CWFor about two seconds tonight, we felt bad for Zoom/Hunter Zolomon/Jay Garrick/Teddy Sears.
Then it quickly became clear that the only version of Zoom/Hunter/Jay that was sympathetic was the child who watched his father kill his mother and was then put into foster care.
Yep, Hunter's Earth-2 backstory is frighteningly similar to Barry's, except it differs at the point where Joe took Barry in as his own. Hunter had no one, and grew up to be a terrifying serial killer who ended up convicted and stuck in a mental hospital to receive electro shock therapy.
That's where he was when the particle accelerator exploded, and that's how he ended up with his speed. Unfortunately, his speed was fading away and he grew sicker and sicker, which is where Barry came in. Zoom was desperate to steal Barry's speed, which he achieved tonight by kidnapping Wally and only letting him live in exchange for the speed.
After powering himself up (and looking more evil than Zoom has ever looked before), Zoom had the powerless Barry pinned up against the wall, until Caitlin pleaded with the guy she knew still cared for her. Zoom promptly let Barry fall to the ground, grabbed Caitlin, and sped outta there so fast that we had to rewind to see what happened.
All of this made sense, except for one thing, and we honestly thought we were just too dumb to understand what was happening until Hunter kindly explained the thing that had been bothering us: How was he Zoom and also their friend Jay if they had watched their friend Jay die.
Simply put, they did not watch their friend Jay die. They watched a time remnant of their friend Jay die. Zoom had gone into the past, grabbed a version of himself from another time, and convinced him to allow himself to be murdered by himself for a good/evil cause. Not an easy explanation, but it does put to rest a serious argument we've been having for weeks, so that's helpful!
Meanwhile, Iris is considering the fact that Barry might be her destiny and she might need to tell him she loves him. While that particular part of tonight's storyline felt a bit trivial next to everything else that was going on, a little love from Iris may be just the thing to keep Barry from falling into too much of a funk without his speed.
Unfortunately, a funk is exactly what it looks like Barry sinks into next week, and it's going to be interesting to see how long Barry (and The Flash) can actually go without being the Flash.
The Flash airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. on the CW.