The Flash: Did Barry Allen And Friends Fall For The Same Trick Twice?

By Nick Tylwalk | Feb 27, 2016

The old song by The Who that promises we “Won’t Get Fooled Again” doesn’t seem to apply on The Flash. It took most of Season 1 before Barry Allen, Cisco Ramon and Caitlin Snow realized that Harrison Wells, their mentor and the main person pushing Barry to be faster, was in fact Eobard Thawne, the Reverse-Flash. That trick shouldn’t work again, but after Zoom finally unmasked, it sure does look like someone with a familiar face is the person they’re trying to stop.

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So what gives? Was Team Flash so desperate for help in stopping Zoom because of his obvious speed advantage over Barry that they accepted the word of Jay Garrick (if that’s even who he really is/was!) at face value? Or were they so concerned about not trusting the Earth-2 Harrison “Harry” Wells that they simply couldn’t fathom the real threat was someone else?

To be fair, we still don’t know what the deal is with the Jay Garrick who was helping out the S.T.A.R. Labs crew and winning Caitlin’s heart, and if he’s as dead as he appears, it could still be a while. But at some point, Barry is going to discover that he and Zoom were versions of the same person, and given his stated feelings about how he considers the people in his life important regardless of which Earth they live on, he’s not going to be happy.

According to Grant Gustin, that’s definitely going to happen before the end of Season 2. The man who plays the Fastest Man Alive told EW that Barry will blame himself for this latest development.

"It’s betrayal and disappointment in himself. Because it’s almost like he’s been through this before, and he can’t believe he let himself go through it again."

The way the writers have set this mind set up for Barry is perfect. He’s already wracked with guilt over his recent decisions, something even guest star John Diggle noticed when he said Barry was “doing the Oliver thing” and carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. Somewhat literally, in the case of Earth-2.

Next: The Flash: Who is the Man in the Iron Mask?

Certainly, the rest of Team Flash has every reason to reassure Barry that there’s nothing he could have done differently since they were just as duped. Even more than that, there’s hope that the writers have another swerve or two to pull in the Zoom/Jay Garrick/Hunter Zolomon saga. Otherwise, that old adage about “fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me” will apply, and for a superhero and his super-smart friends, that would be a bad look indeed.