I want to apologize for not having this up sooner.  There has been some bad storms in the area the past two days which caused a delay in me watching this episode.

Without a doubt this was the best episode of Season 2.  Without Barry having his speed the pressure of recreating another particle acceleration explosion seemed to be the only option to stop Zoom.  The inclusion of Henry Allen in the mix was a great addition to show the struggle Barry was going through.  For a majority of the show we always see the father figure persona come from Joe West but with Wally taking over as favorite son the show needed someone to challenge Wells’ influence over Barry.  Last week we were left with Dr. Wells determined to recreate the particle acceleration explosion to get Barry’s speed back.  One thing that has made this version of Dr. Wells different from last season is his constant perception his ideas are always right, and when the team doesn’t agree he gets really grumpy. 

It was great to see Henry Allen come back with Barry and be a part of his life.  It seems that Henry could never really recapture his relationship with Barry since he became the Flash and that why he left.  With Barry not having his speed anymore allows Henry the ability to relate to Barry with his struggles.  The subtle reference that Henry Allen’s mother’s maiden name was Garrick could be the clue of who is in the Iron Mask.  The theory floating around now is Earth-2 Barry’s Great Grandfather is Jay Garrick.  The problem with the man in the iron mask is that we are not invested to find out who he is at this part of the season.

The introduction of Rupture from Earth-2 was a nice surprise into the stream of bad guys of the show.  Earth-2 definitely has better villains but the consistent problem of this show is the constant killing off of non-main villains.  The voice alteration wasn’t really a necessary attribute and became hilarious when Zoom and Rupture would have a conversation.  It seems that ever since Nolan’s Batman Trilogy all heroes and villains need to alter their voice.   

To add even more depth and heart to this episode we saw Iris confess her true feelings to Barry.  Since the beginning of this show fans have been waiting for this moment.  What I enjoyed about this scene was the timing of it.  Iris message to Barry didn’t seem forced or clichéd right before he went into the particle accelerator. 

With the perception that Barry is dead we got the birth of more speedsters with Wally and Jesse getting hit with the particle acceleration wave.  Now with only a couple of episodes left will the writers rush the inception of Wally and Jesse becoming sidekicks to Barry?

What really made this episode stand out is it gave Zoom some more credibility as a villain, especially killing all the police officers on live television.  Probably the biggest struggle this season has been that Zoom has not been a threat to the team or the citizens of Central City since recently.  We didn’t even no his motivation of death and destruction until recently.  Unfortunately in history villains who have a weak backstory have never really carried a show.  If you look just at successful comic book shows the best seasons have always been when the villain has a direct tie-in to the hero and a back story that encompasses multiple episodes.  With Zoom only committing half of an episodes to his back story that he witnessed his mother’s murder and was left in an orphanage is not enough for the audience to embrace him.  Reverse Flash and Deathstroke set the bar for other villians because of the multi-episodes dedicated to their back story.

Did anybody else see it odd that out of all the places in Central City, the best place to stop a villain is at a coffee shop?  I know it’s more than likely that it had to deal with the budget of the show to place the capture of Rupture at the coffee shop.  I want to know who the owner of the coffee shop is and how in the world would they allow a sting operation to capture a meta-human to take place at their store.