This episode provides us with the backstory and motives of Zoom, the explanation for Jay’s apparent death, and clues to the identity of the Man in the Mask.

Unfortunately, exposition and revelation give way to a plot that only works because….

….everyone in the Flash-verse is an idiot, more so than usual this week. As evidence, consider:

-Team Flash discover Zoom’s identity because he provided them with information about his doppelganger that he had no reason to share. He follows this earlier dumb move by standing around providing them with additional information about his plans. Apparently, Earth-2 has no James Bond villains from which he might have learned.

-Team Flash trap Zoom, and then stand around gloating instead of securing him. Or even killing him. And we know they‘ve watched Bond movies.

-Zoom kidnaps someone connected to Barry, but not (yet) essential to his team, as bait. Why? He could have taken anyone else. He later does.

-The Flash trusts that Zoom will keep his end of the deal, even though that deal will leave them largely defenseless if Zoom, a power-crazed psychopath, changes his mind (I’ll take this one back if, in fact, the team has double-crossed him with Velocity 9).

-Practical and legal concerns assure that Barry won’t try to get help from the universe he recently discovered that has at least two superhumans who could hand Zoom his butt without breaking a sweat.