The Flash Episode Guide: Season 8, Episode 6 - Impulsive Excessive Disorder

 For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.

Plot

Returning home to 2049, Nora and Bart West-Allen are surprised to find Jay Garrick alive and well. They are even more surprised when he mentions his wife, Rose, rather than the "Aunt Joan" they grew up with. The trail back in time to find out where things changed leads the siblings to 2013 and the very first metahuman crime spree in Central City after STAR Labs' particle accelerator exploded. Can the siblings save the day without creating a plethora of new paradoxes?


Influences

The Flash comics of Mark Waid, Back to the Future (children travel back in time and risk changing their parents past) and Doctor Who.


Performances

The interplay between Jordan Fisher and Jessica Parker Kennedy is pitch-perfect. The two have great chemistry together.


Artistry

The static lightning effects for XS and Impulse look unique and memorable.


Flash Facts

The episode title is a play on the mental health condition "obsessive compulsive disorder."

This episode marked the first appearance of Rick Cosnett as Eddie Thawne since 316.. Coincidentally, these episodes also almost aired exactly five years apart.

In the revised future timeline, Jay Garrick says that he's married to a woman named Rose who is at a botany club meeting. This may be a clever nod to Rose Canton, aka Thorn - a villainess with plant control powers who first appeared in Flash Comics #89 in November 1947. In the comics, Rose later went on to become the first wife of Green Lantern Alan Scott and gave birth to his children Jade and Obsidian. 

This episode features a cameo by Booster Gold in one newspaper article. This episode originally aired one week after Booster Gold made his Arrowverse premiere in L713.

This episode identifies the Queen of the Royal Flush Gang as a metahuman telepath named Mona Taylor.

In the comics, Monya Taylor was a washed up actress who was recruited to be the Queen of a new incarnation of the Royal Flush Gang in Justice League of America #203 in June 1982. A drunk and a gambling addict, she often came into conflict with her more competent underling, Ten.

The credits for the episode identify Ten as a woman named Wanda Wayland.

In the comics, Wanda Wayland was a skilled test pilot who was fired after she refused the advances of her boss. She was later recruited as the Ten of a new incarnation of the Royal Flush Gang in Justice League of America #203 in June 1982.

The credits for the episode also identify Jack as Jake Fox. This does not match any previous version of Jack from the comics, but his last name may be a tribute to writer Gardner Fox, who created the Royal Flush Gang.

The King, curiously, does not get a real name in the episode or the credits.

This is the first episode of The Flash to take place entirely in flashback,as the events of this episode predate 801.

Eddie and Iris' first interaction as depicted in this episode matches Iris' description of how they met and started dating in 101.

Jay Garrick makes reference to traveling back in time to fight Nazis and spending 16 years living on and off in the past. Beyond possibly being a reference to a Post-Crisis Justice Society of America (which existed without Jay Garrick in the Pre-Crisis Earth-1 of the Arrowverse) this mimics what happened to the Amazon Queen Hippolyta in the Post-Crisis Wonder Woman comics, where she briefly replaced her daughter as Wonder Woman and traveled back in time to World War II, becoming the Golden Age Wonder Woman and making those stories canon once again.

When Bart and Nora pose as CSI interns in the past, they give the aliases Bart Waid and Nora Moy. This is a tribute to writer Mark Waid (who co-created Impulse) and artist Jeff Noy (who co-created XS.)

At the end of the episode, Jay Garrick makes a joke about Lex Luthor being President of the United States. This actually did happen in the Post-Crisis DC Comics Universe and in various adaptations, such as the Earth of Smallville (Earth-167) and almost happened on Earth-38 during Supergirl Season 4.

Avery, the intern who helps XS and Impulse fix the timeline, may be an adaptation of Avery Ho, aka The Flash of China who was introduced into the DC Comics Multiverse in The Flash: Rebirth in 2016.

In the final scene of the episode, Iris is revealed to have dyed her hair red. In the original Flash comics, Iris West was a natural redhead. 


Technobabble

XS guesses that she and Impulse accidentally created massive temporal fissures when they used the Cosmic Treadmill right after Godspeed, as it wasn't built to withstand the energy of three speedsters at once.

Avery's thesis involves temporal dynamics and quantum divergence, proving that time travel is possible. She's trying to prove that Tolman's paradox can give rise to quantum superposition and that tachyon exchanges between two particles can generate superposition and entangle molecular pairs.

By moving Joe West instead of the bullet that was going to wound him, Bart created a new series of events leading to more changes in the timeline.

Nora's gauntlet, which utilizes integrated quantum circuitry, can measure temporal particles in flux.

The Royal Flush Gang's heist becomes a fixed point in time that cannot be changed. However, the casualties reported in the article about it keep changing because the deaths aren't casually entangled. This means it may be possible to prevent all the deaths, so long as the heist itself still occurs.

Dialogue Triumphs

Bart: Okay, okay. Why don't we just go back in time minutes, and see for ourselves - what we did wrong?
Nora: (sarcastically) Oh, okay. So you wanna fix our time-travel screwups by traveling back in time. Again!
Bart: Well, when you say it like that... 

(Bart and Nora finishing telling Jay what happened.)
Bart: So you... you're not mad?
Jay: I'm alive. Right? My Joan is back. (chuckling) Why would I be mad? Bart, you're on a journey... Both of you. You're gonna make mistakes, and sometimes... they can't be undone. But you can always try to make things better. Right? And that's what you did today. (turns around to leave) Now, I gotta get out of here. I got an important meeting with President Luthor.
Nora and Bart: President Luthor?
Jay: (grinning) Gotcha!

Continuity

The first scene replays the ending of 718, with XS and Impulse returning to their own time after attending the ceremony where Barry and Iris renew their wedding vows.

Barry claims that Gideon told him there were no changes to the timeline caused by XS and Impulse coming back in time.

When XS and Impulse return to their time, there is a green wave of energy signaling a temporal change, similar to the ones caused by the Still Force.

Bart immediately notices that a trophy case holding Jay Garrick's helmet has vanished.

A moment later, Jay Garrick arrives carrying multiple Big Belly Burger bags, having just made a food run. This astonishes Bart and Nora, as Jay had originally died fighting Godspeed in their timeline.

Barry and Iris are said to be in Milan celebrating the anniversary of their wedding renewal vow.

Jay says the rest of Team Flash are all kind of busy, but does not elaborate why, saying Nora and Bart already know why. 

In the revised future, Jay Garrick wasn't killed by Godspeed several months before Nora and Bart followed him back in time. Instead, Impulse saved him from Godspeed. However, Jay also never met Dr. Joan Allen and instead married a woman named Rose.

Using the computer at the Flash Museum, Nora and Bart trace back through several records and uncover several cases that they don't remember. These include one version of the Trickster invading Tibet and a corruption scandal involving the son of Anthony Bellows Jr. who apparently became Mayor of Central City just like his father (Anthony Bellows Sr. was arrested by Flash and Elongated Man in 404.)

Bart and Nora also see a newspaper article from November 12, 2032, discussing a man named Booster Gold being honored at the White House. They dismiss this as unimportant but, strangely enough, neither has any idea who Booster Gold is. This suggests that their time travel may have elevated Booster Gold out of obscurity. 

A newspaper article from May 3, 2016 describes Police Chief Joe West being attacked by the villain Zoom. Nora and Bart note that, in their original timeline, Joe West didn't become Chief of Police until much later. (At the time of this episode, Joe West was retired from the CCPD and had never served as Police Chief.)

Nora eventually determines that all the changes date back to December 31, 2013, when Joe West was shot during a jewelry store robbery. They decide to go back and stop Joe from getting shot, figuring that will fix everything else.

To blend in at the CCPD, Nora and Bart pretend to be CSI interns. Nora also has the foresight to make them fake IDs, which is fortunate because they are almost immediately caught by Eddie Thawne.

Nora and Bart watch Joe try to approach Cecile Horton to ask her out to a New Year's Eve party, but she shoots him down immediately, saying she's busy and thinks all men are scum.

Apparently Cecile only finalized her divorce one week earlier and Joe did not know this.

Eddie confides in Bart and Nora that he's having trouble fitting in and his new partner barely speaks to him. At their suggestion, he decides to buy coffee for the rest of bullpen. 

While waiting in line to get coffee, Bart bumps into an intern at Fast Track Labs named Avery. The two hit it off immediately after Bart sees her thesis.

Bart moves Joe just enough that the bullet at the robbery doesn't touch him, instead of allowing Nora time to figure out the best way to change the past without touching anything. As they are arguing about how inconsequential the robber was, not even "a metahuman with powers", their talk is overheard by a woman named Mona Taylor - the Queen of the Royal Flush gang from 801.

After rejecting the idea of time-traveling back further, Nora and Bart fixate on the idea of getting a hold of the security footage of the robbery. Unfortunately, Eddie Thawne won't just give it to them.

In the new timeline, Mona Taylor realizes she is not alone and begins looking for other confused metahumans earlier than she did in the original timeline. This leads to the changes outlined in 801, where the Royal Flush Gang was said to have launched their first casino heist on New Year's Eve 2013.

Ten's powers are confirmed to be enhanced agility.

Nora and Bart approach Joe to get the security footage. They distract him by talking about how he got shot down by Cecile Horton and suggest lilacs and crumb cake to get her attention - her favorite flowers and desert respectively. This leads Joe to have lilacs sent to her office.

After watching the heist footage, Nora and Bart recognize The Queen and figure out that she must have learned about metahumans sooner than in the original timeline because of them.

Bart feels depressed after learning how he messed up and visits a comatose Barry in the hospital.

Nora comforts Bart by saying that she made mistakes starting out as a hero too.

Nora and Bart go to Avery, figuring they need an expert on time travel theory to help them fix things. At first Avery is skeptical of their story of being time travelers, even after they somehow get into Fast Track Labs despite a high-tech security system.

Avery is convinced after Nora reluctantly tries to use her gauntlet to show her something about her future. However, seeing the gauntlet is enough to convince her, given that it is far more advanced than anything that could possibly exist in 2013.

Bart slowly evacuates people from the casino at super speed as Nora searches for a bomb planted by the Royal Flush Gang.

Nora is able to throw the bomb out of the casino and hide it among the fireworks at New Years Eve.

Iris shows up at the station and meets Eddie Thawne for the first time, as he and Joe are facing an all-nighter dealing with the aftermath of the casino heist.

Cecile approaches Joe and tells him she is not ready to start dating again, but when she is he will be the first to know.

Bart and Nora pose for a photo of all the cops at the party before going back to 2049.

Bart says goodbye to Avery and they kiss. He promises to come back and see her again.

Jay tells Bart that his father screwed up the timeline all the time when he was first starting and talks a little bit about his own misadventures in time.

The final scene takes place sometime after the end of 805. The caption says Present Day, but it is apparently New Year's Day based on Chester's asking everyone if they have any resolutions.

According to Frost, she's forgiven Chillblaine for his criminal past and he's reformed and resolved to go completely straight.

Caitlin is said to have a new boyfriend named Marcus, but nobody has met him yet.

Allegra resolves to party less, apparently being hung over from a New Year's Eve Party the night before.

Iris has dyed her hair red.

As everyone leaves Joe's house to go to brunch, Iris' hair brush fades away in a flash of green temporal particles.

Location

Central City - 2049
Central City - December 31, 2013
Central City - January, 1 2022


Untelevised Adventures

Jay Garrick makes reference to living in the past on and off for 16 years and fighting Nazis during World War II after time traveling for the first time.


The Bottom Line

A welcome return to form and a solid argument for a spin-off centered around Barry's kids.

The Flash Episode Guide: Season 7, Episode 18 - Heart of the Matter, Part 2

 For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.

Plot

Three generations of speedsters join with allies old and new against the menace posed by Godspeed.

Influences

Star Wars (the lightning-blade flight) and The Flash comics of Mark Waid (creative use of Speed Force, family theme)


Goofs

In the opening scene, Nora makes reference to her father being out somewhere doing something dangerous, when he's in a different lab being projected into Godspeed's head.


Performances

Karan Oberoi's performance as the amnesiac August Heart is very honest and heartfelt. Which makes it all the more painful he spends most of his time on-screen hamming it up and the idea of an Amnesiac man being traumatized by the idea of his becoming a villain is largely ignored by this episode.

Jordan Fisher is a great singer.


Artistry

Ignoring how ridiculous some of it is, the special effects work for the various Speed Force effects is great.


Flash Facts

This is the first season finale of The Flash to not end with a cliffhanger.


Technobabble

Speedsters who get their powers from an artificial source cannot match the pure potential of a true speedster chosen by the Speed Force.

Amnesia is a side-effect of a speedster fracturing themselves into multiple speed clones.

Godspeed cannot use his speed-draining powers on a Negative Speed Force user like Reverse-Flash.

Chester modified his father's design for the SEE so that it would only target artificial speed cell membranes, making it ineffective against natural metahumans.

Cisco modifies his Entropy Trap and uses it to create an Entropy Bubble that makes him and Frost invisible to the Godspeed clones. The one downside to it is that they have to hold their breath while they are inside it, as there's no oxygen in the field.

The Entropy Bubble runs on a two-minute timer.

Barry gives August Heart a speed boost to jumpstart the artificial speed cells in his body that have gone dormant. The harness Chester makes should help shape the change and create an organic Speed Force connection.


Dialogue Triumphs

Jay: Kid? I know giving August Heart his powers back is crazy. But if we don’t, we’d better come up with another idea. A big one.
Barry: (grinning, have just had an idea) Not a big one. A fast one. 

(Thawne just struck Godspeed with a near-fatal blow.)
Barry: You could have killed him.
Thawne: Wasn’t that the plan? Didn’t you say you needed help dealing with a threat? Well, I dealt with it. And now…(chuckling) and now… it’s just you and me, Flash. I’ve been waiting for this moment for a long, long time.
Barry: I’m only gonna say this once. Walk away while you still can.
Thawne: Allen. You are too weak to stop me. (voice distorting as his eyes glow red) And I’m just getting started!

(Thawne tries to punch Barry but, as we shift to Barry's perspective, he's moving much slower. Barry has enough time to grin as he grabs Thawne's hand and throws him, easily tossing him a few dozen feet.  When Thawne gets up he is furious... but that fury hides clear terror.)

Thawne: What did you do?! I created you. I taught you everything you know! Everything you are is because of me! What did you do?
Barry: (smiling innocently) I got faster. Didn’t you? 
Thawne: No.  But I will, Flash. Mark my words. I will.

(Thawne runs. Away. Fast.)

Dialogue Disasters

Most of Karan Oberoi's lines as the true Godspeed, but especially "Are you threatening me, Flash?!" which is delivered in a manner that leads you to expect his next line will be "I am Cornholio!"


Continuity

As the episode opens, Bart is still in a coma and Nora and Caitlin are watching over him.

Joe and Kramer are still stranded on the freeway, being attacked by Godspeeds.

Godspeed acknowledges this is the first time Barry has met him, suggesting that he may have met Barry at a later point in his timeline.

Godspeed demands Barry find a way to give him an organic Speed Force connection or he will destroy Central City.

The amnesiac August Heart has a tearful conversation with Cecile about being afraid of becoming the monster everyone helping him seems to be afraid of.

Nora asks Barry to consider meeting Godspeed's demands, but Barry refuses.

Chester checks in on Allegra, who is still depressed over Ultraviolet's death.

Chester reminds Allegra that she saved Barry's life in 716 and in doing so she probably saved the city, while Ultraviolet chose to start a war instead of ending one.

Nora West-Allen refers to the Speed Force as "Big Nora" and she calls her "Little Nora."

Jay comments on how the Speed Force resembles his wife, though he is very formal in addressing her.

The Speed Force gives everyone a power boost, even granting Iris temporary superspeed powers.

Bart is able to recover from the coma in seconds thanks to the boost.

Bart addresses the Speed Force as SFN - Speed Force Nana.

Bart addresses Jay as Uncle Jay, which surprises him but does not displease him.

Kramer briefly acquires superspeed and saves Joe's life, running them away from the Godspeeds, before passing out.

The assembled speedsters attack the Godspeeds, each using a signature move.

Bart throws stars made of lightning.

Nora uses a whip/lasso made of lightning.

Jay throws his hat like a discus and ricochets it off things before it returns to his hand.

The Speed Force just drains the energy from the Godspeeds and makes them pass out.

Iris uses her hands to create compact whirlwinds.

Barry throws lightning.

The Godspeeds are able to recharge almost instantly, thanks to the presence of the Speed Force.

Allegra teleports in with the SEE and supercharges it to 500% times its maximum strength. This disables all the Godspeeds present but also wrecks the SEE.

Chester says it will take him 4-5 weeks to rebuild the SEE.

Nora once again asks Barry and Iris to consider giving Godspeed but he wants but Barry still refuses.

Cisco is able to trick the Godspeed mob he and Frost are facing into leaving them alone using an Entropy Bubble.

With the help of the Speedsters reassembling parts, Chester says he can get the SEE fixed in a day.

Barry and Iris come up with a plan to deal with Godspeed once and for all and it involves giving him an organic Speed Force connection.

Iris and Big Nora travel into the Speed Force to enact part of the plan, with Iris acting as an anchor for Big Nora.

Barry tells Jay, Bart and Nora to stand down while he works the other part of the plan, which involves trying to give the amnesiac August Heart an organic Speed Force connection.

The newfound speed restores August Heart's memories, but he renounces his previous gentle personality to become the God of Speed he wants to be. 

Bart is reluctant to hold back but is talked into it by Jay, who gives him the "sometimes you have to take off your hat speech" for the first time, from Jay's perspective.

Godspeed is stopped in his effort to kill Barry by Eobard Thawne, who was last seen in 615.

Big Nora apparently helped Thawne to rebuild his body in exchange for his help in defeating Godspeed.

Barry is now faster than Thawne and easily outclasses him when Thawne inevitably tries to double-cross him.

August Heart is said to be locked up in Iron Heights and Big Nora erased his memory of Barry Allen's secret identity.

Barry asks Iris to renew their vows with a proper ceremony, unlike their wedding, which was disrupted by a Nazi attack from Earth-X.

Kristen Kramer gets a metahuman gene test and determines that she has the power to copy the powers of other metahumans near her.

Kramer decides to take a leave of absence from the CCPD to get her head together, but she's changed her mind about depowering metahumans as a means of punishment.

Barry and Iris hold their vow-renewal ceremony on the following Tuesday. Cisco officiates the ceremony, wearing a STAR Labs sash to accent his vestments.

Jay, Joan, Nora, Bart, Frost, Caitlin, Allegra, Chester, Joe and Cecile all attend the ceremony. 

Cecile indicates to Joe that she might want to get married.

Bart sings as part of the ceremony.

Barry uses his Flashtime powers to make his and Iris' kiss last as long as possible.


Location

The Speed Force


Untelevised Adventures

Frost and Mecha Vibe fight a different group of Godspeeds at the same time that the Speedsters face the main group.

The Speed Force communes with the Negative Speed Force to reach Eobard Thawne and help him fashion a new body.


The Boomerang Factor

Somehow, nobody anticipates that the Godspeed clones, who are feeding on the Speed Force, might somehow draw power from Nora/Big Nora/Speed Force Nana being present.


The Bottom Line

Much like Season 7 itself, this is a few great moments held together by a lot of weak subplots. The only thing keeping this show running at this point is the ensemble, but even Grant Gustin's ability to deliver a stirring speech is tested here. Here's hoping the show rebounds in Season 8, like Arrow did.

The Flash Episode Guide: Season 7, Episode 17 - Heart of the Matter, Part 1

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.

Plot

The Godspeed War intensifies, threatening Central City, as Barry and Iris meet a new addition to the family - their future son, Bart!

Influences

The Flash comics of Joshua Williamson and Mark Waid (presence of Impulse and Godspeed)


Goofs

Why didn't Joan and Jay let the rest of Team Flash know they were alive before now? (Maybe they wanted to make sure they weren't going to die like all the other doppelgangers.) 


Performances

Jordan Fisher slays as Bart West-Allen.


Flash Facts

This was the 150th episode of The Flash.

The opening shot of Central City in 2049 showed the billboards for several businesses from the comics, including Ferris Air, Palmer Technologies and the Central City Sharks football franchise. The skyscraper for Iris' newspaper, now CC Citizen Media, is also visible.

While not referred to by the code name Impulse, Bart West-Allen is clearly based upon the comic book character Impulse. His name was also Bart Allen, but he was Barry Allen's grandson rather than his son. The Arrowverse Bart's costume is modeled on his comic book counterpart, however, and he makes use of the slang term "Crash" to mean something is good, like the Bart in the comics. The Arrowverse Bart is also reputedly described as impulsive.

The building where Bart and Nora stop after their first fight with Godspeed is Powers Industries. In the Batman Beyond animated series, Powers Industries was the company that acquired Wayne Enterprises in a hostile takeover. It's CEO, Derek Powers, was the chief villain of the first season and, in secret, the supervillain Blight.

Godspeed is able to time travel using the Cosmic Treadmill in the Flash Museum. In The Flash comics, Barry Allen used a device called the Cosmic Treadmill to travel in time. While the Arrowverse Cisco created a device he called the Cosmic Treadmill, this marks the first time it was used for that purpose in the show.

Adam Creyke is said to have confessed to a bombing in Polokistan. This is a fictional DC Comics country, once part of the Soviet Union, which became protected by a villain called General Zod, who was unrelated to the classic Kryptonian General Zod. 

Based on the timeline described in the episode, Jay Garrick would have been 94 when he was killed by Godspeed in the future. It might seem unlikely he'd still be active at that point, but in the original comics Jay's connection to the Speed Force slowed his aging so he still appeared to be middle-aged when he was 100 in some stories. 

Jay Garrick his held captive in the Zauriel Cathedrial on Morrison Avenue. This is a nod to Zauriel - an angel who became a superhero during writer Grant Morrison's run on JLA.


Technobabble

Nora has developed the ability to shape her lightning into a lasso that she can use to snare other people.

According to Nora, speedsters should not try to phase through other speedsters, as their molecules can become conjoined on a quantum level. However, Bart is able to effectively disable Godspeed by doing this.

According to Bart, quantum physics is not taught until the junior year of collegiate science classes.

Nora says that Future Chester improved the efficiency of her gauntlet by 200%.

The Solar Encryption Engine (SEE) is a device Chester's father created that reconverts the atomic mass of neutrino-voltaic energy cells. This allows it to neutralize artificially created kinetic energy sources, like the artificial speed Godspeed uses. However, it must be charged with an electromagnetic source - preferably microwave energy.

Bart and Nora have a combo move they can do together called the Fathwoom Boom.

Bart is said to have the power to throw lightning in the shape of stars but can't catch a ball of lightning in 20 seconds.

According to Chester, the SEE required 700 nanometers of microwave energy to be powered up. When Barry charged it with the Speed Force, it acquired 5 billion nanometers, which was channeled directly into the Godspeed variants instead.

Bart is able to vibrate so quickly he can be invisible to the naked eye and uses this power to eavesdrop on the conversations at STAR Labs.

Chester analyzes Allegera's energy output and determines she is only projecting ultraviolet light rather than microwaves, as per usual. He claims that Allegra only hits that range when she's channeling from negative emotions, like anger or pain.

Cisco creates a synthetic entropy trap with his gloves, but it is only good for one shot against Godspeed.

Barry uses Jay Garrick's neural hyper-collider to enter August Heart's mind, with Cecile's help, after readjusting the tachyon booster with a neuro-fiber housing.


Dialogue Triumphs

(Nora and Bart are working out.)
Nora: What gives, Bart? You can throw stars with your lightning, but you can't catch a ball of it in under seconds?
Bart: Nora... (breathing heavily) It's a lot harder than it looks.
Nora: Well, maybe you should stop focusing on being a badass parkouring off every wall you see.
Bart: So you agree I do look badass?

Bart: Dad and Uncle Wally taught me how to run, and how to meditate, and all that's great. Uncle Jay understood me. He was the first person that saw my impulsiveness as a strength and not as a weakness, and he would literally tell me. He'd say, "Bart, sometimes you have to take a risk. "Sometimes you have to go with your gut... and is it impulsive? Maybe. But sometimes it's right." He got me... (sighs) And now he's gone.

(Barry, Nora and Jay are surrounded by Godspeeds. Suddenly, the church doors open. It is Cisco.)
Cisco: I leave Central City for two seconds... 


Continuity

In the future of 2049, Nora and Bart West-Allen are the protectors of Central City. They work with the Central City Police and a Gideon AI. 

Bart is 19 and a Freshman in college. Nora is 26.

The address of the Flash Museum (and, presumably STAR Labs in the modern day) is given as 5724 Fontana Drive.

Chester apparently meets Nora and Bart in the future. Nora says he's the smartest person they know and Bart claims that Chester helps him with his differentials of mathematics homework. However, it seems likely Bart is lying and is hoping to trick past Chester into helping him in the future.

Bart and Nora both call Cecile Grammy Cecile. 

West-Allen Family Rule #1 is Protect the timeline at any and all cost.

Nora and Bart want to return to their time, but Barry invites them to stay a while since the Godspeeds are stopping anyone from traveling to 2049.

Caitlin and Cecile are working on a new version of the Cerebral Inhibitor (aka MAD 2.0) to unlock August Heart's memories, but haven't had any luck so far.

Chester found a device in his father's notes he think he can use to depower the Godspeed variants, but he needs Allegra to help him charge it.

No one has seen Allegra since yesterday, when she went to find her cousin.

Iris and Barry told their children about the first version of Nora they encountered in Season 5.

When Barry, Nora and Bart confront the Godspeeds, Barry is stunned when Bart says they can kill each other for all he cares.

All the Godspeeds chase after Bart and nearly kill him, referring to him as "The Adversary."

Bart eventually explains that August Heart is his Eobard Thawne and that he's devoted to killing him, for some unknown reason.

Chester finds Allegra in the lounge and catches her up on things. He senses something is wrong, but Allegra denies it. Chester also notes that Allegra's coffee is ice cold, despite her claiming she warmed it up with her powers.

Adam Kreyke is handed over to the FBI in Midway City.

Neither Joe nor Kramer report how Adam Kreyke claimed to have seen Kristen Kramer die.

Joe and Kramer are given a car to take them back to Central City.

Neither of them is able to contact anyone in Central City on their phones.

Gideon makes contact with Bhikkhuni Amala - the Buddhist nun who helped Wally hone his powers, whom he mentioned in 614  She says that Wally is in deep meditation, handling unrest on the psychic plane. This explains why Wally does not join the Godspeed War. (It is possible, however, this unrest is connected to the Godspeeds draining the Speed Force from the inside.)

Iris is returned to the present, having apparently been stabilized by Deon Owens.

Iris was able to watch everything that was happening on Earth from within the Still Force.

Iris asks what Godspeed must have done to Bart to make him equate him to the Reverse Flash.

Jay Garrick and Dr. Joan Williams are revealed to be alive and living in Keystone City on Earth-Prime. This marks their first appearance since 602.

Jay's speed has been restored with the activation of the Artificial Speed Force, which Joan says happened 40 days earlier.  He also no longer needs a cane to walk.

Jay is ambushed by six Godspeed clones before he can run to join the fight.

Deon Owens apparently talks to Nora and Bart in the future and told them about saving their mother at one point.

Barry tells Bart he wants him to sit this fight out so Godspeed isn't provoked. This makes Bart run off.

Bart goes to Joe's house, which was apparently where he always went to get away from things when he was uspet.

It is revealed that Godspeed kills Jay Garrick in the future and that is why Bart hates him so much - because Jay was Bart's mentor and the only one of his teachers he felt truly understood him and worked to turn his impulsive nature into a strength.

Wally West goes on to teach Nora and Bart, in addition to Barry and Jay.

Nora gets Bart to agree to sit out the fight with Godspeed.

Caitlin and Cecile show August Heart the Cosmic Treadmill to see if it stirs his memories. It does not.

Despite Allegra claiming to have been trying to use her powers to charge the SEE for a while, it is only 7% charged when Chester calculated it should be at least 89% charged that that point.

Barry uses his lightning to charge the SEE, since it can absorb any form of kinetic energy, in theory. Unfortunately, this only serves to recharge the Godspeeds rather than drain their power.

Frost is able to save Barry and Nora from the Godspeeds.

Barry and Iris tell Nora to stay out of the fight with Godspeed as well as Bart.

Allegra tells Chester about Ultraviolet's death in 716.

Barry recalls how Godspeed was originally Nora 1.0's arch-enemy, as seen in 518.

The Rebel Godspeed faction is revealed to have kidnapped Jay Garrick and they contact STAR Labs demanding a trade; Jay for Bart.

Bart runs off to save Jay.

Nora and Barry come to save Bart, but they are all quickly surrounded by Godspeeds.

The Godspeeds are frozen by Cisco Ramon, who arrives in his Mecha-Vibe costume, armed with a make-shift entropy trap that allows the heroes to escape.

Bart is left in a comatose state by the Godspeeds attack.

Cisco says he decided to come help after John Diggle told him what was going on.

Joe and Kramer return to Central City to find people clogging the freeways out of town.  They are attacked by Godspeed clones.

The episode ends with Barry confronting the real Godspeed inside August Heart's mind.


Location

FBI Office - Midway City
Jay and Joan's home - Keystone City


The Bottom Line

One of the stronger episodes of the season, but that's largely because all the extraneous subplots are all but over and not much time is devoted to them. Still, Nora's return is welcome and Bart is immediately likeable, which makes up for the fact that not much really happens in this episode when you get right down to it. 

The Flash Episode Guide: Season 6, Episode 2 - A Flash of the Lightning

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.




Plot

Faced with the news of his apparent death having been pushed forward almost five years, Barry turns to Earth 3 and Jay Garrick for advice. Meanwhile, Killer Frost takes the first steps toward building a life of her own and Cecile's career as District Attorney comes into conflict with her identity, as she crosses paths with a metahuman criminal she believes is innocent in spite of all the evidence.


Influences

Crisis on Infinite Earths (the episode title and the imagery of Barry's death) and the 2008 Titans series (character of Allegra Garcia)


Goofs

Ralph's screams as he is hit by Allegra Garcia's heat waves sound silly.

It is said that ultraviolet light travels 80 times faster than Barry Allen's top speed. Yet Barry traveled faster than light in the last episode, running into and out of the black hole generated by Chester P. Runk.


Performances

Grant Gustin's tearful performance as he describes what he saw in the future is a high-water mark for his career.


Artistry

Barry's visions are truly horrific and bring the imagery of the universe dying from Crisis on Infinite Earths to life.


Flash Facts

The episode title is taken from Crisis on Infinite Earths #8 - the comic in which Barry Allen apparently died. This, in turn, is taken from a poem by William Knox; Oh, Why Should the Spirit of Mortal Be Proud?

Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud? 
Like a swift-fleeting meteor, a fast-flying cloud, 
A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave, 
He passes from life to his rest in the grave.

The character of Allegra Garcia first appeared in Titans #28 in December 2010. Born in the Amazon jungle and raised in the slums of Rio, she was the biological daughter of the supervillain Wavelength and inherited his ability to manipulate electromagnetic energy.

The Arrowverse version of Allegra Garcia is an American metahuman, who was running a car-jacking operation in Keystone by the time she was 20. A petty criminal since she was 13, she developed metahuman powers while in custody and gained the ability to manipulate radio waves.

Jay Garrick has a map of the Multiverse which makes mention of Thaddeus Brown living on Earth 51. In the comics, Thaddeus Brown was a master escape artist and the first person to use the name Mister Miracle. He mentored both Scott Free and Shilo Norman, who would go on to take up his name and costume as crime-fighters.

Jay Garrick's map identifies Earth-13 as the home of Wells The Grey - a wizard version of Harrison Wells. In DC Comics' cosmology, Earth-13 is a world of magic where Etrigan (as Superdemon) is the leader of a team of magical heroes known as the League of Shadows.

Jay Garrick's map makes reference to Earth-18 having great tequila. In the cosmology of DC Comics, Earth-18 is the home of the Justice Riders - a Wild West version of the Justice League.

Jay Garrick's wife is a neurologist named Joan Williams. In the original Flash comics, Joan Williams was Jay Garrick's love interest and eventual wife.


Technobabble

Cisco uses a nanite camoflauge cocktail designed by Ray Palmer to disguise Killer Frost's eyes and voice so she can pass for a normal human woman with white hair.

The key fobs for modern cars run on radio waves, making it possible for a metahuman who can manipulate radio waves to break into a car by radiating the right frequency.

Barry builds a mobile Gideon from parts salvaged from the plinth in the Time Vault.

Without speed-healing, just a brief touch of antimatter could erase a person from existence.

Jay Garrick has been charting antimatter signatures across the multiverse. He has an algorithm which has determined that the entire multiverse is in danger.

The Neural Hyper-Collider harnesses neural electricity and transfers it across super-luminal particles, allowing the human consciousness of a speedster in his physical prime to travel across space-time past any physical barrier, including antimatter.

Ralph determines that Allegra Garcia is innocent based on the burn pattern of the victim's body. Ralph says it looks like the victim was burned before the car crashed and exploded. Since Allegra can only control radio waves and not microwave radiation, this proves someone else had to have attacked her.

Jay Garrick's helmet is used to channel the tachyons into Barry's frontal cortex and ignite his synaptic pathways.

Jay detects temporal energy as Barry's mind moves past the antimatter barrier to the future.

Dr. Williams claims that a person who has experienced collapsed neural pathways can stimulate those nerves by hearing poetry.

When Barry's neural synapses were overloaded, it created a state of neutral entropy - a near shutdown of the nervous system. Barry compares the sensation to feeling like every nerve in his body is on fire.

According to Dr. Williams, a speedster's synapses fire at ten times the rate of a normal human, meaning a speedster experiences neural entropy with ten times the pain. It typically takes a day or two to recover, even with a speedster's accelerated healing factor.

Cisco determines that the blast that injured Ralph was pure ultraviolet radiation. Had it not been for Ralph's relative invulnerability, he would have been burned to death instantly. As it stands, Ralph got what he describes as "the sunburn from Hell" and has visible burns and blisters on his face..

UV rays have shorter wavelengths than radio waves but are still part of the electromagnetic spectrum.

Most UV rays generated by the sun are absorbed by the ozone layer of Earth's atmosphere.

Ultraviolet light travels at 186,000 miles per second, which is 80 times Barry Allen's top-speed.

Ramsey notes that Mitch Romero's body showed no signs of hemorrhaging, but his blood coagulated with an unidentifiable biological substance.


Dialogue Triumphs

Barry: (opening narration) I stared at that newspaper for so many years. "Flash Missing, Vanishes in Crisis." First it felt like a guide. You know, like proof that things were headed in the right direction? Then it became a sword hanging over my head. A part of me always felt like if I vanish in whatever crisis is coming... Maybe I was still out there somewhere, looking for a way to come back to you.

Joan Williams: I've discovered that poetry can stimulate collapsed neural pathways.
Barry: Lady Gaga usually works for me.

(Joe is questioning Allegra in an interrogation room.)
Joe: Okay, help me understand why you pleaded guilty this morning and now you're suddenly innocent.
Allegra: A girl can change her mind.
Joe: What were you doing at the witness' apartment?
Allegra: Just needed to hash it out with him, prove it was wasn't me he saw.
Joe: That's something a detective would do.
Allegra: I'm trying to be a reporter, okay? Figured this was as good a time as any to get some experience. Get a story and my freedom. But what's the use? You'll always see me as a criminal anyway.
Joe: You know what I see? I see that scared little kid that I used to pick up for robbing liquor stores when she was 13. That same girl that I would check on in juvie who would always tell me to leave. This morning, I get a ping that you'd escaped from your meta-cuffs, and we find you in the location of the dead State's witness. If you're a reporter, how does this story play out?

Joe: Our badges, your emblem, they're symbols of the strength that we're charged with to get back out there. And we don't make the choice to die. We would never choose to do that. But when we hear the call of duty... we're willing to make that sacrifice. And that's not giving up, Barr. That's what you call resilience. And I know you to have plenty of that.


Continuity

Ramsey Rosso meets with a weapon's dealer named Mitch Romero.

The weapon's dealer he met with in 601 was called Gat.

Ramsey originally paid $500 for the anti-matter gun. Mitch wants $5000 for the new one.

Ramsey's arm turns into a black liquid mass, seemingly draining the life from Mitch Romero when he is attacked.

Ralph and Cisco take Killer Frost to a gallery opening at the space curator by Cisco's girlfriend, Kamilla, at her request.

Kamilla is aware of Caitlin's secret identity.

Allegra Garcia is a career criminal with the power to manipulate radio waves.

Allegra Garcia was arrested at the scene after a man named Salvador Traversoni lost control of his car and crashed. The evidence suggested that Garcia had tried to use her powers to take over the car.

Cecile senses that Garcia is lying when she tries to plead guilty to all the charges against her.

Cecile takes the unusual step of requesting bail for Garcia rather than accepting the guilty plea and a 15 year sentence.

Barry decides to time-travel to December 11, 2019 - one day after he is supposed to disappear. He is stopped by a barrier of antimatter in the Speed Force, which wounds him.

Earth-3 has blimps as an apparent public transport.

Jay Garrick was last seen in 415.

Jay Garrick has officially retired as The Flash of Earth-3 and now walks with a cane.

Jay Garrick has a map of the multiverse with extensive notes regarding several Earths. He has Earth-1 labeled as the home of Barry Allen, Earth-3 as his own home world, and Earth-38 as the home of Supergirl and Superman.

The map also lists two undesignated Earths and includes numbers higher than 52 - the supposed cap number of universes known to Harry wells at the time of Crisis on Earth-X.

Earth-13 is apparently the home of Wells the Grey - the wizard version of Harrison Wells seen in 406.

Earth-15 was apparently destroyed in the year 1986. This was the dead Earth to which Cisco sent Fallout's radiation in 410.

Earth-18 apparently has great tequila.

Earth-19 is home of the Breacher Agency, which employed Cynthia and Josh.

Earth-30 apparently only has vegan cuisine or only allows Vegans to live there.

Earth-51 is the home of Thaddeus Brown, who was mentioned in 520.

Earth-221 is the home of Sherloque Wells. This is likely a reference to the address of Sherlock Holmes - 221B Baker Street.

Earth-X is home of the Freedom Fighters and was encoutered during the Crisis on Earth-X storyline.

Jay Garrick suggests that he can send Barry's mind past the antimatter barrier to see the future.

Since the last time Barry saw Jay, he has gotten married to a woman named Dr. Joan Williams. She is the spitting image of Barry's mother, Nora Allen.

Jay says that he and Joan hit it off after he consulted her because he needed a neurologist's help to chart how his powers were affecting his body as he aged.

Joan asks Barry if she reminds him of anyone from his Earth. He says she does, but does not say she looks like his mother, saying only she looks like "someone special."

Ralph determines that Allegra Garcia is innocent, based on the injuries of Salvador Traversoni being inconsistent with those of someone trapped in a car that exploded.

Ralph and Iris go to question the witness who identified Allegra Garcia as the killer. They find Allegra Garcia standing over his dead body. Startled, she sends a blast at Ralph, which burns his face.

Joe West is able to stop Garcia from escaping, thanks to a metahuman restraint shooting gun.

Barry sees billions of potential future timelines while under the influence of Jay's machine. He also sees the deaths of himself, Iris, Killer Frost, Ralph Dibny and Cisco Ramon as the antimatter waves destroy Central City.

Curiously, Cisco is back in his Vibe costume in Barry's vision.

Barry makes reference to the pilot episode and how he usually hears Lady Gaga when he wakes up from being knocked into a coma.

Allegra Garcia dreamed of being a reporter as a girl.

Joe West picked Garcia up for robbing a liquor store when she was 13.

Jay and Joan transport Barry back to Earth-1.

Iris tells Joan that she looks like Barry's mother.

Barry tells Joe about the newspaper from the future and his visions and how he feels he's going to have to sacrifice himself and there's no way to avoid it.

Team Flash have alerts set to their phones to warn them if the MAC is having problems processing Chester P. Runk's bio-energy.

Killer Frost has taken up drawing as a hobby.

Allegra Garcia says she can see the radiation around her - not just control it. She specifically mentions gamma waves and microwaves but says she can't stop herself from seeing them.

Cecile tells Allegra about her telepathic and emphatic powers.

Allegra Garcia says she has a cousin, Esperanza, who was with her the night of the particle accelerator explosion. Esperanza had the same tattoo as Allegra - a gang symbol. Allegra claims she was forced to join the gang when she was younger and that the fight she got in the night of the particle accelerator explosion was due to her trying to get out of the gang.

Ralph retrieves Esperanza Garcia's records and discoverers that she was in a vegetative state before being taken into the custody of a redacted government organization the night of the particle accelerator explosion.

Esperanza Garcia now calls herself Ultraviolet. It seems to be her preferred wavelength, though she seemingly has the ability to control all wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum, generating an EMP that knocks out the power at the CCPD headquarters.

Esperanza Garcia was hired to kill Salvador Traversoni. She then tried to kill the witness who identified Allegra and Allegra herself to hide that she was still alive.

Ultraviolet's existence hints at a secret organization that is exploiting young metahumans and training them to be assassins. Ralph says he plans to look into it.

Killer Frost buys some artwork to decorate the medical lab. She says she used Caitlin's credit cards to do it. This leads Ralph to declare that her next life lesson will involve personal finance.

Cisco puts Killer Frost's first self-portrait up among the other artwork.

Ralph's mom used to date a trapeze artist - No Net Nick.

Cecile decides to resign as District Attorney and become a defense attorney specializing in metahuman defense.

Cecile acts a reference for Allegra and gets her an internship with Iris' newspaper.

Jay says he'll keep monitoring the anti-Matter outbreaks from his lab on Earth-3.

Ramsey Rosso examines the body of Mitch Romero, which comes to life as he is performing a biopsy and knocks him out.


Location

Earth-3.


The Bottom Line

A decent episode, though I wonder how much the audience cares about Cecile's crisis of faith regarding her career and the addition of Allegra to an already overburdened cast of supporting characters. It's depressing how little screen-time Cisco, Ralph and Frost have here but at least Ralph is allowed to do some real detective work instead of being the comic relief.

On the other hand, Grant Gustin is acting his heart out of Barry's coping with his unavoidable death and Jesse Martin gets some great material as Joe. So while I question how well some of the new story additions will stick, at least there is little that is outright annoying.

The Flash Episode Guide: Season 4, Episode 15 - Enter Flashtime

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.




Plot

When a nuclear bomb threatens Central City, Barry, Jay Garrick and Jesse Quick will have to enter into the otherworldly state known as Flashtime in order to slow things down enough to deal with the crisis.


Influences

The Flash comics of John Broome, Mark Waid and Geoff Johns (multiple speedsters teaming up to face a crisis together.) and Green Arrow #100 (the inclusion of Veronica Dale and The Eden Corps, the plot of the hero needing to figure out how to stop an active bomb).


Goofs

Granting that fanatics are not always logical, the idea of an environmental terrorist group damaging the environment by setting off a nuclear bomb to show the dangers of nuclear power doesn't make a lot of sense. The Eden Corps in the original comics acted in ways that would destroy cities without harming The Earth as a whole.


Performances

The chemistry between Violett Beane and Tom Cavanagh is as fantastic as ever.  Their non-verbal acting in the final sequence as Harry and Jesse "talk" is particularly fantastic.

Grant Gustin does a fantastic job of selling Barry's exhaustion and frustration through the episode.


Artistry

The effects work for depicting Flashtime is rather impressive.

The energy effects as Barry attempts to draw The Speed Force out into negating the fission engine with a fusion reaction may be the single greatest action sequence in the show's history and the history of superhero shows ever, looking just like a panel from a Flash comic come to life.


Flash Facts

The formula the camera focuses on after the title stinger - 3x2(9yz)4A - is "The Speed Formula" in DC Comics. This was the formula said by the speedster Johnny Quick and, later, his daughter Jesse Quick, in order to use their super-speed powers.

The shoot-out between The CCPD and the Terrorists occurs at Waid Airfield. This is a tribute to Mark Waid - The Flash writer responsible for coming up with the idea of The Speed Force.

While never given an official name in the comics, the idea of "Flashtime" (i.e. speedsters being able to operate in a state of super-speed while the rest of the world around them seems to be frozen solid) has been explored in multiple comics and cartoons.

At the time this episode originally aired, there was a storyline in The Flash comic based around a similar plot, with Barry Allen, both versions of Wally West and Avery Ho (The Flash of The Justice League of China) having to work to save Central City from a device that was draining all the molecular motion from it in a bid to give Gorilla Grodd super-speed. Only Grodd, his minions in the criminal scientist cabal known as The Black Hole and the speedsters were unaffected.

The terrorist group who set off the fission engine is revealed at the end of the episode to be a group called The Eden Corps who are lead by a woman named Veronica Dale. Their goal was to show the dangers of nuclear energy. 

In the classic DC Comics Universe, The Eden Corps was a radical environmentalist group whom Oliver Queen tried to infiltrate in an effort to bring them down from the inside. He would wind up sacrificing his life in order to destroy a bomb The Eden Corps was going to use that would release a virus that would eat all the plastic in Metropolis. As in the DCTVU, it was run by a woman named Veronica Dale, who went by the codename Hyrax.


Technobabble

The bridges between Earths formed by Cisco's powers close after three picoseconds. A picosecond is one-one-trillionth of a second. Iris says that DeVoe's teleportals may close even faster than that.

Cisco develops a complex and eloquent algorithm to track the warping signatures of DeVoe's teleporting.

Barry says that he can't run the nuclear bomb out of town as the energy involved will speed up the reaction and it would blow up before he could get out of Central City. He also says that he and Jesse Quick don't have enough time to evacuate the city and get all the people out of harm's way.

The ARGUS device that the terrorists were trying to get to is revealed to be an experimental fission engine containing deuterium isotopes. It is contained within an inertial confinement cage to stop the radiation. With enough pressure, however, the isotopes will split and produce heat and light. The light will start out blue, shift yellow and then go purple before the engine explodes.

A breach is a controlled folding of space-time. As such, when a breacher like Vibe is moving at super-speeds and in a state of Flashtime, there is a lack of sufficient time for them to open a breach.

Without a connection to The Speed Force, a body cannot withstand the stress of Flashtime for more than a few minutes. This is discovered when Cisco begins to hyperventilate after about two relative minutes examining the fission engine with Barry. Even a speedsters enhanced physiology will eventually begin to wear down after an excessive amount of time spent in Flashtime.

A person's age and physical fitness seem to be a factor in how long they can withstand Flashtime. This is why the younger and more physically fit Vibe is not effected as quickly as Harry Wells. Jay Garrick, the oldest speedster, is also the first to start showing signs of physical exhaustion the longer he, Jesse Quick and The Flash spend in Flashtime.

Space-time breaches and portals to The Speed Force operate according to different laws of physics. This means that Barry can use a Speed Force portal to dispose of the fission engine when a breach cannot be established.

In nuclear fission, enormous energy is created by a chain reaction of atoms splitting and releasing neutrons. It is nearly impossible to reverse this process, but theoretically you can restore stability through one of two methods. One is to offset the loss of mass through nuclear fusion. The other, more promising method given the situation our speedsters are in, is to cool the engine down.

The 3 million tons of energy (or 3 megatons) generated by the fission engine is equal to 3 billion joules.

A lightning bolt contains roughly 1 billion joules of energy. This leads to Jesse Quick suggesting that she, Barry and Jay each throw a lightning bolt at the fission engine in the hope that it will generate enough fusion energy to balance the equation.

The Quark Sphere is a device which is filled with Barry Allen's unique genetic marker, programmed to track his DNA using the electrical current of The Speed Force. Used in tandem with The Speed Force Bazooka, The Quark Sphere was able to trick The Speed Force into thinking Barry is still there once The Speed Force Bazooka pulled Barry out of it. Barry is able to make use of The Quark Sphere here to act as a lightning rod which lets him draw the Speed Force energy needed to send fusion energy at the fission engine.

Caitlin notes that Jay Garrick's blood glucose levels are low following his time spent in Flash Time.

Harry reworks the Cerebral Inhibitor into a device that does the opposite of its intended purpose, allowing a person to hear the thoughts of other people. Using this, he is able to convey to Jesse the emotions he cannot articulate regarding his wife's death.


Dialogue Triumphs

Barry: Has anyone seen Ralph today?
Caitlin: No. He's downstairs moving in. He's very nervous.
Harry: I don't know why.
Cisco: I don't know why, either. He's a superhero! People with powers are ready for anything,
(Cisco turns around, nearly running into Jesse Quick.)
Cisco: Ahhhhhhh! Son of a Breach!

(Jesse looks at an odd helmet on Harry's desk.)
Jesse: What's this?
Harry: That is a mental activity dampener. It's for DA Cecile Horton. Keeps her from hearing other people's thoughts.
Jesse: It's kinda clunky.
Harry: (laughs) That's what she said. (goes serious) Literally, that's what she said. The second version's more streamlined.

Harry: I came here to stop DeVoe!
Jesse: No. You stayed because of DeVoe.
Harry: A distinction without a difference.

(Barry looks around the frozen crime scene as if searching for inspiration. His gaze finally falls on Cisco.)
Barry: I need right now you, man.
(Barry places a hand on Cisco. There is a shock of electricity as Cisco begins moving.)
Cisco: (looking around in confusion) Wha- what is going on?
Barry: You're moving with me at super-speed.
Cisco: What?! Is this what it looks like when you run?
Barry: More or less.
Cisco: (looking at the still unmoving Killer Frost) I'd say it's a little uneventful.

(Jay Garrick and Jesse Quick run in on Barry talking to the sped-up Harry Wells.)
Jay: What the heck?!
(Harry grabs at Barry.)
Harry: Get her out of here.
Barry: I'm gonna - I'll try.
Harry: (gasping) Allen... Allen.
Barry: All right.
(Harry nods as Barry lets go and Harry freezes back in place.)
Jay: How do you do that?
Barry: Uh - I'm not sure. I've been able to do it ever since I came out of The Speed Force.
Jay: That's a hell of a new trick!
Barry: Look, right now...
Jay: I know. Jesse showed me the nuke.(sighs) We're in trouble, kid.
Barry: Well, I don't know. Wells has an idea that he think might work.
Jesse: Yeah? What is it?
Barry: We send the bomb into The Speed Force. Let it detonate in there.
Jay: Like hell you will!
Barry: What do you mean? Why not?
Jay: Because, Flash, if you do that, we may lose The Speed Force forever!

Killer Frost: Barry? Don't let Caity die.

Jesse: Okay. What if... I don't know... what if we run back in time and stop this bomb from ever going off?
Barry: No. Jesse. We can't do that.
Jesse: Yeah, well, it's kind of our only option.
Barry: It's not an option.
Jesse: Even if it saves the city and everyone in it?!
Barry: It's not saving them, okay? The second you alter the timeline, everything changes. Especially the people you love. Trust me. I learned that the hard way.
Jesse: Yeah, well maybe a new version of my dad isn't the worst thing in the world.

(Barry and Iris kiss as Barry starts to let go of her.)
Iris: Come back to me.
Barry: As fast as I can.

(Joe runs over to Barry.)
Joe: Flash?!
(Joe puts his hand on Barry's chest as if feeling for a heart beat. Slowly, Barry's eyes flutter and he moans.)
Barry: (his voice dry and crackly) Are we dead?
Joe:  ... no?
Barry: (sighs) That's good.
(Barry pants and closes his eyes, clearly exhausted.)


Continuity

Barry was first shown as being able to lend his speed to other people in 410

After the opening scene, the first scene after the title stinger starts "8 Minutes, 48 Seconds Ago."

Barry is attempting to push himself to become fast enough to follow through one of The Thinker's teleportals.

Cisco is able to map every time The Thinker teleported over the past three years. These include when The Mechanic grabbed him after absorbing Izzy Bowin's powers in 414, the attack on Iron Heights Prison in 413, the alley where he abducted Barry in 409 and The DeVoes' house.

Ralph is moving into a basement room in STAR Labs, due to being nervous about being grabbed off the street by The Thinker.

Jesse Quick was last seen in 316, though a hologram of her appeared in 403.

Apology Cubes are a technology used on Earth Two, similar to Break-Up Cubes, which were first referred to in 403.

The first version of the Mental Activity Dampener from 414 is seen.

The death of Harry Wells' wife is mentioned, though the circumstances are not specified. Harry was unable to save her.

Jesse accuses Harry of never dealing with his wife's death. Harry denies this.

Jesse says that she found peace by talking about her mother's death.

Waid Airfield is one of the airports in Central City.

Cisco is unable to form breaches while operating in Flashtime. This means he cannot do what he did in 410 to send the excess radiation generated by Fallout to a dead Earth.

Jay Garrick was last seen in 323.

Jay Garrick has never seen another speedster temporarily lend their speed to a non-speedster.

Barry has been able to lend speed to other people since leaving The Speed Force.

Jay says that a nuclear explosion in the heart of The Speed Force could potentially destroy it.

Killer Frost has no frame of reference for what heat feels like until she begins to exhaust herself trying to cool the fission engine while in Flashtime.

Jay Garrick tires out before he can add his lightning to that of Barry and Jesse.

Jesse runs out of energy after trying to talk to speed up her father and, failing that, talking to him.

Iris refers to the events of 401 and how Cisco and Caitlin used The Speed Force Bazooka to extract Barry from The Speed Force.

Jay announces his intention to retire as The Flash of Earth Three as soon as he finishes training his replacement - an unnamed woman - to become the new Flash.

Barry is told to not use his powers and rest for a few days following his time in Flashtime.

The words that Jesse hears her mother saying - "Because in the vast night sky, you are the only star I see." - are the same words that the Earth One version of Tess Morgan said to Harrison Wells that inspired the name STAR Labs in 117. This seems to confirm that the Tess Morgan of Earth Two was Harry Wells' wife on Earth Two as well.

A sign on the counter at C.C. Jitters promotes a spring special on their Killer Frost iced coffee drink.

For the first time ever, Caitlin has a memory of something that Killer Frost did while in control of her body. In this case, she remembers Killer Frost being taken into Flashtime by Barry, trying to freeze the fission reactor and then Killer Frost feeling worried about her.

The mystery waiter from Barry and Iris' wedding in S308 who later made an appearance in 411 when Ralph and Cisco were getting coffee makes another appearance. This time she bumps into Harry and Caitlin, literally spilling a Killer Frost drink on their table. She makes reference to being there to meet some people for the first time and being kind of nervous - an act that fades as Harry gets annoyed and leaves while a sympathetic Caitlin says she hopes that her meeting goes well. The waiter ominiously says that "It did."


Location

The Speed Force.


The Bottom Line

A definite improvement over the last run of episodes and a strong contender for one of the top-five best Flash episodes of all time. Rather than feeling like a piece of filler given the absence of any major plot elements from Season Four (no Ralph, no DeVoes), this episode feels like a return to basics. Even the romantic scenes between Iris and Barry don't feel as forced somehow, though that's largely down to Gustin's performance and how effectively he portrays a Barry Allen who has been working for days without sleep, from his perspective and is looking on the woman he loves as if it really will be the last time he ever sees her.

The Flash #22 - A Review (WARNING! SPOILERS!)

It's a race against time as Batman and The Flash move to catch The Reverse Flash before he runs to his death. Thankfully, an unexpected and unknown ally will be there to help them find their way home...


Normally I wouldn't drop a spoiler-filled page like this in a review but with Jay Garrick on the cover of the comic, there seems little point in avoiding it.

The Button concludes with little in the way of revelation for those readers who read DC Universe Rebirth. The biggest takeaway is that Jay Garrick - the first Flash - is trapped outside of time in the same way that the original Wally West was. The ending of the issue - and the ad for the next big event - also seem to confirm what astute readers guessed regarding who is responsible for changing The DC Universe... and possibly for creating it in the first place.

Where this is going is still anyone's guess but the JSA's disappearance also seems to be tied into a man who appears to be a ninety-year-old Johnny Thunder, desperately trying to summon his Thunderbolt. Then there's that blonde woman in Arhkahm Asylum (my money is on her being Saturn Girl)  who keeps insisting that things are wrong and there's no future.

Thankfully, this issue is entertaining even if there's little development of the on-going saga. Joshua Williamson has an obvious love and knowledge of the characters involved and there's a great scene that sums up the difference between Bruce and Barry - despite similar training as detectives - and how they consider their shared experiences.  The artwork by Howard Porter and Hi-Fi is similarly fantastic, with bright colors and smoothly-flowing action sequences. I also like how Porter's design for Jay Garrick resembles actor John Wesley Shipp.

Final Analysis: 9 out of 10. It's not shaking up the DC Universe or answering any questions but it's a solid comic with some great artwork and some neat character studies of The Flash and Batman.

The Flash Episode Guide: Season 3, Episode 16 - Into The Speed Force

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.




Plot

Desperate to rescue Wally from the prison that Savitar escaped, Barry once again enters into The Speed Force and experiences visions of friends and enemies lost to time and space. Meanwhile, Iris considers the state of her relationship with Barry as Jesse pushes the rest of Team Flash to find a way to track down Savitar.


Influences

The Flash comics of Mark Waid, particularly Terminal Velocity.


Artistry

The lighting and direction of the sequences in The Speed Force are genuinely creepy.


Flash Facts

HR says he is not going to be held responsible by his Earth Two counterpart if Jesse gets stuck in a negative world. Cisco recognizes this as a reference to the original Super Mario Bros. game, where a glitch could cause the player to get trapped in World - 1 - an endless water level. This world is more typically identified as Minus World rather than Negative World, however.

Cisco says "To Infinity and Beyond!" when Barry enters The Speed Force. This is the catch-phrase of Buzz Lightyear in the Toy Story films.

Cisco refers to the movie The Iron Giant when speculating on how a piece of Savitar's armor might seek out the rest of it once broken off.

The fake Snart in The Speed Force makes a remark about how Jay Garrick is "getting slow in his golden age." Jay Garrick was the first superhero to use the name The Flash, back in what is commonly known as The Golden Age of Comics from 1938 to the mid-1950s.


Technobabble

HR asks why they can't come up with some kind of tether to keep Barry from getting lost in The Speed Force. This leads Cisco to say he could do that and Julian to develop a biological component that can measure Barry's vitals when he is in The Speed Force, letting them pull him out if something happens.

The electrode halo - in addition to being the device that allowed Team Flash to channel Savitar through Julian Albert - is also part of the device that Cisco used to pull Barry Allen out of The Speed Force the last time he entered into it.

Goldtooth is the Cisco Ramon designed inter-dimensional equivalent of Bluetooth.

The electrode halos are electromagnetically linked via Goldtooth. It gives them all the relevant locus information no matter where in the multiverse Barry is. If he needs help, it will automatically stimulate Cisco's prefrontal cortex, letting him open a breach to wherever Barry is and pull him back to Earth One.

Julian speculates that Savitar's blade is made of  some kind of new metal akin to a Luttinger liquid - a theoretical model describing interacting electrons in a one-dimensional conductor such as carbon nanotubes.

HR refers to the theory of Schrödinger's Cat - a paradoxical thought experiment involving trapping a cat in a box with a radioactive source and a poison that will be released upon the emission of radiation - the result of which is that the cat will be both alive and dead until the box is opened and it can be observed.

Caitlin says that the metal of Savitar's blade is made of a near-frictionless material that is a constant state of flux. While totally motionless on the outside, it is constantly moving on the inside as if being affected by an outside influence. Julian likens this to how tides are affected by the phases of the moon. Jesse suggests that the outside influence is Savitar and that he somehow has the ability to control the metal despite it being separated from his armor.

Cisco describes feeling a lot of harmonic feedback when trying to vibe into The Speed Force.


Dialogue Triumphs

(Barry and Iris are alone in the hallway at STAR Labs.)
Barry: I'm gonna find Wally.  Whatever's holding him, whatever's keeping him trapped in there? I'm gonna get him back.
Iris: Okay.
Barry: Okay.
(Barry looks down at Iris' hand. She still isn't wearing her engagement ring.)
Barry: Iris?
(Iris doesn't meet his eyes.)
Barry: Did I lose you?
(Iris says nothing and just walks away quickly. Barry turns and watched her sadly. Joe enters from behind Barry.)
Joe: Baar?  What's going on?
Barry: Nothing. I'm just trying to.. make her not worry so much.
Joe: About Wally?  Or you?
Barry: Joe, now is not the time, alright?
Joe: Look, you are about to risk your life to save her brother. I think now is the perfect time.
Barry: (sighs) She's having doubts about us. About marrying me.
Joe: She... call off the engagement?
Barry: Guess I changed the future one too many times.

Barry: Where is Wally West?!
Eddie: He's not exactly here per say. He's in the prison you created. Well, your future self, that is.
Barry: How do I get him out? (more intensely) How do I get him out?!
Eddie: I think you' ll find we're not going to be as accommodating as we were the last time you visited us.
Barry: What the hell does that mean?!
Eddie: It means things have changed. We gave you your speed back because you said you'd come to terms with your mother's death. But you lied to us. You went back in time and saved her. And in doing so, you created Flashpoint.
Barry: Zoom had just killed my father -
Eddie: We know. And we understand. Which is why we allowed you to do that. But choices have consequences and I'm afraid we can't let you make any more choices like that.
Barry: Wally's just a kid...
Eddie: He's a Flash. He made his choice. Now he has to live with it. Just like you do.
Barry: I'm not going anywhere until Wally is free.
Eddie: Then be prepared to spend an eternity in here.

(Jesse wants to run off and find Savitar.)
HR: Hold your roll, Jesse Quick. This hesitation that you feel on behalf of the group is our realization that this "go for broke" attitude is the very attitude that got Wallace in his predicament in the first place. Am I right?
Julian: I can't believe I'm uttering the words but... I actually agree with HR.
Cisco: Ditto.
HR: Thanks boys.

(Barry looks on Caitlin holding a baby, singing her to sleep. Ronnie Raymond stands by his side.)
Ronnie: This troubles you. Another life that could have been and never was.
(Ronnie walks over and kisses the baby on the forehead. Caitlin mutely walks off with the baby.)
Barry: Caitlin and Ronnie should have had that. A family... a future.
Ronnie: The future doesn't always turn out as we want it to.
Barry: I see what you're doing. First Eddie. Now Ronnie. Showing me all the people who sacrificed themselves for the greater good...

Ronnie: No, Barry - their sacrifices were for you. As was Wally's when he attempted to stop Savitar.
Barry: Savitar tricked Wally! And now he's trapped. Wally doesn't belong in The Speed Force. You have to let me take his place. (pauses) That's why I'm here. 

Ronnie: Or the other reason, Barry.
Barry: I want to sacrifice myself for Wally. 

Ronnie:: We can't allow that.
Barry: Why not? 

Ronnie: Because where Wally has gone is a hell all his own.
Barry: Savitar said "one would suffer a fate far worse than death".

Ronnie: And it's not for you. Leave Barry. While you still can.
(Ronnie turns his back on Barry and starts to walk away.)
Barry: No.
(Barry pulls up his hood and looks at Ronnie, who turns back to face him.)
Barry: Whatever hell Wally's trapped in, I'm going to set him free. And I'm not leaving here until I do.
Ronnie: Very well. But you were warned.
(There is a growl from behind Barry as The Black Flash runs out of nowhere and shoves him across the bank of computer desks.)

(HR block's Jesse's path as she tries to leave the lab with the piece of Savitar's blade. He tells her that he is not letting her pass.)

Jesse: You done?
HR: Yeah. Said my peace. And guess what? I'm still. Not.
(Jesse punches him once at super-speed.)
HR: ... moving.

(HR falls to the floor. Jesse kneels down and checks to make sure the unconscious HR isn't seriously hurt. She nods to herself.)
Jesse: That was oddly satisfying. 

(Barry watches Wally West through the window of the door to a hospital room. Wally is starring at an empty bed, eyes watery. unable to look away. Leonard Snart comes to stand besides Barry.)

Barry: What's happening to him?
Snart: Wally West is caught in an endless temporal loop, just like Savitar after you imprisoned him here in the future. No wonder he hates you.
Barry: What's he seeing?
Snart: He's reliving the single most painful moment of his life. Over and over again. His mother's death.
Barry: Wally... he doesn't deserve this
Snart: And let me guess - you do?
Barry: I know what my hell is. I've already seen it. In the future.
Snart: You don't like the future, Flash? Change it!
Barry: I can't ! Don't you get it?!  I can't! I'm not fast enough! He is! (he sighs and looks back to Wally) That's why you have to let me take his place. Wally can save Iris.
Snart: (annoyed) Not learning your lesson, Barry. You keep telling us one thing and then doing another! (pauses) You want to know what inspired Leonard Snart to sacrifice himself? It was you. Barry Allen. You inspired him to be... better. You inspired him to be selfless. To sacrifice himself for others. To be a hero. Just like you.
Barry: I'm no hero. Not lately.
Snart: So... what? Had enough, Scarlet Speedster?  Time to hang up the cowl and give it all up? Well,, if you're out...
(Snart draws his cold gun and powers it on.)
Snart: ... you're out.
Barry: (tiredly) I'm done fighting.
Snart: We know. And that's exactly the problem.

(Snart blasts Barry, sending him flying against the wall. Barry is pinned to the wall, gasping for breath as the ice sticks him up against the wall unable to move.)

Snart: You think seeing Iris' death is hell? You ain't seen nothing yet.

(Suddenly a red streak appears and knocks Snart down. It is Jay Garrick.)
Jay Garrick: (looking to Barry) Let's get you out of here.

(Barry guides Wally to the door out of the hospital room.  Jay moves to stand where Wally had been.)

Barry: Jay? Let's go. 

Jay: Sorry kid. This is where I stay for a while.
Barry: What? What are you talking about?
Jay: We both know that a speedster needs to take Wally's place. That's why I'm here.
Barry: No. No, Jay! You already lived your hell when you were Zoom's prisoner.
Jay: And you set me free! And I owe you for that.
Barry: Jay -
Jay: I've run a hell of a race. But every marathon has a finish line. Time's finally come for me to cross it. But you? You, Barry... you need to put an end to this once and for all and stop Savitar.
Barry: How?
Jay: Do what you do best. Be The Flash. (Jay holds up his helmet and hands it to Barry.) Cisco said that he could use this to track you and bring you home. 

(Barry reluctantly takes the helmet.)
Barry:  I'm gonna get this back to you again. When I break you out of here.
Jay: (nodding) See you soon, Flash. 

Continuity

Helium is used to power gas stoves on Earth 19. This fact is revealed with HR says "Now we are cooking with Helium!"

The Super Mario Brothers game series exists on Earth 19.

Barry's shoulder is still injured from the last episode.

The electrode halo - the device Cisco used to pull Barry out of The Speed Force in 221 - is given an official name. This is also the same device Julian wore to channel Savitar.

The place where Barry arrives in The Speed Force looks like the Central City Police Department on a stormy night.

Barry saw Eddie Thawne die in 123. He took a trip to the past, where he saw Eddie before his death in 217.

The motto of the Central City Police Department is "Justice For All."

A Time Wraith - last seen in 223 - blocks Barry's path in The Speed Force.

The second location Barry travels to in The Speed Force resembles the hallway and main medical lab of STAR Labs.

Barry last saw Ronnie Raymond when he sacrificed himself to close the super-breach in 201.  He saw Ronnie's Earth Two counterpart, Deathstorm, die in 213.Barry sees a version of Caitlin holding a baby girl. He is told, by the vision of Ronnie Raymond, that it is her daughter.  Barry quickly figures out that this is a vision of the life Caitlin and Ronnie would have had together if Ronnie hadn't sacrificed himself.

Caitlin says that the metal from Savitar's blade, much like the box that held The Philosopher's stone, both exists and does not exist at the same time.

On Earth 19, according to HR, the theory of Schrödinger's Cat is called Schroeder's Cat.

On Earth 19, according to HR Charlie Brown was the kid with the piano in the Peanuts cartoons rather than Schroeder. The joke was that Charlie Brown was a terrible piano player.

HR wears a men's size 11 shoe. Presumably American size, assuming Earth 19 shoe sizes are the same as Earth One's.

The third place Barry finds himself in The Speed Force is a hospital hallway.  Wally is trapped in one of the rooms, seemingly starring at an empty bed.

Barry last saw Leonard Snart in the flesh in 209. A hologram of him appeared in 304. Snart apparently died in L115.

Wally West's personal hell is watching his mother's death over and over for all eternity.

According to The Speed Force, Leonard Snart chose to sacrifice himself because of Barry Allen's example.

Savitar claims to have already lived through all of the events that are about to happen to Team Flash.

Jesse Quick is able to throw lightning like Barry Allen.

Savitar is apparently immune to lightning and can either throw lightning without having to run around first or can absorb and redirect the lightning generated by other speedsters, as evidenced by his throwing a bolt of blue-white lightning at Jesse.

Jesse is able to hurt Savitar by stabbing him with the piece of his blade aiming for a gap in his armor.  HR correctly guesses that Savitar wouldn't be wearing armor if he didn't need it. This confirms that Savitar is mortal and not a god, no matter how fast he is.

Jay Garrick was last seen in 309. He says that Cisco came to his Earth (Earth Three) and asked for help when the team lost contact with Barry.

Jay takes Wally's place in The Speed Force.

Jesse decides to travel to Earth Three until Savitar is defeated - partly to thwart whatever plans Savitar had for her and partly to protect Jay Garrick's Earth until he can return.

Iris declares that she wants to marry Barry.

Barry says that he thinks they need some space while they figure out everything and that he's afraid he did propose to her for the wrong reasons.

Iris will stay in their apartment while Barry stays with Cisco.


Location

The Speed Force


The Fridge Factor

Averted hard in the case of Jesse Quick, who makes all the correct intellectual leaps to figure out how to use the piece of Savitar's armor to find him and hurt him.  Honestly, I'd rather the show follow her and see her adventures on Earth Three than watch Barry whine about saving Iris for another seven episodes this season.


The Bottom Line

A solid episode but not for the reasons you'd think. The sequences in The Speed Force are powerful, precisely because they keep Barry off-balance and knock him out of the "I must save Iris!" rut he's been in for the past few episodes.  The sequences with Jesse Quick are strictly standard in terms of writing yet are made engaging by Violett Beane's performance. As good as Grant Gustin and Candice Patton are, however, they can't make the continual drama between Barry and Iris engaging and reducing Iris to the role of She Who Must Be Saved has killed all of the character's momentum. Still, it's nice to see Wentworth Miller snarking it up as Snart, regardless of the circumstances. And John Wesley Shipp continues to get more and more impressive with ever appearance he makes as Jay Garrick.

The Flash Episode Guide: Season 3, Episode 9 - The Present

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.




Plot

It's the holiday season but Cisco is in a funk, seeing visions of his brother as he remembers the one time they truly bonded on a Christmas Eve past. Barry is in a similarly dark mood, unable to relax enough to enjoy his and Iris' first Christmas together as a couple with Savitar and Alchemy on the loose. It doesn't help when he and Joe learns about HR training Wally to use his newfound speed powers. A trip to Earth Three to ask Jay Garrick for his help may be just the thing to clear Barry's head, assuming he can survive an encounter with The Trickster of Earth Three. .


Influences

A Christmas Carol (the reoccurring theme of ghostly visitors mixed with visions of the past and future), the film Raiders Of The Lost Ark (The general pulp vibe of the opening, the box holding The Philosopher's Stone resembles The Ark Of The Covenant, Cisco name drops Indiana Jones), the Harry Potter books (the idea of The Philosopher's Stone being used to bring the dead back to life mirrors The Resurrection Stone) and The Flash comics of Mark Waid (character of Savitar, description of how Savitar was defeated in the future matches how he was defeated in the comics.) and Geoff Johns (mention of the villain Plunder).


Goofs

While the effort to tie The Philosopher's Stone into Hindu mythology is admirable, The Brahmastra is probably the worst artifact to parallel to The Philosopher's Stone. While being the signature weapon of Brahma - the god of creation - the Barahmastra could only be used to destroy and was meant to be used only as a last resort as it would completely annihilate the enemy it was used against. Worse yet, it was said that the use of the Barahmastra would blight the land in which it was used and cause infertility in the people and plants of the surrounding region.

How can there be Speed Force myths, legends and rumors about Savitar if Barry is the first speedster to encounter him, as Jay Garrick claims?

For that matter, how can Jay know that Savitar travels around and sends a herald to prepare the way for him to challenge other speedsters he sees as a threat to his power if no other speedster has seen Savitar before Barry?

It seems a bit odd that Joe's girlfriend's daughter isn't spending Christmas with her mom.


Performances

Mark Hamill's brief cameo as The Trickster of Earth Three is a delight.

The chemistry between Danielle Panabaker and Carlos Valdes is particular fine in this episode, as Caitlin and Cisco bond over their mutual losses and Caitlin talks Cisco down off an emotional ledge.


Artistry

The special effects during the fight between Jay Garrick and Savitar.


Flash Facts

It is revealed in this episode that Julian Albert's real name is J. Albert Desmond. In the original comics, Albert Desmond was the name of the first Doctor Alchemy.

Like Julian Albert, Albert Desmond in the comics was not responsible for his actions as Doctor Alchemy. The difference is that Albert Desmond suffered from disassociative identity disorder and had an evil alternate personality who became Doctor Alchemy. Julian Albert, it is revealed, has been possessed by Savitar.

Cisco discover's Julian Albert's old college paper tying the legends of The Philosopher's Stone into the Hindu legends of The Brahmastra. In Hindu mythology, The Brahmastra is the signature weapon of the god of creation, Brahma. Described as a single projectile charged with all the power in the universe, The Brahmastra was meant only to be used as a last resort as it could utterly destroy an enemy, body and soul.

The Earth 3 version of The Trickster resembles a combination of two other comedic DC Comics super-villains - Batman baddie The Joker and Superman villain The Prankster. Like The Joker, he resembles a clown and has a primarily purple color scheme. Like The Prankster, he is an overweight older gentleman in a garish suit and a comically over-sized flower on his coat lapel.. The Prankster in the comics favored green checks, however, while The Earth Three Tricksters favors purple pinstripes. Both should be arrested for crimes of fashion.

It should be noted, because someone will complain if we don't, that Trickster actor Mark Hamill is considered the definitive voice-actor for The Joker.

Savitar manipulated both Julian and Cisco with images of dead loved ones and promises that The Philosopher's Stone could raise to dead. This is similar to a magical item from The Harry Potter books called The Resurrection Stone, which could summon back the spirits of the deceased albeit in a limited and temporary fashion.

Savitar says that he is seeking revenge on Barry now because of how Barry's future self trapped Savitar in eternity. This sounds similar to how Savitar was defeated in the original Flash Comics, where Wally West tricked Savitar into running so quickly that he was absorbed into The Speed Force.

Jay Garrick suggests that Barry can use his powers to siphon off Jay's speed to accelerate himself fast enough to throw The Philosopher's Stone into The Speed Force. Draining speed from other speedsters to act as a turbo boost to his own velocity is a common trick used by The Wally West version of The Flash in Mark Waid's comics.

In the future, Barry Allen overhears a TV report on the trial of a villain named Plunder a.k.a. Jared Morillo coming to a close. In the original comics, Plunder was an assassin whose real name was Jared Morillo. Strangely enough, Plunder was an alternate Earth doppelganger of a friend of Wally West's, who was an honest cop in the Central City Police Department during Geoff Johns' run on The Flash. Plunder had no powers, but was an expert marksman and tracker.

In the future, Barry finds himself standing on Infantino Street. This is a nod to artist Carmine Infantino, who co-created Barry Allen and drew a number of classic Flash comics, including The Flash Of Two Worlds story where Jay Garrick and Barry Allen first teamed up. He also co-created the character of Doctor Alchemy.

Stylistically, the story of this episode has a lot in common with Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. There's the Christmas-time setting of course, and several characters in need of Christmas cheer (Barry, Cisco and Caitlin). There's the appearances of ghosts spurring the characters to action. Cisco dismisses the vision of his brother as a hallucination in much the same way Scrooge dismissed Jacob Marley. And Barry's speech at the end with Jay Garrick where he tearfully asks if the future he saw can be changed mirror Scrooge's plea to The Ghost of Christmas Future, "Are these the shadows of the things that Will be, or are they shadows of things that May be, only?"


Technobabble

Cisco describes the Brahmastra as "a legendary ancient Hindu weapon." He also says it was capable of creating metahumans.

Dr. Alchemy attempts to use The Schults Building as a refractor to restore all the metahumans created in The Flashpoint Reality at once.

Cisco says the box holding The Philosopher's Stone is nothing and does not scientifically exist. He says that he ran it through an MRI, x-ray scanner, mass spectrometer and photon shifter and did not get a single reading off of it.

Barry theorizes that there is no alchemy based on the idea that Savitar and Alchemy had the same voice. Based on the idea that Julian is being used as a mouthpiece in much the same way that poltergeist requires a medium to manifest. Cisco comes up with a way to synch Julian's brain to The Philosopher's Stone so they can speak to Savitar directly.

Jay Garrick describes The Speed Force as "eternity itself... an endless void of time and energy."

Cisco says The Philosopher's Stone is full of gravimetric force.

Jay Garrick says that Barry can siphon off his speed and combine it with his own to throw The Philosopher's Stone into The Speed Force. The feedback from the explosion this causes knocks Barry five months into his own future.

Jay Garrick says that just as there are infinite Earths in the multiverse, there are infinite possibilities to the future.


Dialogue Triumphs

(Caitlin enters Cisco's lab to find him holding the open box. Blue light pours from it.)
Caitlin: Cisco?! Cisco, you have to close the box.
(Cisco turns around to look at "Dante". He sees him, smiles vacantly and turns back to Caitlin.)
Cisco: I'm going to save Dante.
Caitlin: That's not Dante! It's Savitar! Please! He's using your memories against you!
"Dante": You're a good brother, Cisco.
Caitlin: Cisco, we're running out of time. Please, just hand me the box...
(Cisco holds the box in his left hand and raises his right, like he's aiming a Vibe blast.)
Cisco: I can't lose him again.... I will NOT lose my brother again!
Caitlin: Cisco... Dante is gone. I'm so sorry but there is nothing you can do about it. But there are people that you can save right now. If you don't close that box, Barry and Wally will die!
(Cut to Wally and Barry, being thrown around like ragdolls by Savitar.)
(Cut back to Cisco and Caitlin. Cisco is turned to face "Dante".)
"Dante": If you do, then we can't be together.
Caitlin: Cisco, listen to me!
(Cisco looks at Caitlin as she gives him a pleading look only to glance back at the box.)
(Cut to Wally and Barry, both on the ground, as Savitar extends his wrist-daggers and drags them along the stone walls of the room, shooting out sparks as he does so.)
"Dante": Don't.
Cisco: (whispering) Lo siento, hermano.
(Cisco closes the box. In the other room, Savitar disappears.)
Barry: Thanks.
Wally: Are you kidding? That was awesome!

Joe: Hey. You put my son's life in danger. Again.
HR: And he saved Barry's life!
(Wally shakes his head and leaves the room.)
HR: Joe, why... why do you think I help Wally? Because I'm selfish? I get something? I don't get anything out of it. I help Wally 'cause the kid is special! He's extraordinary! His powers are extraordinary! I get it, I.. I'm not his dad and I don't have the same safety concerns as you, of course not... but one thing I do know- the longer you deny someone their potential, the more they're going to look for it elsewhere.

Savitar: None of you are on your knees. It's a smart move to bow before a deity.
Barry: You're not God.
Savitar: To be a god, you just have to make people believe you are.
Iris: No one believes in you.
Savitar: You should, Iris. I hold the power of life and death over all of you.
Caitlin: How do you know so much about us?
Savitar: I know you, Caitlin. Cisco. Joe. Wally.The fake Wells. I know your fears and I know your weaknesses. I know you better than you know yourselves. I know your destinies. One shall betray you. One shall fall. One will suffer a fate far worse than death. This is the knowledge I have for you about your everlasting damnation.
Barry: Who are you?
Savitar: I am the future, Flash.
Barry: What do you want from us?
Savitar: Everything! Everything you took from me, I'm want it back!  And I'm going to take it back! Then, I will destroy you!
Barry: Then why haven't you, already? If you're all-powerful, then why don't you just go ahead and kill us all now and be done with it? Because you can't.
Savitar: You did this to me! You trapped me in eternity. Your future self. You did this to me, Barry! And now the age of my revenge rises. My freedom is at hand. You will feel my wrath! The wrath of Savtiar!

Barry: I've never run to the future. I've traveled to the past but I always came back to the present. I saw myself. And Iris. And Savitar... he killed her. That's five months from now. Is that actually going to happen?
Jay: ... I don't know.
Barry: You don't -
Jay: You shouldn't have seen that.
Barry: This - this doesn't make sense, we - we just got rid of The Philosopher's Stone! I mean, Savitar shouldn't have even been there! Oh my God...this is where the newspaper in the time vault changed. The byline... this is why it's not Iris. This... Iris didn't write that story anymore eight years from now because... she's dead.
Jay: Barry...
Barry: I just watched her die! I saw myself try to save her, but I wasn't fast enough. Jay, tell me that this isn't my destiny.
Jay: What you saw was one possibility of the future. What may be or what may not.
Barry: Okay. Then I can stop this from happening. I can run back there-
Jay: You can't go back there! Not again! Not ever!
Barry: All right. Then I'll figure out exactly how it happened. How we wind up on that street. And I'll just make sure that we don't go there. I mean, if we don't go there-
Jay: Barry! This is why speedsters don't travel to the future. Nobody should know this much about their own. Just as there are infinite Earths in the multiverse, there are infinite possibilities to the future. It's always bending. Always changing. Every decision you make creates another alternative.
Barry: I won't let Iris die.
Jay: The future isn't written yet. And it might not even turn out to be what you saw. You need to focus on the here and now. You have to live your life.

(Everyone stops to listen to the carolers, who are singing in the rain.)
HR: (chuckling drunkenly) Caroling in the rain... that sucks!
(Caitlin walks off to one side and slips off her power-blocking bracelet. Cisco turns around and notices.)
Cisco: Hey! What are you doing?
Caitlin: It's okay -  I've got this. We may not be able to have a perfect Christmas but we can have a white one.
(Caitlin sticks a hand toward the partially cracked window and the rain slowly turns into snow.)


Continuity

It is revealed that Julian Albert used his family fortune to lead an expedition to search for The Philosopher's Stone in India in the summer of 2012. In December 2012, he found it and fell under the influence of Savitar, though he had no memory of this and suffered black-outs for the next few years.

Earth 19 celebrates Christmas in the same fashion as Earth One, according to HR.

Julian Albert attended Oxford University and wrote a dissertation on The Philosopher's Stone.

According to Julian, The Philosopher's Stone was the first object in recorded history that bestowed super powers on people. He also notes that Savitar was said to be the first metahuman to gain speed powers.

Earth Three apparently has blimps as a commonplace means of transportation.

There's a Trickster on Earth Three. Though not identified by name, he resembles James Jesse from Earth One.

Jay Garrick has heard stories about Savitar on Earth Three. He claims Barry is the first speedster to have seen him.

The stories say that Savitar was the first man given speed powers. Over time, he became the god of motion. Before Savitar visits an Earth, he sends a predecessor to prepare the way for his arrival. Upon arrival, he battles any speedster he sees as a threat to his power. Jay learned this through "Speed Force myths, legends and rumors."

HR says "Run, Wallace, Run!' while training Wally, in the same way other Wells have said "Run, Barry, Run!"

While no exact speed is given, Wally is confirmed to be faster at this point in his time as a speedster than Barry was.

Cisco recalls one Christmas Eve he spent with his brother sharing a bottle of whiskey. He says it was the only time they ever really felt like brothers.

Caitlin recalls the last Christmas she spent with her father - they sat inside and watched old movies during a blizzard.

According to Iris, four colleagues of Julian's died on his expedition to find The Philosopher's Stone.

Jay Garrick never had a sidekick in all his years as The Flash on Earth Three.

Barry reveals his secret identity to Julian Albert.

Julian Albert had a sister named Emma who died when he was 20. Visions of her telling him about The Philosopher's Stone having the power to bring her back from the dead inspired his quest to locate it.

Wally West is able to see Savitar.

Savitar apparently has powers of telepathy and illusion projection, even when The Philosopher's Stone is contained within its box. This is how he was able to send Julian an image of his dead sister and Cisco an image of his dead brother.

It is clear, based on Caitlin's reaction when Cisco opens the box, that she does not see the ghostly Dante that Cisco does.

Savitar delivers three prophecies about the people assembled in the room. "One shall betray you. One shall fall. One will suffer a fate far worse than death."

The camera focuses on Wally when betrayal is mentioned. Cisco is shown when it is said one will fall. Caitlin is shown when Savitar says one will suffer a fate worse than death.

Five months in the future, Barry hears a news report about a criminal named Plunder a.k.a. Jared Morillo - whose trial on charges of theft and assault just ended.

Five months in the future, Barry sees Savitar kill Iris West.

Jay Garrick returns to Earth Three before the Christmas party starts.

Caitlin invites Julian Albert to the West family Christmas gathering. He says he prefers to spend Christmas alone, but does eventually show up for the party.

Joe West and Cecile Horton finally kiss.

Wally is given a gift of a yellow Kid Flash costume like what he wore in The Flashpoint universe.

Julian Albert gets Barry his job with the CCPD back.

Caitlin uses her powers to turn the rain over The West House into snow.

Barry signs the lease on a house for himself and Iris as her Christmas present.


Location

The Indus Valley - December 2012.
Central City on Earth Three - December 2016.
Central City on Earth One - May 2017.


The Bottom Line

A solid and satisfying mid-season finale that - for once - answers more questions than it raises and doesn't leave our heroes looking like complete idiots.