In this episode of The Flash season 2, “Trajectory,” Barry goes out for a night on the town with his friends and encounters a female speedster who is using her speed to commit various crimes. In order to defeat her, Barry will have to figure out a way to increase his speed. Meanwhile, Iris gets a new assignment that leads to some confusion with her boss, Jesse learns some shocking information about her father, and Barry realizes a startling truth about someone he trusted.
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Team Flash Take a Night Off
The episode begins with Team Flash heading out to a canyon so Barry can work on increasing his speed. The canyon is very wide and Barry has some doubts about whether or not he can clear the distance, but he tries jumping it anyway. Alas, he does not make it and has to be saved by Cisco’s drones.
The team heads back to the lab and Barry is rambling on about new things they can try to increase his speed. His friends interrupt him and say they need a break because they have been working non-stop all week. Barry eventually agrees and they all decide to go out to a club. Jesse has to ask her father for permission and Harry eventually relents but insists that she wear a watch for “protection.” This watch — which seems to go off whenever someone gets close to her — is the device Harry used to record all of his journal entries back when he was working against the team. (I was wondering if those recordings would come back to haunt Harry.)
That night, Iris and Wally join the others at the club and there are several hilarious team moments. Barry tries and fails to explain his familial connection to Wally, Barry and Iris exchange some knowing glances when Wally starts flirting with Jesse, and Cisco shows off some dance moves that no explanation can do justice to. Said dance moves lead to Iris asking Barry to promise her that if they ever get married one day, Cisco will not do that dance at their wedding. They discuss how odd it is that they were married both in a version of the future and on Earth-2. Alas, their relationship discussion is interrupted when a speedster shows up at the club.
This unknown speedster uses their powers to steal from everyone in sight in mere seconds. Barry chases after the other speedster, but his rival turns out to be faster than he is and escapes. Several of the club-goers assume that the bad meta is the Flash, and someone even manages to take a picture that looks a lot like the real Flash.
Barry and Cisco work through the possibilities of how this speedster could possibly exist. Since the breaches are closed and the particle accelerator explosion happened so long ago, they have no idea how this person could have gotten their powers. Caitlin then explains that she created a serum that is basically a speed drug.
Barry is angry that Caitlin and Harry never told him about Velocity-9, especially since he has spent months trying to get faster so he can defeat Zoom. Caitlin points out that the drug has some severe side effects and that Jay was dying from using it. (This, of course, does not stop Barry from spending part of the episode debating about whether or not he should take the V-9 to level the playing field.)
Thanks to an alert from their meta-human app, Barry heads out after this new speedster, but once again, said speedster is able to out-run him. Only this time, Barry sees that the new speedster is a woman.
Meet Trajectory
Cisco is delighted that they have their first lady speedster, but Barry is less than impressed that this meta keeps beating him. He tells the team about the suit she was wearing and they realize that only someone who knows about the speed-force could have designed it. This leads them to Mercury Labs and a colleague Caitlin once asked to help her figure out the V-9 formula.
Though this woman covers with Joe and Caitlin, it turns out that she is the bad speedster they are looking for. This woman, Eliza, apparently has a split personality thanks to V-9 and her speedster persona is winning out. After she takes the last dose of V-9 she has, she realizes where she can go to get more.
The speedster heads to S.T.A.R. Labs and traps Barry in the pipeline so she can get what she needs from his team. Caitlin and Harry try to talk her down, but she wants more V-9 and she wants it now. To prove her point, she holds them all at gun-point and takes Jesse hostage.
With Jesse’s life in danger, Harry tells the crazed speedster that they can make the drug for her. Harry and Caitlin mix up a new batch of V-9, but Trajectory wants to make sure they didn’t dose it with anything, so she tests it out on poor Jesse. When Jesse seems okay, Trajectory leaves. Alas, shortly thereafter, Jesse has a bad reaction to the drug because it was too pure. They manage to save her with a blood transfusion, but Jesse is upset that her father put countless people in danger just to protect her.
Barry Takes a Leap of Faith
Luckily for Team Flash, Caitlin thought to put a micro-tracker into the new batch of V-9 so they can locate Trajectory. They find her on the bridge and realize that if she keeps using her speed, she could destroy the bridge and kill everyone on it. When Barry arrives at the bridge, it is already collapsing. He manages to get the people on the bridge to safety, and Trajectory responds by causing the bridge to split. With the bridge split and Trajectory on the other side, Barry’s only chance of getting to her is if he jumps the gap to where she is.
This time, Barry is able to make the jump and he tackles Trajectory to keep her from escaping. Barry tries to plead with the real person inside the meta persona, but Eliza isn’t really there anymore. Despite Barry’s insistence that they can help her, Trajectory injects herself with the last of the V-9, claiming it is all the help she needs. As she speeds away, Barry notices her lightning turn blue. She then disintegrates right in front of him.
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Iris Gets Closer to Her Boss
After the attack at the club, Iris’ new boss — who, if you recall, is no fan of meta-humans — decides to run with a piece exposing the Flash as a fraud. He assigns Iris to write an article from the point of view of someone who was at the club and saw the Flash in action. Iris tries to argue that she does not believe this was the Flash, but her boss is not hearing it.
Iris goes to him later on claiming she has a source that will confirm this “bad” Flash is an impostor, but when he asks her to reveal the source, Iris cannot. Since he is still planning to run the story, Iris decides to distract him by asking him more questions about his vision for the piece. She invites him for coffee so they can discuss it and the poor guy clearly thinks she is asking him out.
During their coffee “date,” Iris and Scott continue to discuss their differing views on the Flash. Scott explains that he was once tasked with investigating this politician who everyone loved and he found out that the guy was dirty. He says he saw what other people were not willing to see and it made him realize that heroes need to be held accountable for their actions just like everyone else.
Scott can see that Iris has not been won over by his argument, so he asks her if being anti-Flash is a deal-breaker when it comes to dating. Iris is clearly thrown by the suggestion and he quickly figures out that he was the only one who saw this as a date. He also realizes that Iris only asked him for coffee to delay in writing the story she didn’t want to write.
After Iris gets proof that the criminal was a female speedster and not the Flash, she writes up a truthful piece that impresses her boss. They discuss the fact that it is okay to believe in heroes, and Iris segues that conversation into a discussion about misreading the situation the night before. Iris stumbles over her words a bit before telling him that his views on the Flash are not a dating deal-breaker. They flirt a bit and I wonder if their flirtation is supposed to feel as awkward as it does and if the show actually plans to put these two together.
On the one hand, it would be nice to see Iris move forward with her life after losing Eddie. On the other hand, her relationship with her boss is already complicated enough without adding in romantic/sexual tension. I would much rather see Scott as a mentor to Iris than have him become her new love interest. Here’s hoping they will go on one or two dates before realizing they are better off as colleagues.
Jesse Leaves Town
Earlier in the episode before the team’s night out is disrupted by Trajectory, Jesse gets frustrated by the “protection” Harry gave her and heads off to the bathroom to disable the watch. While trying to shut it off, Jesse activates something and ends up hearing the recording Harry made right before he killed the Turtle to steal his speed for Zoom. Needless to say, Jesse is horrified by her father’s actions.
The next morning, Jesse confronts her father about what she heard on the recording, and Harry admits to everything. He tells her that it came down to a choice between her or Barry, and he chose her. Jesse is heartbroken. This man was once her hero and she does not even recognize him anymore.
After seeing how far her father is willing to go to keep her safe, Jesse decides it is time for her to branch out on her own. She records a message for Harry, telling him that she is leaving and asking him not to come after her. We then see her board a bus to Opal City. Is Jesse heading for some place in particular? Has she really been cured of the V-9 or will she become the show’s second lady speedster?
Team Flash Learns the Truth
After Trajectory dies, Barry tells the team about seeing her lightning turn blue. He wonders if it is a side effect of V-9 and they start to wonder if Zoom’s blue lightning is an indicator that he also took the Velocity serum. If that’s the case, that means that Zoom is dying and he needs Barry’s speed to save himself. Barry points out that this is just like what was happening with Jay, but the others are loathe to believe it.
Cisco then admits that he has had several vibes of Zoom since they closed the breaches, and every time he has one he is standing near Jay’s helmet. Barry has Cisco touch Jay’s helmet so he gets another Vibe. This time, Cisco sees Zoom remove his mask and is shocked when it turns out to be Jay underneath (or at least the person they knew as Jay). Cisco confirms the Jay is Zoom theory, and Barry gets so upset that he has to go scream into a canyon.
What did you think of this episode of The Flash? What did you think of the show’s first female speedster? Do you think Iris and Scott would make a good couple? Are you rooting for Iris to finally figure out she has feelings for Barry? Are you surprised the team learned the truth about Jay so soon? How will they get back to Earth-2 to confront Zoom? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section.
The Flash airs Tuesday nights at 8pm on The CW.
(Image courtesy of The CW)
Contributing Writer, BuddyTV
