The Flash: Catching Up After Season 2 Winter Break

Even the Fastest Man Alive needs to stop and refuel. At least he does in the real world, where The Flash has joined most network shows and taken a fairly lengthy winter break.

That ends on Tuesday, January 19, so this is the perfect time to take stock of all of our favorite characters coming off the hiatus. A lot has happened already in Season 2, what with parallel Earths, a different Harrison Wells, the menace of Zoom, a new love for Barry and a brother Iris West never knew she had.

With that in mind — and avoiding the “getting up to speed” pun that is so tempting with this particular series — here’s a quick refresher on all the main cast members and major supporting characters so you go into the new episodes fully informed or reminded, as the case may be.

The Flash / Barry Allen

When we saw Barry at the beginning of Season 2, he was essentially a super-fast hermit, fighting crime on his own in order to protect those closest to him. Friends and family pulled him out of that mindset, and he’s needed their assistance in order to combat the threat of Zoom, who nearly killed Barry during their first head-to-head confrontation.

Barry bounced back from that defeat with the help of his dad, and he’s moved on from being hung up on Iris by finding love with Patty Spivot. Still, there are storm clouds on the horizon, as his decision not to tell Patty he’s the Flash could come back to haunt him, he had to change the timeline again during this season’s crossover with Arrow, and his initial instincts about the Earth 2 Harrison Wells have proven to be correct — though not for the reason Barry might think.

And Zoom is still out there …

Iris West

Though she arguably hasn’t been in the spotlight as much during Season 2, Iris has had two very personal subplots that are directly related. The first was dealing with meeting her mom, who she had been told was dead. The other was the revelation that she had a brother, Wally West, who we just met prior to the break.

Otherwise, Iris’ biggest area of growth has been her stepping up and becoming a full-fledged member of the S.T.A.R. Labs team. Her tenacity, judgment and ability to rally the others when their spirits flag have come in handy on more than one occasion.

Caitlin Snow

Poor Caitlin can’t seem to catch a break. The Season 2 premiere showed us the fate of her husband, Ronnie Raymond, who seemingly gave his life to save Central City. She was lured back to the fold because of her continuing desire to help, but it hasn’t always been smooth, as she made a poor choice when it came to finding a new Firestorm partner for Martin Stein and found herself a captive of Grodd.

On the positive side, Caitlin hit things off immediately with Jay Garrick, to the point where we’ve been discussing the #SnowJay hashtag all season long. Also, while Danielle Panabaker is going to end up portraying Killer Frost soon, it appears our Caitlin won’t be turning evil, and that’s definitely a relief.

Cisco Ramon

It took some persuasion, but Cisco finally embraced his Vibe side. Good thing too, because his powers have been key to some of the Flash’s adventures, and with Zoom continuing his mission to steal Barry’s speed before wiping him out for good, he’s going to keep needing to know what’s coming.

Cisco had some remarkably good fortune in his love life when he hit it off with chamring barista Kendra Saunders, but his more typical luck returned when she turned out to be Hawkgirl and had to depart. Win some, lose some, I guess.

Joe West

Here’s one character who’s had a real roller coaster ride in Season 2. Neither Joe nor Iris ended up in as much direct danger as last season, but Detective West has had to deal with a gung ho new partner, the reappearance of his wife and the bombshell of Wally, though at least that one was softened by the fact that it was delivered by Iris and Barry.

Despite all that, Joe continues to be the voice of reason in just about every situation. His advice to Barry is the most obvious, but he’s also quick to pull aside any member of the team who’s not thinking clearly. On a related note, Jesse L. Martin is just the best, getting every ounce of emotion out of the scenes that call for it.

Harrison Wells

At the beginning of Season 2, it was easy to sum up the Earth 2 Wells. Where the Wells who was really Eobard Thawne in disguise was a villain posing as a nice guy, “Harry” was a good guy with no people skills who came across as a jerk. Simple, right?

Not so much. This Wells is pulling kind of the same deal as the previous version, even as he begins to soften up on his teammates, because his daughter Jesse is being held hostage by Zoom. Is a man being blackmailed into doing something evil realy evil? That’s the big question for Harry when new episodes resume.

Let’s do lightning round for some other supporting characters:

Patty Spivot is a fun match for Barry as someone who shares a lot of the same interests, and she’s definitely added something to the show’s dynamic. She’s even got her own running subplot regarding Weather Wizard, though that seems to have been put to bed for the moment, and one can’t help but feel Barry and Joe keeping her in the dark will come back to haunt … someone.
It was exciting for longtime comic book fans to see original Flash Jay Garrick arrive, but he’s been sans powers the whole season and has sulked his way through most of his appearances. Hopefully the show’s writers have more planned for him than flirting with Caitlin and arguing with Wells.
Naturally, hopes are high for Wally West to eventually seize his comic book destiny as a speedster in his own right, but we don’t know much about him at all right now. He’ll certainly be more involved going down the stretch this spring.

Next: Kevin Smith Will Direct a Season 2 Episode of The Flash

Consider yourself properly informed. The Flash speeds back into our lives January 19 at 8 pm on The CW.

Home/TV

The Flash: Where We Left Every Character During The Season 2 Break

By Nick Tylwalk | Jan 16, 2016