The Flash S02 E16: Trajectory

There’s a new female speedster in Central City – Trajectory – and not only is she making the Flash look bad, she’s letting him take the rap for her misdeeds. Why is she doing this, causing mayhem and destruction wherever she goes, and how can she be stopped? Meet me after the super speed jump for my thoughts on “Trajectory.”

The Earth-Three Theory

A theory was floated recently by Ric Croxton over on the Silver Age Reviews Yahoo! group that may be the answer to what we saw at the end of our last episode. Zoom was finally revealed as Jay Garrick, causing everyone to wonder what was going on. How could Zoom be Jay Garrick? Because, we haven’t been seeing Earth-Two, we’ve been seeing Earth-Three. Zoom is the evil Jay Garrick of Earth-Three and the man in the mask, the knocking man, is the Jay Garrick of Earth-Two, the beloved Golden Age Flash.

Think about it. When Stein originally explained Earth-Two, he didn’t just theorize two Earths, but several, an infinite number – he even specifically named an Earth-Three. It’s been there in front of us all along. In the comics, Earth-Three is the reverse world where Columbus discovered Europe, actor Abraham Lincoln shot President John Wilkes Booth, and the evil Justice League calls itself the Crime Syndicate. Eeeevil. We are looking at opposites in the doppelgangers – Harry Wells, Killer Frost, and Deathstorm, who in the comics was even a member of the Crime Syndicate! We have never seen Earth-Two before, only a misnamed Earth-Three.

Team Flash Night Out

As we open this episode, Barry is back on his getting faster kick only with more honest reasons. He needs to be faster, so he can cross over to ‘Earth-Two’ and to stop Zoom. Speaking of which, Jesse notes that on her world, Beyoncé is a senator. I guess that one could go either way, so no comment. It’s decided that some downtime is needed, so Team Flash goes out for a night on the town.

Jesse can only go with if she wears one of Harry’s metahuman alert watches. At the club I laughed aloud when Barry kept tripping it, but then Wally and Iris show up. Did Wally trigger it when they were introduced?? Add in a little overprotective Daddy Wells, and things get dark. And then the new female speedster showed up, and robbed everyone.

Trajectory

Now despite how Team Flash reacts in this episode, female speedsters are nothing new. I’ve talked about Jesse Quick and Ms. Flash before, and there was a Joanie Swift back in the Golden Age who briefly teamed with Johnny Quick. Both Red Trinity and Blue Trinity had female members, and then there’s this episode’s speedster, Trajectory. Eliza Harmon was part of the same metahuman project of Lex Luthor that produced Everyman. Her metahuman power was of course, super speed. She could not control her speed without the use of a drug called sharp, and hailed from the same town that raised another speedster, Impulse.

Here on television, she’s still a speedster, but there’s a different drug involved this time, the Velocity-9, not Sharp. This Eliza Harmon works for Mercury Labs and synthesized her own very addictive and personality disassociating V-9. A former colleague of Caitlin’s, she is more full of denial than all of ancient Egypt, and bit more crazy. She’s full of crazy, and wants to frame the Flash for her path of crime and destruction.

Faster and Faster

Trajectory’s origins as well as those of the Velocity-9 get Barry a bit worked up. All this time he’s been trying to get faster, for reasons both right and wrong, and here’s this short cut that no one told him about. This brings up one of the big differences between the Flash of the comics and the television Flash. Grant Gustin’s version of the character not only carries the weight of the world on his shoulders, but gets all emo about it as well. In my estimation this is one of the most unlikable bits here.

Previously the television Flash brought the joy of the comics characters to the small screen. Barry always enjoyed using his powers, he gloried in it, was happy, was stable. And he also did all this stuff on his own. On television, “The Flash” follows the pattern formula of “Arrow,” and one also used in “Supergirl,” which will be crossing over with our scarlet speedster next week. They have team support, and one would think, with all this support, Barry could relax a little and share the burden, right?

Mad Speed

Trajectory comes calling at S.T.A.R. Labs, demanding V-9 and stabs Jesse with it to make sure it’s the real thing. How long before we get Jesse Quick now? Wells said afterward they got the drug out of her system, but come on, do we really believe that? One of the subplots this episode is the strained relationship between Harry and Jesse – she hates his darker side, his desperation, and ever decreasing morals. He’ll do anything to get what he wants, and it spooks her so hard, Jesse runs away. I wonder if she’ll be a speedster when she comes back?

When the evil speedster first shows up at S.T.A.R., she traps the Flash in the Pipeline. After she takes off, all it takes to free our hero was the press of a button by Cisco – are you telling me he couldn’t have done that while Trajectory was there?? It’s an interesting side note that Trajectory’s on-purpose destructive powers are so similar to Ms. Flash’s accidental side effect destructive powers from the comics. After injecting herself with all the V-9, Trajectory speeds off, burning herself up, and leaving only her costume in a swirl of blue lightning. My first thought was Cobalt Blue, but then I realized at the same time team Flash did… Zoom.

Zoom!

The connection is made. Zoom is powered by Velocity-9, and thereby is dying from the same cellular degeneration that was plaguing Jay, and just killed Trajectory. That’s what the blue lightning represents. Cisco reveals that he’s been ‘vibing’ on Zoom lately, every time he gets near Jay’s memorialized helmet. Knowing that speedsters can appear in two places at once, when Cisco verifies that Jay is Zoom, they know it’s true. I’m sure we’ll soon find out if the theory I talked about at the start of this review is true or not.

Miscellaneous

As always there’s a touch of the melodrama and soap opera in the mix, and the subplot this time almost seems completely separate from the main story. Iris’ new editor at Picture News, Scott Evans, has a hate on for the Flash, and he also wants to date Iris. She doesn’t seem to mind, once she figures out that’s what he’s after. He tells a story of a corrupt mayor as to why he distrusts heroes. I almost thought for a second it sounded similar to the Top when he possessed a Senator… Either way, I hate the idea of Barry or Iris with anyone but Barry or Iris. That whole love that transcends time and space, love and death, etc., you know?

“Bad Flash”? Wow, since “Vixen,” Cisco has really been off in his naming. Please don’t tell me one of my favorite characters has lost his best super power! And did anyone else notice some minor tweaks made to the Flash’s costume? Maybe we will get those yellow boots sooner or later after all.

Next: “World’s Finest” with Supergirl!