The Flash star Teddy Sears on Zoom's big win

Warning: This story contains spoilers from Tuesday’s episode of The Flash. Read at your own risk!

Though Barry found a way to not only go faster, but to cross universes, it was Zoom who got the upper hand during Tuesday’s episode of The Flash.

Through flashbacks, viewers finally got more insight into the sociopath previously purporting to be Barry Allen’s (Grant Gustin) mentor. After returning from the war, Hunter Zolomon’s (Teddy Sears) father killed his mother, leaving Hunter to be raised in the foster care system. Hunter then went on to become a serial killer, who murdered 23 people; he was incarcerated and receiving electroshock therapy during the particle accelerator explosion on Earth-2, which granted him his powers.

Meanwhile, after a brief journey to National City via the tachyon device for the Supergirl crossover, Barry realized that Cisco (Carlos Valdes) could be the key to opening up a breach to Earth-2. Unfortunately, it gave Zoom the perfect opportunity to cross back to Earth-1, where he promptly took Wally (Keiynan Lonsdale) hostage in a bid to steal Barry’s speed.

Barry, of course, obliged, but Zoom took more than just Barry’s speed, kidnapping Caitlin (Danielle Panabaker) on his way out. “There’s that smug satisfaction that comes with seeing your long, multi-month plan come to fruition,” Sears tells EW. “For one, Zoom needs Barry’s speed for a very specific reason. We’ll get into why. He’s satisfied on a number of counts. Of course, he gets the girl by any means necessary. She’s not a trophy; she really is someone he believes that he loves and wants to have with him.”

However, Caitlin doesn’t quite feel the same way. “No,” Sears says. “After the reveal, she is repulsed by him. She wants nothing to do with him. Shockingly, Hunter doesn’t quite understand why, which is also fun. ‘What do you mean?’ He’s a bit misguided, and he’s very broken.”

The episode also provided a bit more information as to how Zoom was able to kill Jay Garrick, a.k.a. himself, in that earlier episode. “It does have something to do with what Tom Cavanagh was doing with time remnants and other timelines,” Sears says. “Essentially, Hunter goes back in time to convince another version of himself to go along with this plan as a sociopathic, charismatic convincer would. He gets him to go along with this. He recruits himself to take part in his plan. There’s a bit more to it than that, which will unspool in future episodes.” The only reason he dressed up as a superhero? To give people hope so he could then rip it away. Seriously sociopathic.

The Flash airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET on The CW.