one of Caitlin’s friends. I guess it didn’t portray Caitlin and Eliza as all that close, as it seemed like they were more like acquaintances who happened to work together in the brief time that Caitlin had worked at Mercury Labs, but it did seem like Caitlin thought she knew her at least fairly well, being able to judge what kind of person she was — or so she thought — making comments like, “That doesn’t sound like Eliza.” What kind of effect does this have on Caitlin that it turns out she could have misjudged yet another person so badly? However, it appears that the show doesn’t address this. That is, unless Caitlin is still trying to be cold. But it doesn’t seem like it, judging by her seemingly back to normal behavior throughout the episode. She even tolerated dancing with Cisco.
Speaking of which, it felt like a weird choice to have the team go out to some club to unwind, as it looked like none of them were really enjoying the environment, other than Cisco. Then Wally and Jesse join them, who apparently are underage. I’m having trouble keeping track of people’s ages. To me, they just all seem like they’re the same age group. But I guess Jesse and Wally are supposed to be significantly younger, so the show is trying to push toward a potential love connection in that department. The show also tries to keep bringing up the fact that Barry and Iris were married to each other in their alternate lives. Personally, I can’t get behind this, because it kinda creeps me out that Iris’s dad is pretty much Barry’s dad, and they do all these family nights together, portraying that Iris, Wally, and Barry are all siblings. Barry and Iris just seem like brother and sister to me. Maybe things would have been different and not as weird if Barry’s mom hadn’t been killed by Reverse Flash and went to go live with the Wests when he was a child, but in this lifetime he did, which makes it weird.
Anyway, it felt like the only point to this episode was so that they could figure out that Jay Garrick is Zoom — which Cisco could have revealed from his “vibe” if they had waited a few minutes. They didn’t need to have this temporary metahuman, fueled only by Velocity 9, to come in for an episode and be immediately killed off. But now that they know Jay is Zoom, what are they going to do about it?
Scenes from The Flash, Season 2 Episode 17: Flash Back
Here are scenes from next week’s The Flash episode titled Flash Back:
I had a real issue with Iris and her arc in this episode. Her boss thinks they’re on a date and then she decides to go out with him?? Just really strange and I don’t like that it portrays it as normal or possibly good, since when it happens in real life it’s usually creepy, one-sided, and/or inappropriate
But I loved Trajectory and I hope she can somehow be brought back. Maybe when they explore more what the Speed Force actually IS, like in the comics when a Speedster dies and joins the Speed Force