The Flash Episode Guide: Season 7, Episode 3 - Mother

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

Plot

As Mirror Mistress makes her move, Barry is ready to hang up his costume after the damage he did. Thankfully, a new ally with a familiar face emerges to help save the day, as Team Flash rallies to rebuild the Speed Force and save the world.


Influences

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (the theme of people being replaced by duplicates) and The Flash comics of Joshua Williamson.


Goofs

Why didn't Eva send her minions to attack STAR Labs directly, when she sent one cop duplicate to try and covert Joe West and Cecile Horton?

It must be noted again that everything that happens in this episode (and indeed the second half of Season 6) is Barry Allen's fault and that the only reason Eva went about abducting and replacing people was because of Barry's efforts to expose her and his earlier refusal to work with the villain who was holding his wife hostage, even though it would be far from the first time Barry tried to find common ground with a supervillain. What makes this more maddening is that Eva gives up after Iris (of all people) tries to show her some sympathy.

Granting that the COVID-19 crisis and the firing of Hartley Sawyer limited their options, it seems incredibly short-sighted for the series to write out Ralph and Sue like they do here. It also seems incredibly unfair to Natalie Dreyfuss, who effectively lost her job because of someone else's mistakes. Hopefully the role of Ralph Dibny will be recast eventually and we'll see them again.


Performances

The scene where Cisco awkwardly says goodbye to Harrison Wells 1.0 is a great moment for both Carlos Valdez and Tom Cavanagh.


Artistry

The fight between The Flash, Frost and Vibe against multiple Mirror Mistress duplicates is the Mirror Master fight fans have been wanting to see for seven years.


Flash Facts

When seeing the melted Ralph Dibny, Cisco declares "Holy Plasmus!" In addition to be a nod to the 1966 Batman TV show's Robin and his habit of exclaiming that various things were holym ("Holy Sardines, Batman!") it's also a reference to the Teen Titans villain Plasmus, who had a similarly molten appearance.

The final scene shows four colors of energy wash over Central City after the new Speed Force is created; red, green, blue and yellow. This may be a nod to the Still Force, Sage Force and Strength Force; three forces which were revealed to be hidden within the Speed Force during The Flash comics run of Joshua Williamson.


Technobabble

When Barry pulled Iris from the Mirrorverse and she resisted, it created a molecular anomaly. All her neural pathways became disjointed, and, according to Caitlin, it looked like her brain had been remapped. 

Light photons are elementary particles that exist everywhere in nature.

According to Eva, the applications of her reflective chip technology are endless and she could increase the crop yield of world-wide agriculture tenfold overnight, ending world hunger.

Wells describe the Crisis as a temporal coalescence.

Ralph Dibny's body temperature after being caught in the McCulloch Labs explosion is 500 degrees.

A mobile biogenic containment unit is used to help Ralph heal.

Barry theorizes that he can recreate the Speed Force by drawing upon his love of Iris and the residual Speed Force energy inside of her from her time as a Speedster. This is accomplished by repurposing the Artificial Speed Force to tap an organic source instead of an artificial one. This requires that the energy coupling be rerouted along with the energy cycle and the fusion sphere being completely remapped. 

Since Mirror Mistress' body is made of quantum protons, which are capable of sub-light speed, she's technically faster than The Flash.

Cisco builds a new super suit which replicates his Vibe powers.


Dialogue Triumphs

Mirror Mistress: I'm not human. I'm something better. That is why I'm showing you mercy.

Wells 1.0: The other Wells may be gone, but they left an imprint, memories, and so let me just say that, whatever is wrong… Let me help you because they would want me to.
Barry: You can’t. This enemy that we’re facing is all-powerful, plus my speed is gone.
Wells 1.0: Aren’t you the Paragon of Love? Look, anyone can save the world with their speed, with their might, but it takes a real hero… A once-in-a-lifetime hero, to do it with his heart.
Barry: What is that supposed to mean?
Wells 1.0: It means run, Barry. Run toward love.

(Cisco and Wells 1.0 are saying their goodbyes.)
Cisco: If Kamilla and I are lucky enough to share half of what you and Tess have…
Wells 1.0: You will.
(There is an awkward pause as they regard each other.)
Cisco: This is weird.
Wells 1.0: Yeah, we just met.
Cisco: Right? It’s like I barely even know you.
Wells 1.0: We barely know each other.
Cisco: I mean, you’re nothing like him.
Wells 1.0: Like who? Oh, the Harrison Wells you used to know.
Cisco: Or the man I thought was Harrison Wells. Of course, he turned out to be a…
Both: A jerk?
Cisco: Yeah.
Wells 1.0: Yeah.
(They both chuckle.)
Cisco: How do you miss someone you barely even know?
(Wells 1.0 shrugs a bit and offers Cisco his hand. He takes it and they shake hands firmly. Cisco turns to walk away but then turns back around.)
Cisco: Before you go, how exactly do you travel in time? 
Wells 1.0:  Easy. Just… like this. 
(Wells 1.0 waves his hand and disappears in a cloud of green particles.)


Continuity

As the episode opens, Barry is in shock and Iris is in a vegetative state, as Cisco, Frost and Allegra come to after being knocked out in 702.

Caitlin takes over from Frost to treat Iris.

Barry refuses to reconnect to the Artificial Speed Force, saying it turned him into something just as bad as Eobard Thawne.

The CCPD is besieged by reports of people being attacked by hands coming from mirrors and loved ones not acting like themselves.

Joe meets with Sue Dearbon's parents, not knowing they are mirror duplicates.

Sue disguises herself as a CCPD cop.

Sue meets with Joe in secret and tells him about the mirror duplicates. This reminds Joe of the fake Iris and he puts two and two together.

According to Sue, Ralph is off tracking a lead.

Eva McCulloch's powers are now strong enough that she can grab people through any reflective surface: not just mirrors. 

Barry suggests they cut power to the city so as to reduce the light available for Eva's powers to work.

Barry is drawn into the Mirrorverse, where Eva says once again that she doesn't want to kill anyone; she wants to build a better world,, but his actions convinced her that humanity doesn't deserve it.

The Harrison Wells seen in 702.manifests inside STAR Labs. He claims to be the original Harrison Wells of Earth-1, who was murdered and replaced by Eobard Thawne.

Wells 1.0 theorizes that when Nash Wells sacrificed himself in 701, the universe required a balance. This apparently led to his resurrection as an energy being made up of multiversal particles.

Wells 1.0 has the knowledge and memories of all the other Harrison Wells. For that reason, he offers to help Team Flash because they would have helped.

One of Eva's mirror duplicates targets Cecile and Joe West, cornering them in Barry's lab at the CCPD.

Ralph Dibny and Sue Dearbon return to STAR Labs after Ralph is severely injured by an explosion at McCulloch Labs.The explosion somehow melted Ralph's face.

Before it blew up, Ralph did recover security camera footage which proved Sue didn't murder Joseph Carver.

While sitting with a comatose Iris, Barry has an idea on how to repair the Speed Force, referring to when Iris had speed powers in 416.

Joe tries to help Cecile escape by sending her into the duct work. Instead she is caught, and replaced by a mirror duplicate.

Cisco, Frost and Barry fight against Eva and her mirror duplicates.

Iris briefly manifests mirror-control powers during the fight against Eva.

Eva surrenders after Iris points out she's endangering the world she claims to want to save.

Eva sends her "children" back to the Mirrorverse and returns all the people she abducted, including Singh and Kamilla.

Wells 1.0 tells Allegra Garcia that someone else will have to train her in using her powers because their paths are heading different ways.

Wells 1.0 originally would have lived to be 92 years old on Earth-Prime.

Somehow, being reborn as multiversal particles has given Wells 1.0 the ability to see the past, present and future along his personal timeline and he can travel to any moment he wants. He considers this ability useless, however, unless he can share it with his wife, Tess, whom he only got four years with before his death.

Wells 1.0 intends to relive the 4 years he spent with his wife until he runs out of time.

Wells 1.0 tells Cisco that he and Kamilla will be lucky enough to share half of what he and Tess had.

Ralph needs to spend a few more days in the BCU before his face heals.

Sue turns down a chance to join Team Flash, saying a do-gooder team is not her style. Besides, she and Ralph have plans to travel the world and take down gangs like Black Hole.

Ralph says he'll be back someday and take Frost on that road trip they planned.

The final scene reveals that when Barry created the new Speed Force, it released red, green, blue and yellow energy over Central City.


Untelevised Adventures

Eva blows up McCulloch Labs off-camera, while Ralph Dibny was inside it.


The Bottom Line

A fragmented mess that does a disservice to some of the best things to come out of The Flash Season 6. The best thing that can be said about it is that at least its over and from here on out we'll get to see what the showrunners really had planned for Season 7.

The Flash Episode Guide: Season 7, Episode 2 - The Speed of Thought

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

Plot

The Artificial Speed Force gives Barry a new power in the form of speed-thinking, which he feels may hold the key to saving the captives of the Mirrorverse. Cisco, however, is skeptical, and fears there may be a downside to Barry's new power. Meanwhile, Eva must face a harsh truth about herself.


Influences

JLA: Tower of Babel (mention of Babel Protocols and explanation they are plans to disable various superheroes.)


Goofs

Why didn't Cisco destroy the Artificial Speed Force while Barry and the rest of the team were away during their fight? He was all alone in the Speed Lab and had enough time to do it.


Performances

Grant Gustin is unnerving as the completely logical "Spock" Flash.

Carlos Valdes gets some great silent acting moments throughout the episode, as he is seen to be thinking of things and reacting to Gustin's increasingly unstable unemotional state.


Artistry

The special effects for the Frost vs. Flash high-speed fight are phenomenal. 


Flash Facts

Despite Nash and the Council of Wells dying one episode earlier, they are still included in the title card sequence for this episode.

Cisco makes mention of having expanded the Babel Protocols so they are no longer entirely tech-based. This is a nod to the JLA: Tower of Babel storyline in the comics, which was written by longtime Flash writer Mark Waid. In it, Ra's Al Ghul enacted a plan to cause wide-spread chaos using towers that broadcast a signal which hindered humanity's ability to understand spoken or written language. To ensure the Justice League did not stop him, he utilized a series of plans, formulated by Batman, to disable Earth's greatest heroes. The same storyline was adapted to make the animated movie: Justice League: Doom, but in the movie it was a newly formed Legion of Doom led by Vandal Savage that attacked the Justice League with plans stolen from Batman rather than Ra's Al Ghul and the League of Assassins.


Technobabble

Cisco says he thought he could use Atlantean technology to tackle the problem of perpetual motion and open a portal to the Mirrorverse.

According to Chester, there are two big problems that need to be solved to fix Cisco's Mirrorverse portal. First, they have to find the method to reconfigure the molecular stability of the dimensional barrier that damages organic matter. Next, quantum entanglement from reversed Higgs boson particles disrupts the geospatial algorithm, preventing them from being able to locate people inside the Mirrorverse. This means they have to know precisely where their friends are in order to retrieve them.

Barry determines that Iris' neural pathways have likely achieved an equilibrium with the harmonic frequency of contained within the fractalized dimensional plane and this is why she was able to use the computers in the Mirrorverse to send messages.

According to Cisco, Barry's neurons are now constantly firing at super-speed ever since he became bonded to the Artificial Speed Force, with synaptic connections that are off the charts. Barry is now capable of thinking faster than a quantum computer, resulting in enhanced cognition by way of a Speed Force booster shot. In short, Barry can think faster than ever, in addition to running fast.

Cisco invents a Quantum Ball - a ball which amplified kinetic energy, firing in directions that can only be described as unpredictable. Unpredictable, that is, except to Barry with his new speed-thinking powers.
 
Bloodwork's unique cells created a polar covalent bond with the molocules in Eva's mirror portal. This is why she needed his blood; to create a bio-friendly skin on the interdimensional barrier.

Barry says they do not need Bloodwork's blood, because it would have bonded with the electro-negative particles and become dark matter photons. These particles would not just stay on the mirror portal - they would have attached themselves to Eva as she passed from the Mirrorverse into the real world.

Cisco says if they could collect those particles from Eva, they could use those to open their Mirrorverse portal, but it would take them years to build a prototype to do it. Barry is able to fast-track the process, by integrating the neural net in the Thinker's chair to synch to a nanite bridge, fed into the Tachyon enhancer's non-reductive loop. 

Factoring in geographic analytics and concealment probability, Barry is able to locate the remaining Black Hole safe-houses in Central City and estimates with a 97.6% certainty which one Mirror Mistress will attack. 

Barry creates a cure for the light attack that injured Frost; a cryogenically fortified paracetamol cocktail that fortified her cellular walls. 

When asked why he allowed Frost to get shot, Barry says there was a .0002% chance that the Tachyon Enhancer would be damaged by his attempting to save Frost, while the odds that he would fail to find a way to heal her injuries were much smaller. Logically, the best thing to do was allow her to be injured and then trust that he would be able to heal her.

Barry says Frost should recuperate from her injuries for 14.2 minutes. 

McCulloch Technologies' black box servers run a hybrid theorem-proving system with model checking. 

Gideon says it will take 18.4 hours to run the quantum computations needed to analyze all the temporal-spatial data behind the Mirrorverse portal. Barry suggests the data can be processed more quickly by inverting the Feynman shortcut and applying it to one-half mass times velocity squared, compensating for tachyon decay. This allows the numbers to be processed in seconds.

According to Barry, the longer someone is in the Mirrorverse, the more dark matter photons are rquired to pull them back to reality. Unfortunately, the quantity that they have limits them to being able to retrieve Kamilla and Singh or Iris.

People brought into the Mirrorverse using the mirror gun develop a condition similar to neural dissonance, which causes them to feel intense physical pain. Iris somehow knows this, for no apparent reason.

Eobard Thawne used negative emotions to stabilize his Negative Speed Force machine. To avoid the same mistakes he made, Cisco used an inert substance - an argon-xenon hybrid - that would generate no emotional fallout in constructing their Artificial Speed Force. Unfortunately, in doing this, Cisco accidentally wound up making it so that the ASF increased Barry Allen's cognitive function by a factor of 1000, but his emotional responses have decreased by the same factor.

The anti-speedster gun Cisco built releases a charge of what he calls Velocity-Zero, which temporarily dampens a speedster's speed.


Dialogue Triumphs

Barry: (voice-over) He was the most brilliant mind I ever met. They all were. Whatever the problem, you could count on a Wells - a council of them - to have the answers. Now, they're all gone. And we've got to find the answers ourselves.

Cisco: Why does it always feel like for us to win some of us have to lose?

(Barry has explained his plan to build a jerry-rigged device to absorb the particles they need from Mirror Mistress herself, using two blackboards worth of formulas.)
Allegra: But isn't Eva still holed up behind McCulloch Tech's forcefield? We'll never get close to her!
(Barry's jaw drops and he gestures with his marker.)
Allegra: (sighs) You're going to bring out another board?
(There is a woosh as Barry runs off to get another blackboard.)

(Cisco explains that the Artificial Speed Force has enhanced Barry's intelligence, but is repressing his emotions by an equal factor.)
Barry: I am better this way. The team is safer this way.
Cisco: (putting a hand on Barry's shoulder) Look, man. I know you think your heart has been used against you. But's not a weakness. It's makes you human. I mean, without it...
(Cisco glances to one side and sees the targeting screen for the Mirrorverse portal. There is a long pause as the significance of it hits him. Still, he hesitates to ask what he already knows.)
Cisco: Why is the portal target set to Iris?
(Barry does not respond.)
Cisco: What about saving the others?!
Barry: We do not have enough dark matter photons to save all three of them.
(There s another long pause as Cisco mulls this other, blinking.)
Cisco: So... instead of consulting your team, you just decided on your own?
Barry: I've already seen the outcome of this debate. You eventually vote to save Kamilla and Singh.
Cisco: Like hell! I would never vote on something like that! If you had come to me,  would've told you we'll find another way. That's what we always do!
Barry: Your emotions are making you irrational. 
Cisco: And your lack of them are making you wrong! 

(Frost has just landed on a car after being sent flying several blocks by a super speed punch.)
The Flash: Your defeat is inevitable. The Velocity-X in your system is nearly depleted. Your time as a Speedster is coming to an end.
Frost: (panting) Maybe. But I'm not only a Speedster.
(Frost suddenly spins around in imitation of Barry preparing to throw lightning. As she does so, a ice blue bolt mixed with lightning jumps from her fingers, racing toward Barry. He is unable to dodge as the thunder shower blows him back off his feet. As he goes flying, Allegra runs out from behind a car and hits him with a smoke bomb. Suddenly he is on the floor in the Speed Lab, where Cisco Ramon is waiting and shoots him again with the Zelocity-Zero gun.)


Continuity

Team Flash have created a memorial space in STAR Labs, which has displays for every friend they've lost in the fight against evil. 

Cisco says the memorial room is nano-engraved with the names of the fallen, so that even if reality is rewritten and the timeline changes they will not be forgotten. 

The displays in the Team Flash memorial room include Captain Cold's goggles, Ronnie Raymond's jacket from his Firestorm costume, XS' costume jacket, Jesse Quick's jacket, and a large display holding Harry Wells' glasses, HR Wells' drum sticks, Sherloque Wells' magnifying glass, and (after Cisco adds it to the mannequin in the center) Nash Wells' bandoleer satchel. 

Allegra still has the picture of her alternate self and Nash, which she took in 701.

Allegra gets the message which Iris sent to Jamilla and Singh, telling them to meet her ni the Speed Lab at STAR Labs at 19:00.

The technology Cisco retrieved from Atlantis (which he left to get in 618) doesn't work like he'd hoped.

Chester is apparently visiting his grandmother, but is continuing to do some science work in between rounds of bingo.

According to Cisco, Eva used Bloodwork's blood to tackle the first problem they have with creating a Mirrorverse gate when opening her portal in 617; they need something to recofigure the portal's natural tendency to destroy organic matter.

Barry begins to have visions of the complicated concepts Cisco is about to explain before he can explain them.

Allegra tells Cisco and Barry about Iris' message.

Sunshine says she thinks Eva looks like she hasn't slept in some time and that she has a look in her eyes similar to the one that her husband had when she was hiding something from his followers. Eva denies that she is hiding anyuthing.

Sunshine refers to herself, Ultraviolet and Dr. Light as The Assassins Three.

Eva elects to go after the next Black Hole safehouse herself.

Cisco invents a quantum ball to test Barry's newfound ability to think quickly. Barry is successfully able to predict exactly where an allegedly unpredictable ball will bounce.

Using his new speed-thinking powers, Barry is able to figure out that the particles they need to open their portal can be taken directly from Mirror Mistress, builds the advanced technology they need to do that and predicts the next Black Hole safehouse she's likely to attack, which can be the setting of an ambush instead.

Iris finds Kamilla outside STAR Labs, spray-painting a message for her on the wall outside the building.

Iris thinks she's been in the Mirrorverse long enough that she's gained the ability to manipulate the realm. 

Kamilla says she wasn't able to find Singh at the hospital.

Kamilla and Iris go off to look for Singh together.

Barry called Frost back earlier, to have her act as a distraction while he absorbed the particles they needed from Mirror Mistress.

Barry's plan works, but he hesitates as Mirror Mistress attacks Frost with another focused light blast. Cisco sees Barry not move as Frost is shot.

Barry creates a cure for Frost's injuries after running 2,371 tests in his head in a span of seconds.

Barry describes superspeed thinking as experiencing a barrage of images flying at him or having a scene play out in his head.

Based on Iris' message and the warning that Eva is watching, Barry says the next step is thinking of a solution to that problem and making sure Eva doesn't try to stop them from rescuing the Mirrorverse captives.

Allegra tells Cecile that she's always rejected father figures in her life, since her dad abandoned her before she could walk. This was why she resisted Nash trying to get close to her.

Cecile's grandfather was the first Black paralegal in Oklahoma. Her mother was the first female independent counsel in the state of Texas. She keeps her grandfather's filling cabinet and mother's briefcase as mementos of them. 

Barry figures out that Eva is a fractal clone of the real Eva McCulloch and how to hack her computers to find the video file Joseph Carver left behind. He did this after overhearing her refer to herself as a phantom, thinking back to Carver's dying words in 619 about Mirror Mistress no really being his wife, and going on to analyze her behavior patterns, body language and graphological handwriting.

Eva appears on a local talks how, The Arielle Atkins show, to talk about her plans to develop fresh water, healthier crops and clean renewable energy.

Barry elects to broadcast the hacked security footage of Eva McCulloch's death. This leads Mirror Mistress to have an emotional breakdown on live television, destroying a glass which cuts the face of Arielle Atkins and Eva fleeing the show set, disappearing into a reflection.

Sunshine abandons Mirror Mistress. 

Barry says there were 141 ways to distract Mirror Mistress. Exposing her to the world was the most effective way to ensure she'd be unable to stop them from opening their portal. Barry says making their enemies emotionally upset makes them prone to making mistakes, despite Frost and Cisco saying getting Mirror Mistress upset doesn't seem like a good idea.

Barry determines, and confirms with Gideon, that there are only enough dark photos to safely retrieve either Iris or both Kamilla and Singh. He then runs a simulation to see how the rest of the team would react to this news. Unsurprisingly, they all vote to save the larger number of people and leave Iris in the Mirrorverse. As such, Barry elects not to tell them and tries to open the portal and retrieve Iris on his own.

Cisco determines that the protocols he put into the Artificial Speed Force to prevent Barry's emotions from influencing the device have instead repressed his emotions while enhancing the logic centers of his brain.

Cisco notices, as he is explaining his mistake to Barry, that the portal is set to target Iris and no one else.

Barry denies that his decision to save Iris is based on emotion - it's because Iris has knowledge of Eva they need to fight her. As such, Singh and Kamilla are expendable.  When he uses that word, Cisco pulls a gun from one of the cabinets in the speed lab and calls in Frost and Allegra.

Allegra enters the fight wearing a white bandoleer satchel, similar to Nash's.

Frost injects herself with Velocity-X, temporarily giving her super-speed to combat Barry in a running battle across Central City.

Allegra is able to ambush Barry with one of Nssh's teleporting smoke bombs. This sends him back to STAR Labs, where he falls on the ground and has the wind knocked out of him, giving Cisco time to shoot him with another blast of Velocity-Zero.

Cisco makes mention of the Babel Protocols, which were first mentioned in 402. Originally limited to a self-destruct mode built into The Flash suit, they now consist of multiple plans to take down Barry Allen (and, presumably, other superheroes) in case of an emergency.

The Quantum Ball Barry threw at the start of the fight hits Cisco, knocking him out and causing him to accidentally blast the crystal Allegra is holding - the same one Nash gave her in 619 that causes a person to relieve their worst memories, when Allegra uses her powers on it. This causes Allegra to blast herself, which causes her to blast Frost and knock her out before she passes out from shock.

As Barry opens the portal, Iris is in the middle of trying to get Kamilla and Singh to the medical bay.

Iris refuses to go and leave the injured Singh and Kamilla behind. Shockingly, Barry did not predict this happening. 

Barry forces Iris to come through the portal, but seems to injure her in the process as she passes out once the portal is closed.

The realization of what he's done thanks to his hyper-logic leads Barry do throw lightning into the Artificial Speed Force, destroying it. This also seems to cause a feedback loop, which causes Barry to experience a debilitating electric shock of blue lightning. 

In her office, Mirror Mistress begins muttering to herself that this isn't her world anymore, but it can be.

At CCPD HQ, one of the cops is grabbed by Mirror Mistress, through her reflection, while in an elevator.

The final scene, labeled "Once Upon A Time..." replays the flashback scene from 117 where Eobard Thawne replaced the original Harrison Wells of Earth-1. This time, we also see Thawne burying Wells' remains in a shallow grave. The scene ends with a focus on the grave as green specks of energy appear around the grave, rebuilding the body of the original Harrison Wells, before fading to black and giving us a "To Be Continued..." notice.


The Bottom Line

A step-up over the last few episodes, thanks to a smart script and some solid performances. The opening scene gives the Wells the send-off they should have gotten last week and the last scene suggests Tom Cavanagh isn't quite done with the show yet. Between that, we get some great CGI fights and a reminder of how smart these characters are meant to be... ignoring that Cisco probably could have shut down the ASF while Frost was running around with Barry. 

The Flash Episode Guide: Season 7, Episode 1 - All's Wells That Ends Wells

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


Plot

When the latest attempt to restore Barry's speed fails, Nash proposes a dangerous plan. Meanwhile, Iris comes to a startling realization in the Mirror World, as Cecile has a disturbing encounter with The Top.


Influences

The Flash comics of Joshua Williamson (The Black Hole organization, mention of Meena Dhawan.) and the Geoff Johns (The Top's new power set.)


Goofs

The retcon that Mirror Master has always been a mirror clone created by Mirror Mistress and the retcon that The Top was always the brains of their operation are not explained very well.

Iris' apparent transformation/death in the final scene of 619 amounts to nothing, as this episode opens with her perfectly fine apart from continuing to hallucinate and suffering from migraines.

Why did Joseph Carver save a video file that proved his story about his wife dying and being replaced with an evil mirror duplicate on a portable hard drive in a file labeled FOR EVA and not ever show it to any of the authorities he was asking for help who had no reason to trust him last season? (There was no reason since Barry just unquestioningly agreed to help him.)

Given that Black Hole is meant to be a secret group, why do their jets have the group logo painted on them?


Performances

Grant Gustin does a fine job impersonating the various versions of Harrison Wells.

The scenes of Nash coming to terms with his death and the roll-call of Wells saying goodbye are a brilliant swan-song for Tom Cavanagh and would be a worthy end for his tenure on the show if, indeed, we thought he truly were done with The Flash.


Flash Facts

 As the episode opens, Chester is reading a physics textbook by Dr. Meena Dhawan. This is a nod to a character from The Flash comics of Joshua Williamson, who was briefly a love interest and ally of Barry Allen, before becoming taken over by the Negative Speed Force and becoming the Negative Flash.

The first fight between Barry and Mirror Mistress as the episode opens begins at 2nd Street and Walczak. This is likely a nod to The Flash writer Katherine Walczak. It then moves to 3rd Street and Certo, which is likely a reference to The Flash writer Lauren Certo.

This is the first episode to feature a new title card sequence which includes Allegra and Chester as part of the team. Ralph Dibny is notably absent from the new sequence.

The map of Central Ctiy which Barry uses to chart the Black Hole hideouts Eva hit mentions several districts from The Flash comics.  These include Leawood, City Center, University Town, Westminster, Petersburg, Englewood, New Brighton and Lawrence Hills. The general layout of the map also roughly resembles the map of the city featured in the 1990 Atlas of the DC Universe, save that the Arrowverse version of the city has a large river bisecting the city in a North-South direction, just to the west of City Center.

The new Harrison Wells variant introduced in this episode, Harrison Orson Wells, is a clear tribute to legendary actor/producer/director Orson Wells.

The Top's new empathic power set is taken from the Geoff Johns run on The Flash, where the original Top, Roscoe Dillon, had his power set changed to develop "mind over matter" telepathic abilities which he used to change the personalities of the other Rogues, pushing them to reform. For Rosa Dillon, this translates into empathic powers like those of Cecile Horton.

Sherloque makes reference to a villain known as the King Tut Killer of Earth-66. This seems to be a nod to King Tut - a Batman villain from the 1966 Batman show., who apparently became murderous despite the villains of that universe being relatively non-lethal.

Allegra starts calling Chester Chuck for short. This is a reference to the Chunk nickname Chester was originally given in The Flash comics, where he was a fat guy whose power was generating black holes.


Technobabble

Barry's costume now has a nanotech hood that covers his face with a touch. 

The fusion sphere powers the Artificial Speed Force. It absorbs whatever touches it while it is active, so it should not be touched while it is turned on, as it fuses the atoms of whatever touches it, bringing about complete molecular degeneration. (An important safety tip Nash relates to Chester.)

Multiversal particles made of synaptic energy, taken from every version of Harrison Wells in the multiverse, exist within Nash Wells. These particles could be used as a power source for the Artificial Speed Force but an organic receptor is required to contain them long enough for the fusion sphere to absorb them, due to the volatile nature of the particles.

Multiversal particles oscillate at certain frequencies of light. Nash theorizes that Allegra can use her powers to transfer the particles from him and into the fusion sphere. 

Chester uses the Mobile Gideon to confirm that an abundance of multiversal particles inside Barry's mind are causing his cerebral cortex to overload.

Chester says he can build a particle magnet that can contain the particles long enough to charge the fusion sphere so Nash doesn't have to die.

Chester fashions a vest covered with ionic circuits which can contain the multiversal particles as Allegra shifts them from Barry back into Nash.


Dialogue Triumphs

(Nash, Allegra and Chester are watching Barry stir, after he was zapped by the multiversal particles. He groans and they all sigh in relief... until he starts speaking with a French accent.)
Barry/Sherloque: Hello. Qu'est Ce qui Se passe? What are you all doing?
Chester: Uh, since when do you speak French?
Barry/Sherloque: Since always, no?
Allegra: Why is he talking funny?
Nash I think when the particles left the Fusion Sphere, they transferred to Barry Allen.
Chester: So all the brainwaves of all the Wellses who've ever lived...?
Barry/Sherloque: Are inside Monsieur Allen's mind!

(Harry Wells has taken over Barry's body.)
Barry/Harry: What happened to the J.V. squad?
(Nash grunts dismissively.).
Barry/Harry: Why are you moping around here instead of helping them?
Nash: Oh, they don't want my help.
Barry/Harry: Right? 
Nash: Mm. Frankly, I don't blame them.
Barry/Harry: Garcia found out the truth?
Nash: Yeah. You know what Cisco said after Crisis? He said, "An infinite number of Harrison Wells, and we're stuck with the one who killed the Multiverse." And every day I ask myself, why? Why am I the one left standing?
Barry/Harry: So who should've gotten the slot? One of us bozos?
Nash: (sighs) You're not bozos. I only called you that because I find the Wells very annoying... Present company excluded. But you know what you are? You're a daily reminder that even though we may all look the same, we're not the same. Because you're all good men. And I'm... I'm not.
Barry/Harry: So you're a selfish jerk. You think that I wasn't? That we all weren't? Hell, when I met this team, I was working for Zoom. H.R. lied. Sherloque... kept secrets. We all came here broken men. Thanks to Team Flash, eventually we learned to be better. That's why I believe in you, Nash. There's a good man in there somewhere. You just need to dig him up, let him breathe. 

(Nash has touched the fusion sphere and is charging the Artificial Speed Force)
Barry: Nash, please. I can't let anyone else die for me. I've already lost so many people.
Nash: Do you know what I feel right now, Allen? Pride. Honor. It's been so long since I felt those things. And it's not just me. The Council feels it, too. And we've made our decision. We're doing this, Allen. (groans)  Is it charging?
(Chester runs to the controls to check.)
Chester: Yeah, the Fusion Sphere is charging. 
Barry: How can I be the Flash without a Wells on this team? 

Nash: You've always been the Flash. You always will be... with or without me. 

(Nash grunts and an energy halo circles his head. When it dissipates he smiles wide. It's HR Wells.)
HR Wells: Hey, B.A. How's it going? (chuckles then sees Barry is tearing up)You're so fast. No, no, no. B.A., don't be upset. This... this is not goodbye. It's just... till our next communion. 
(HR Wells grunts and another Halo appears. This time when it dissipates his expression is cool and dispassionate. When he speaks, he has a French accent. It is Sherloque.)
Sherloque Wells: Not great, hmm? Our current situation, huh? But... it will be.
(Sherloque grunts and the halo appears again. This time when it dissipates, Wells refuses to meet Barry's gaze and speaks in a sarcastic growl. It's Harry Wells.)
Harry: Allen... you know, when I came to your stupid Earth... (chuckles) With its good burgers... I was a broken man... Lost, angry, blah, blah, blah, and you showed me... how to be a better person. And I'll always be grateful for our friendship. Now... (sighs) Run. Barry... run!


Continuity

Barry has been kept in cryogenic suspension as much as possible to preserve what Speed Force energy he has left. As the episode opens, he is down to 1%.

Barry is awoken when Chester detects a fractal anomaly at 2nd Street and Walczak. She is quickly detected moving to 3rd Street and Certo.

Mirror Mistress confirms that her fractal photons move at the speed of light.

Mirror Mistress attacks a warehouse on 199th street that is a hideout of Mirror Master (Sam Scudder) and The Top. They last appeared in an alternate future in 319.

Mirror Mistress seemingly kills Sam Scudder, but reveals to a stunned Top that he was one of her fractal duplicates - the first one she created.

Barry is knocked out and arrives at the warehouse to find The Top in shock next to the shattered remains of her boyfriend.

Iris hallucinates a "take out world tour" dinner date with Barry that includes Big Belly Burger, a hot dog chain with a bag labeled "I LOVE GOTHAM," coq au vin from Paris, sashimi from the Arctic and the funnel cake from the Kansas State Fair. This last item was apparently recommended by Superman.

According to Barry, Eva hit nine sites the previous evening and was gone before he could get to them each time.

Sam Scudder and The Top were apparently working for Black Hole and one of their pins was among Scudder's remains.

The Top and Mirror Master reportedly broke out of Iron Heights sometime within the past year.

Ralph Dibny is in hiding with Sue Dearborn, having gone deep off the grid after being framed for the murder of Joseph Carver.

Caitlin is still in the Arctic with her mother, having left for a while in 619.

Cisco is still in Atlantis, after leaving to get a part for the perpetual motion machine he thinks he can use to open a path to the Mirrorverse in 618.

Cecile takes up The Top's defense, in the hopes that she can get her to tell her where the Black Hole tech she and Sam Scudder were moving is.

Chester and Nash connect a fusion sphere to the Artificial Speed Force. This leads them only needing to find a fuel source to power the ASF.

Another new Wells variant is introduced: Harrison Orson Wells, who was a legendary film and stage director, actor and producer on his Earth.

The Council of Wells solved the problem of how to power the ASF. This information is conveyed to Nash by Harry, HR, Sherloque and Harrison Orson Wells.

The synaptic energy of all the Wells can be used to power the ASF, but Nash has to die in order for it to work. Naturally, he's less than thrilled about this plan and tries to think of an alternative. 

Iris is confronted by another version of herself in the Mirrorverse, as she thinks to try and use a laptop in her apartment to send a message to Kamila. This Iris is wearing the same dress Iris wore while working as a barista in the first episode.

Mirror Mistress discovers a video file labeled FOR EVA on a portable hard drive in Joseph Carver's office. She almost opens it, but then closes the file before she can do so, as she remembers Joseph Carver telling her that she was not his wife and that his wife died six years earlier in 619.

According to The Top, Mirror Master handled all the details of their business dealings with Black Hole. Cecile detects that this is a lie.

The Top's record shows that she ran a psychotropic drug ring while in Iron Heights.

Cecile determines that The Top wasn't really sad about her past crimes but was projecting a false emotion to her.

The Top reveals that beyond causing other people to experience vertigo, she's a powerful empath who can project emotions onto other people and sense the emotions of other people. 

The Top claims that she was the real brains of her gang and that she was made a better offer by Mirror Mistress after Mirror Master got involved with the Black Hole and got in way over his head.

The Top is apparently okay with her boyfriend having been a mirror clone, because she has been given more power and money working for Mirror Mistress then she ever had pretending to be Mirror Master's ditzy girlfriend.

The Top was placed in charge of the next step of Mirror Mistress' plan, but refuses to tell Cecile what it is.

Allegra brings Nash some coffee while he's reading up on organic receptors.

Nash has a revelation about how to power the ASF while talking to Allegra, whom he thinks can use her powers to contain the particles after blasting them out of him with a focused light burst.

Chester points out that multiversal particles are too chaotic to be contained under normal circumstances, but Barry elects to trust Nash.

The particles refuse to be contained and hit Barry when he moves to push Allegra out of the way. This results in the Council of Wells taking control of Barry's body.

Barry manifests Sherloque Wells, HR Wells, Wells the Grey and Harry Wells.

The Barista Iris claims to be a product of Iris pushing her mind too far and snapping.

Iris runs into another version of herself - the one who was killed by Savitar in a potential future. This one taunts her, saying she is insignificant and destined to be a victim.

Chester references 613 and when Grodd and Barry's minds became interlocked to describe what is happening with all the Wells inside his mind. The only thing keeping him alive while this occurs is his speed-healing.

When Chester mentions needing an organic receptor, Allegra recalls what Nash was studying earlier and puts two and two together regarding why he was trying to push her to use his powers instead of sacrificing himself.

Allegra calls Chester Chuck. He later decides that's an okay nickname.

Nash admits that he's afraid he can't be as good as the other Wellses. Harry tells him that none of them were really good men until Team Flash changed them.

Iris meets another version of herself - one who resembles the older Iris of the alternate future of 2049.

Iris realizes the different versions of herself are Eva in disguise trying to break her will.

Cecile projects all her repressed fear on The Top and gets her to confess to planting a bomb on a Black Hole private jet carrying lots of their technology, which will explode over Central City.

Nash sacrifices himself to charge the Artificial Speed Force.

Harry, HR and Sherloque get a chance to say goodbye to Barry before Nash dies.

Barry regains his speed and is able to get the bomb off the Black Hole jet before it explodes.

ARGUS is later able to capture the Black Hole jet once it lands.

Allegra keeps the photo of Nash with her alternate universe self and regrets never really getting to know him.

Barry says that he'll call Caitlin and Cisco and let them know that Nash is dead.

Allegra writes a story about The Flash stopping the bomb.

Iris attempts to send an e-mail to Kamilla and Singh.

Eva watches the file on Carver's drive and sees the real Eva McCulloch die. This causes her to realize that she is a fractal clone as well.


Untelevised Adventures

Mirror Master and The Top escaped from Iron Heights at some point in the past year.


The Bottom Line

A lackluster start to the season, made tolerable only by the scenes centered around Nash Wells and his sacrifice. Yet even those moments are underwhelming, since there's no real emotional resonance with the death being witnessed by Barry and "the JV Squad" with no Cisco to snark at Harry one more time or Joe acknowledging HR's passing. The scenes with Iris are  utterly pointless. The scenes with The Top and Eva are confusing and it's greatly disappointing that Eva's motivations have basically been reduced to her being utterly insane and not really human. This Mirrorverse storyline can't end fast enough.

The Flash Episode Guide: Season 6, Episode 19 - Success Is Assured

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




Plot

With Eva McCulloch free and out for revenge, Joseph Carver turns to the CCPD and STAR Labs for help after all of his bodyguards mysteriously vanish. But as Sue Dearbon returns to Central City with a new wrinkle in her case and Iris becomes increasingly unhinged in the Mirrorverse, can Barry bring himself to protect the man who threatened his family? Even if he manages that, can he stand against this new Mirror Mistress to save Carver?

Influences

Charlie's Angels (the theme with the three female assassin/bodyguards and the editing of their fight with Team Flash) and The Flash comics of Joshua Williamson. (Black Hole organization.)

Goofs

The central conceit of this episode - the team's conflict regarding Barry considering allowing Eva McCulloch to have Joseph Carver just to save Iris - doesn't ring true. Ignoring Nash being the one to call Barry out on this (even with how much he's changed, Nash is still the most amoral member of the team), he complains that every version of Wells in his head says it isn't like the Barry Allen they know to negotiate with a villain. Clearly they weren't paying attention last week when Barry cut a deal with Pied Piper to get his help fighting Godspeed, to say nothing of all the other times Barry let a villain he knew to be a killer walk free in the name of protecting his loved ones. (i.e. every time he cut a deal with Captain Cold, his letting both Amunet Black and The Mechanic walk in The Flash season 4.)

Nash's line about Iris not approving of Barry doing something questionable to save her doesn't ring true either. Or was the timeline rewritten so Iris didn't kill Savitar to save Barry and herself in the Season 3 finale?

While Barry says he couldn't use his super-speed to save Carver from the Mirror Singh without revealing his secret identity, he doesn't seem to have any concerns about Carver getting the chance to know that Ralph Dibny is Elongated Man.

Nash gives Allegra instructions on how to neutralize Sunshine's powers only for Allegra to not fight Sunshine.

Granting that Carver seems more like a corporate weasel than a scientist, you'd think even he would be smart enough (or paranoid enough) to think that a reflective computer screen might be accessible by a mirror-manipulating ex-wife. He also has liquor bottles and drinking glasses in his panic room.

There is no logical reason, other than pure plot contrivance, why Eva McCulloch doesn't just release her hostages once Carver is dead. She's already proven she can outmaneuver Barry in terms of raw power and his refusal to bargain with her seems to be fueled more by his outrage over having Iris taken away than any real righteousness about Carver's being murdred.

Come to that, why doesn't Eva reveal the truth of what happened to the world and how her husband was an abusive jerk who got what was coming to him? Any decent lawyer could make a case that her killing him was self-defense given the deadly technology at his disposal or cop a temporary insanity plea. Effectively, what he did was no different than forcibly confining his wife in the basement for six years and faking her death to collect her inheritance. 

The revelation that Eva framed Sue Dearbon comes out of nowhere and seems like a hastily written excuse to keep her in the series for another season and to make Eva do something actively villainous to turn the audience against her. (Given how the season was cut short by the COVID-19 pandemic, it probably was.)

Performances

Again the chemistry between Hartley Sawyer and Natalie Dreyfus is perfect and you really wish the show was focused on Ralph and Sue instead of Barry and Iris.

Artistry

The editing of the fight scenes is tight and well-styled.

Technobabble

Eva McCulloch has a special suit that is speeding her acclimation to the real world when she is outside of her special reflection modulation chamber.

Nash describes the diamond Sue Dearbon gave Ralph as a Triangulation Cartograph - a treasure map.

Joseph Carver claims that the Mirror verse is incompatible with the human brain and it warps people until they are no longer the person they once were. Nash later says this is possible, having come across an alternate Earth in his travels where visitors suffered neural dissonance - a traumatic psychological state.

According to Dr. Tannhauser, the stoichiomnetric ratio of Frost's blood is manifesting in an abnormal way.

McCulloch Technologies has a biogeneic ionization field that can surround their building.

After Iris was abducted, Carver had the mirror she was taken through coated with protective nanites.

Nash notes that Sunshine now has two bracelets that act as solar energy battery packs, allowing her to use her powers at night. He says the cells can be overloaded by increasing their internal temperature.

The stone that Nash gave Allegra, used in conjunction with her powers, generates a ray that causes a person to relive their worst experiences.

Dialogue Triumphs

Ralph: You're not here to rob the place. And Carver didn't have a change of heart on your parents. You... you offered to take their place in Black Hole. 

Sue: Carver agrees. I'm more valuable than my parents.  

Ralph: Sue, you... you don't have to do this. 

Sue: Yes, I do. I've been trying to collect leverage on Carver for over a year. He's untouchable. 

Ralph: Untouchable unless you have one of those handy-dandy Black Hole pins. You joined Black Hole to get close to Carver. Because you're gonna kill him. That's why you're here, isn't it? 

Sue: Carver's never gonna let my parents go. 

Ralph: Sue, damn it... 

Sue: It's the only way it ends!. 

Ralph: You gotta listen to me. There... there is always another way. Do you understand what happens if you kill Carver? Every time you look in the mirror, you won't recognize the person looking back. You'll lose yourself. 

Sue: Why do you care? 

Ralph: Because I believe in you! And I know there's still good in you. I can see it. 

Sue: I'm sorry about this, slick. 

(Sue pulls out her breath spray and sprays it into Ralph's open mouth. Ralph breathes reflexively and starts to sniff franatically.)

Ralph: Oh, come on. 

(Ralph collapses to the ground as Sue turns and continues down the hall.)

(Eva shatters the mirror that once trapped her and looks at Joseph Carver.)

Carver: Let's talk about this. 

(Eva raises her right arm and a laser cannon forms around it. She chuckles.)

Eva: About what? How you weaponized my technology? Extorted charitable donors? Kidnapped and blackmailed innocent meta-humans like Kimiyo, Esperanza, and Millie? This is me talking!

Carver: I did what I had to do. 

(Eva looks at him sadly and powers down the laser cannon.)
Eva: (sighs) Then I'll do what I have to do. Good-bye, Joseph. 

(Eva raises her hand. The mirror shards on the ground begin to float up, pointing at Carver.) 

Carver: No, Eva! Wait! 

(The shards fly but The Flash runs in at the last second, throwing himself between Carver and Eva, screaming as the shards embed themselves in his costume.)

Eva: No! What don't you understand? He's not worth saving!

The Flash: (strained) Maybe... But it's not your decision. 

Eva: (determined) Oh, yes, it is.

(One of the larger shards begins to push through the Flash's shoulder, coming out through his back, striking Carver dead on in the chest.)W

Eva: My husband... let me rot in that world for years! He does not get to live in this one. 

Carver: You're not my wife! (choking) My wife died in the particle accelerator explosion!

Eva: Well... I've never felt more alive. 

Continuity

The Chief Singh Mirror-Clone is explaining his absence from work by claiming to be with his sick mother.

Nash, Allegra and Cecile help Frost with packing for her trip to the Arctic Circle.

Frost and Allegra are established as friends and Frost agrees to let her borrow one of her jackets while she is gone.

Cecile senses Frost's anxiety over meeting Dr. Tannhauser.

It's been 24 hours since Eva McCulloch was last seen.

The artificial Speed Force still isn't finished.

Barry meets with the rest of the team at his lab at the CCPD Headquarters as he has a backlog of CSI work to finish.

Barry speculates that Eva McCulloch was being literal when she said she had unfinished business to attend to. This leads Ralph to reveal the diamond that Sue gave him in 616. Ralph says that Black Hole's logo is embedded inside the diamond.

Allegra senses serious UV energy coming out of the diamond.

Projected onto a map of Central City, the diamond points towards a warehouse on 42nd Street and Darby which turns out to have five subterranean levels.

Allegra says she doesn't like coffee, but this later revealed to be a lie. She just didn't want coffee Nash had made in an effort to be nice to her.

All five guards in the Black Hole warehouse were stabbed to death when Ralph and Barry get there.

The warehouse apparently holds all the blackmail material Joseph Carver had on various people, including Sue Dearbon's parents. The box with their name on it contains bank statements and finanical records, which Ralph intends to take with him.

Other boxes Ralph finds are labeled with the names Garcia, Rawlins, Hoshi and Merkel. These are the last names of Ultraviolet, Sunshine, Dr. Light and Ragdoll.

Barry smells gasoline and follows the scent to discover the Singh clone in the middle of dousing the warehouse. 

The Singh clone says that Eva is not interested in The Flash's brand of justice and explains that Joseph Carver was there the night Eva became trapped in the Mirrorverse. He was well aware of what happened to her and made no effort to rescue her, instead using her inventions to create Black Hole and become rich selling her technology as weapons and blackmailing people.

Singh uses a flare gun to ignite the gasoline. Barry and Ralph are forced to flee the warehouse after Barry proves to be too slow to create a vortex that can extinguish the fire.

The warehouse is burned to the ground along with all of its contents.

Joseph Carver meets with his lawyer at CC Jitters. After confirming everything that might incriminate him has been destroyed, he instructs him to replace all the items but not to use "The Three" as they can't find out they are "off the leash." This is a reference to Dr. Light, Sunshine and Ultraviolet, who we find out later in the episode were all being blackmailed into working for Carver.

Joseph Carver meets with Barry at CC Jitters. He knows that Barry is married to Iris, but has no idea he is The Flash. 

Carver admits to knowing that Iris was abducted into the Mirrorverse weeks ago, but didn't tell anyone as Eva abducting her solved one of his problems - i.e. nosy reporter investigating his connection to Black Hole.

Carver claims he had the greatest minds in the world study the Mirrorverse and they all concluded that it drove anyone who entered it went insane near-instantly and that the woman claiming to be Eva McCulloch was a thing that thought it was Eva McCulloch rather than a real person.

Carver denies owning the warehouse at 42nd and Darby and says he needs no help protecting himself.

In the Mirrorverse, Iris sees a map of the city on a screen and sees a thermal energy scan that she thinks is Chief Singh's location.

Ralph meets with the Dearbons to let them know that the blackmail material has been destroyed. However, he is cut off by the sudden arrival of Sue Dearbon, who claims to have been at a retreat in India for the past year.

Ralph tries to tell Sue that the blackmail material Carver had on her parents was destroyed. Sue says it doesn't matter because Carver called her last week and said he had a change of heart.

Eva McCulloch is able to draw all three of Joseph Carver's bodyguards into the Mirrorverse using reflective surfaces in his house.

Carver figures out what happened after finding a burn mark on the mirror, where Dr. Light tried to shoot a reflection of Eva.

Carver goes to Barry and requests federal witness relocation protection. He promises to call off the killers he has hunting Joe West if that happens.

Caitlin's mom bonds with Frost. They both agree they'd like to get to know one another better.

The Captain Singh clone shows up to intercept Barry taking Carver to meet the feds. He makes an offer on behalf of Eva McCulloch - hand over Carver, and she'll set Iris free.

Nash uses his teleporting smoke bomb to take everyone back to STAR Labs.

Harry Wells appears to Nash and says that the Barry Allen he knew would never agree to trade another person's life for Iris. 

Team Flash shows Carver the footage of the Mirror Camilla sacrificing herself in 617 to explain the idea of Mirror Duplicates.

Carver says that he has a panic room Eva doesn't know about and a force-field that can prevent anyone from getting inside the McCulloch Technologies building.

Nash knows a away into McCulloch Technologies using the sewer system.

Nash confronts Barry over the fact that he let a mirror duplicate get that close to Carver 

Barry defends his actions, saying he had to protect his secret identity and that any husband would do whatever it takes to safe his wife. Wells agrees, but asks what Iris would think of Barry trading another person's life for hers.  

Carver stole protective nanites from PalmerTech to make the mirror in what was Eva's office safe.

The panic room Carver thinks Eva doesn't know about is hidden in the AV3 room that was her office. It has concrete walls, no mirrors, and a bank of monitors watching the whole facility.

Nash gives Allegra a rock and tells her to blast her UV rays through it if things go bad during the fight.

Ralph recognizes Sue Dearbon in the crowd at McCulloch Technologies.

Sue cut a deal with Carver to become a Black Hole agent in exchange for him stopping the blackmail of her parents.

Ralph figures out that Sue only took the deal so she could get close to Carver and kill him.

Sue knocks Ralph out with some kind of narcotic breath-spray so she can hide in the building and kill Carver one he thinks she's safe.

Sunshine, Dr. Light and Ultraviolet start working for Eva McCulloch, having learned that she destroyed all the blackmail material Carver had on them. They also want a chance at revenge as well. They fight Team Flash and Carver's bodyguards as Eva makes her move against Carver.

Eva uses the Singh clone as a skin-suit to enter McCulloch Technologies, knocking Barry out when he goes to start the back-up generator.

Nash saves Allegra from Ultraviolet

Allegra is able to use the stone Nash gave her to neutralize Ultraviolet, causing her to have visions of being experimented on by Black Hole.

Sue joins the fight and disarms Dr. Light.

Eva attacks Joseph through the monitor in his panic room and eventually kills him with the broken shards of the mirror she was trapped in, despite Barry trying to throw himself between her and Carver.

Eva orders The Three to let Team Flash go, though she does warn Barry to get off her property before she calls the police.

Eva calls a press conference saying she was held captive for six years by an international crime syndicate and watches as her inventions were weaponized. She lies and says her husband continued looking for her before he died saving her.

Dr. Light is at Eva's press conference in her civilian guise, apparently now working for Eva officially.

Sue is framed for Joseph Carver's murder, requiring she stay in hiding in Central City.

Barry gets a chance to talk to Caitlin and wish her well before she goes to the Tannhauser base in the Arctic.

Barry promises to take a whitewater rafting trip with Frost when she and Caitlin get back.

Allegra confirms she does, in fact, like coffee.

Allegra seems to be warming up to Nash.

Joe West joins the rest of Team Flash in Barry's lab, having been released from Witness Protection on account of Carver being dead.

Iris figures out that Chief Singh is at Central City Hospital in the Mirrorverse, just before she suddenly screams, crystallizes and vanishes.

The Boomerang Factor

The central conflict of the episode (and, apparently season 7) would evaporate completely if Barry were willing to negotiate with Eva McCulloch or she let her hostages go once she killed her treacherous husband.

The Bottom Line

A bit of a mess and that's only partially due to the episode being hastily rewritten and reedited to turn it into the Season 6 finale because of the coronavirus outbreak cutting the shooting for the planned finale short. In truth, Barry comes off as more pig-headed than usual and becomes almost slavish in his efforts to protect Carver, despite Carver's allowing Iris to be kidnapped and his threatening Barry's family. It doesn't help matters that, until the final segment of the show, Eva's motivations, bloody though they are, are wholly sympathetic and comparable to Barry's reaction to the Reverse Flash. Still, the whole thing feels rather slapdash and fans will always be left wondering what we might have seen had there been time for the actual finale to be finished. Of course given that it was apparently going to end with the return of Eobard Thawne, we may, ironically, be better off with this ending.

The Flash Episode Guide: Season 6, Episode 18 - Pay the Piper

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



Plot

When Godspeed returns, Barry turns to Pied Piper for help in defeating him, but Crisis erased the tenuous peace that Barry Allen had worked out with the former STAR Labs employee turned supervillain. Meanwhile, Iris starts working with Kamilla to escape from the Mirror Dimension.

Influences
The Flash comics of Joshua Williamson (character of Godspeed) and Mark Waid (speed cult based around Godspeed seems like the Cult of Savitar) and Ghostbusters (Nash and Cisco refer to "crossing the streams" when Piper and The Flash combine their powers.)

Goofs

Again, the episode acts like Team Flash's membership has no memory of the Post-Crisis timeline, when Crisis on Infinite Earths made it seem like Martian Manhunter restored everyone's Pre-Crisis memories without overwriting their current memories. This serves no purpose other than adding an unneeded complication, vis a vis why Pied Piper hates Barry Allen now.

Allowing that Kamilla is fairly smart, how does a photographer know how to use all the equipment in STAR Labs? She's only been dating Cisco for the better part of a year and she can't have picked up THAT much just talking to him.

Granting that everyone on Team Flash is a little distraught, it's shocking it takes them that long to work out that Pied Piper and Roderick Smith are boyfriends or that Hartley doesn't says something to the effect of "You murdered the man I love! Now I'm going to kill you!"

Why does Hartley hang around STAR Labs instead of leaving after Nash fails to save Roderick?

Why does Godspeed run right at the energy blast The Flash and Pied Piper shoot at him?

Performances

Grant Gustin nails Barry's final speech which, though written before the COVID-19 outbreak, seems to have been written as a response to it.

Artistry

The special effects for the fight between Tle Flash, Godspeed and Pied Piper are good.

Flash Facts

The twist with Godspeed - that he is apparently part of a group that wants The Flash's speed - seems to be based upon the cult of Savitar from Mark Waid's run on The Flash.

Technobabble

Nash describes the first four Godspeeds as cybernetic drones with modem speak.

The new Godspeed has a unique power to generate "thunder" along with his lightning. Barry and Cisco determine this energy is vibrational in nature The velocity of a body breaking the sound barrier transmutes into vibrations in the air,  This Godspeed found a way to reverse the vibrations and expel them outward, allowing him to pin a target with a steady wave of vibrational force and, in the case of speedsters pinned by this effect, siphon off their Speed Force energy.

Cisco describes Hartley Rathaway as an expert ton psycho-acoustics and sonic vibrations.

Nash says he has seen the same sort of molecular disembodiment experienced by Roderick Smith before. He thinks it can be fixed if they combine concentrated light energy with an inert gas with high thermal conductivity. This should slow down Roderick's molecules and stabilize him.

Cisco theorized there might be a mechanical way to open a breach to an alternate dimension by focusing subatomic vibrations.

To save Roderick, Nash asks Allegra to unleash a concentrated UV blast into the reception conduit as he releases helium into the containment unit.

Pied Piper describes what happened to Roderick Smith as a thermogenic blast which rendered him unstable at a molecular level. 

Godspeed bleeds a biogenic electrolyte secretion Nash identifies as charged sound.

Normal sound waves need a transition medium to go through (such as air or water) but charged sound creates its own medium. 

Normal sound can temporarily reattach molecular bonds. Charged sound can permanently reattach the bonds.

Cisco says a lossless self-sustaining source of perpetual energy should enable them to breach the Mirrorverse. 

Dialogue Triumphs

Barry: I'm trying to have hope that it's all gonna work out, but I can't help feeling... Joe, what if I can't save her this time? 

Joe: And I believe that you can. But do you?

(Cisco explains why Pied Piper hates Team Flash in the Post-Crisis reality.)

Allegra: I guess that's a no to Pied Piper's help. 

Cisco: Well, he did almost kill us, so... 

Nash: Let's not bicker over who killed who. We can fix this. 

The Flash: We think we can help him. Let us show you. 

Pied Piper: Who is this "we" and "us"? 

(Nash steps out of the shadows.)

Pied Piper: Harrison Wells?!

Nash: Nash Wells, actually. Harrison Wells is my doppelganger.

Pied Piper: (confused) Your doppelganger? 

Nash: How to explain? Okay, so there was this big event we call the Crisis, and- 

The Flash: He's his twin. 

Nash: He's my twin. 

Barry: I'm supposed to lead this team. Now, I-I don't even know what to tell them. 

Nash: When I lost Maya... every day since then, I wanted to say, "Hey, listen, I'm sorry. It was my fault." But she's gone. When I was Pariah and I watched my mistake burn down the Multiverse, I wanted to tell those people, "I'm sorry," but they were gone, and it was over. And this is not over for you. You can find your way out of this. All you have to do is trust yourself. 

Barry: How am I supposed to do that? I just lived with an impostor for five weeks. 

Nash: You forgive yourself. You showed me that. Now it's time for you to do it for you. And you know what? If you can't... do it for Iris. 

Godspeed: Time's up, Flash. 

(The Flash evacuates all of Godspeed's hostages.)

Godspeed: Have you come to give me what's mine? 

The Flash: You have to catch me first.

Barry: We've all lost so much this year... our power, our love, our family. At times, it's even felt like there's nothing left to lose, like everything that matters has already been taken and our lives are empty... hollow inside. Some things can't be taken. Look around this room. We still have our faith in each other and our will to fight for those we love. This is what we'll never lose.

Continuity

Barry tracks down Joe at his safe house so he can tell him about Iris' abduction. 

Joe refers to Wally telling him something was off about Iris (614) and Sunshine attacking Frost (615).

Caitlin and Frost are still healing.

Cisco says they have no way of knowing if the abducted people are still alive in the Mirrorverse, but he starts researching the idea that the Mirrorverse is on another vibrational plane.

The building where Ralph's office, Cecile's office, Nash's office and the Central City Citizen are located is identified as the Bently Building. 

Cecile says she will call Chief Singh's husband to warn him about the duplicate and see when he last saw the Chief.

Allegra says she'll check the offices for the Kamilla duplicate. Nash offers to go with her, but she rejects him. Instead, he goes with Ralph to see if they can dig up anything on Eva McCulloch. 

Iris records a video blog in Eva McCulloch's office in case Barry finds it, before going off to find Kamilla.

Iris is beginning to develop the same neural dissonance which made it harder to think straight that Eva McCulloch claimed to have developed. She also has the same facial tics and twitches.

Allegra feels stupid for not having realized all her co-workers were mirror duplicate and is horrified to realize she's currently in charge of the Central City Citizen.

Godspeed enters into STAR Labs and pins Barry to the ground with some kind of vibrational force. He is driven off by Nash and a pulse cannon he'd recently built.

It is confirmed that all four of the earlier Godspeeds from the summer of 2019 are still locked up in Iron Heights.

Cisco reveals that The Flash's first battle with the Pied Piper was dramatically different in the new Earth-Prime history. Originally, as seen in 111, Pied Piper fought The Flash alone and only had his technology to depend on. In the new timeline, Pied Piper was a metahuman with sonic powers augmented by technology and he worked with a crew. 

Pied Piper's right-hand man, Roderick Smith, tried to shoot The Flash with a sonic cannon. Barry countered the blast with a lightning bolt. The resulting explosion caused Roderick Smith to be knocked out of phase with reality and required him to be confined in a special energy containment chamber at Mercury Labs for the past five years. 

Nash says he has an idea on how to save Roderick Smith and that maybe they can get Pied Piper to agree to some quid pro quo - we help you save your man, you help us save our people.

Ralph goes to check on Frost after she texted him. She's still stable thanks to a patch Cisco made.

Frost thanks Ralph for being her life coach and for all he's done to help her.

Frost and Caitlin are making preparations to go to a Tannhauser testing site int he Arctic to heal.

Frost is nervous because she's afraid Caitlin's mother won't see her as a second daughter, given the circumstances of her creation.

Barry finds Pied Piper's hideout. He manages to persuade him to let Team Flash try to help Roderick.

Despite his best efforts, Hartley was unable to stabilize Roderick. Mercury Labs hasn't had any luck either.

Nash proposes a treatment to save Roderick based on something he saw on another Earth.

Iris finds Kamilla in STAR Labs in the Mirrorverse.

Iris convinces Kamilla that she's the real Iris after she tells Kamilla that she is the only person allowed to wear the Chewbacca shirt Cisco's parents gave him when he was 14.

Kamilla never saw Eva McCulloch in all her time in the Mirrorverse.

Kamilla tried to gather items that came from the real world into the Mirrorverse that had been shot with the mirror gun to analyze them using STAR Labs equipment but she couldn't read the screens.

Iris can read the screens in STAR Labs now but she freaks out, like Eva did, and runs from the room.

Piper figured out that Cisco was Vibe and Barry was The Flash. In Cisco's case, the hair was a dead giveaway. In the case of The Flash there's only three facilities in the state capable of building The Flash's friction-proof costume and only one of them employed someone smart enough to actually do it. 

Nash's treatment doesn't work. He later says they need a better bonding agent.

Godspeed threatens to make Central City suffer unless Barry gives up his speed.

Barry returns to work on the artificial Speed Force.

Nash credits Barry with teaching him to learn how to forgive himself.

Barry figures out that Hartley and Roderick are lovers.

Cecile makes reference to her and Kamilla escaping Bloodwork's minions in 608.

Cisco says he wants his powers back.

Iris is doubting her instincts as a reporter since Eva tricked her for so long. 

Iris says they need to find Chief Singh in the Mirrorverse.

Godspeed steals the speed from the four Godspeeds in Iron Heights.

Godspeed is now moving at Mach 5 within the city - far faster than Barry's current safe maximum speed after the Speed Force died.

Pied Piper steps in after overhearing that Barry intends to face Godspeed, despite his diminished powers.

While they are chasing each other, Godspeed says that The Flash doesn't deserve his speed and that "we do." This hints at Godspeed being part of a larger group.

Pied Piper saves Barry from falling off a building when his speed gives out while chasing Godspeed.

Pied Piper and The Flash combine their powers to make Godspeed molecularity unstable.

Nash and Cisco use the charged sound they took from Godspeed to stabilize Roderick Smith.

Roderick doesn't remember anything after the fight with The Flash five years earlier.

The 5th Godspeed was not the real August Heart either. He said that the one who sent him sought infinite velocity before he started chirping like a broken modem.

Ralph apologizes to Frost for telling her she had a long way to go in learning how to be a normal human. He declares her journey complete and gives her a Dib-Ploma.

Ralph's father abandoned him and his mother when he was 10.

Hartley tells Barry it isn't enough to forgive yourself; you have to believe that things can change for the better.

Cisco has an idea on how to get everyone out of the Mirrorverse using a perpetual-motion machine. He has everything he needs to build it except for one thing, which he goes to Atlantis to retrieve. 

In a warehouse somewhere in Central City, Eva McCulloch is seen resting in some kind of containment chamber.The episode ends as she declares that she is coming for Joseph.


Untelevised Adventures

Barry's conversation with the fifth Godspeed takes place entirely off-camera.

The Boomerang Factor

Whatever cool factor Godspeed has is negated by turning him into a rip-off of Zoom.

The Bottom Line

There is much to admire about this episode, though on reflection most of it was taken from earlier episodes and repeated. Godspeed is turned into a Zoom clone (presumably to set up Season 7's big bad) and the Arrowverse take on Pied Piper has never been as engaging as his comic book counterpart. (There's a reason we haven't seen Hartley since season 2.) Strangely enough, the best parts of the episode involve a long chain of speeches where the main characters have crises of faith and the supporting characters give them the standard John Diggle pep talk so common to Arrow episodes. Trite as they are, these scenes are well acted.

The Flash Episode Guide: Season 6, Episode 17 - Liberation

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



Plot

Eva McCulloch makes her move and attempts to escape the Mirror Universe, as Barry begins to realize there's something wrong with Iris. But will the rest of Team Flash believe him? Meanwhile, Ralph and Cisco have to act fast to save Frost and Caitlin.


Influences

Doctor Who: Doomsday (the final scene with Barry and Iris pretty much cribs The Doctor and Rose's separation) and every science fiction story based around robots or aliens replacing someone with a duplicate and only one loved one noticing.


Goofs

How does the Iris clone know that Barry's speed has been draining non-stop over the past week when she hasn't seen him in one week?

Why does Barry set up his presentation in Joe and Cecile's living room?  Why not one of the empty spaces at STAR Labs where he can safely say the Iris clone probably won't  be going?

It strains disbelief that Barry took this long to realize his wife had been replaced, but Bloodwork realizes something is up in less than a minute. 

Artistry

The SFX team outdid themselves with the effects for the broken mirror shards and Iris's razor arms.

Technobabble

Barry says the prismatic filter on Kamilla's camera was somehow able to capture a dimensional shift: things that don't belong in this world.

Barry builds a prismatic scanner that is just a more powerful version of the camera filter.

Nash says that it's possible McCulloch Technologies' reflective-chip technology could create a mirror duplicate when Cecile suggests the possibility. 

Cisco uses Ralph as an improvised set of jumper cables, due to a lack of ionized conductive wiring, to jump-start Caitlin's body.

Mirror duplicates are said to be faster and stronger than the people they are made to resemble.

Bloodwork is held within a special bio-degenerative containment matrix with triplicate back-up protocols, far more advanced than the metahuman holding cells at Iron Heights.

With Bloodwork's blood rubbed on a mirror, Eva can activate the R-CEM in the Mirror World and zap her mirror. Together, this will reconfigure the molecular stability of the dimensional barrier that burns organic matter when it tries to pass from the Mirror World to the real world and allow her to return to reality. 

Dialogue Triumphs

Ralph (seeing Caitlin is awakened from her ice coma) Oh, thank Elsa!

Continuity

Barry, Ralph and Cisco try to activate the artificial Speed Force.  It does not work.

It has been one week since Barry last saw Iris (really the Iris copy) and he refuses to see her when Cecile suggests he come visit her at the Central City Citizen offices.

The Central City Citizen's offices are located on Matz Street.

Eva McCulloch informs the Kamilla and Iris clones that she will be making her move to escape the Mirror World that night.

The Iris clone refers to 518 and how Barry returned Nora West-Allen to her time without consulting Iris first.

The Iris clone tells Cecile she isn't sure how she feels and asks her to read her with her powers. Cecile says that she feels sad and concerned.

When asked about her and Barry, the Iris clone says that she needs to focus on herself right now, after some prompting by the Kamilla clone.

Cecile returns to her and Joe's house to find Barry has barricaded himself into her living room and set up a series of white boards with evidence boxes to prove that Iris isn't Iris.

Barry has determined that the Iris clone is not a doppelganger since those don't exist anymore. He hasn't ruled out her being a shape-shifter or a Plastoid. 

According to Barry, Cisco's binder of metahuman supervillains confirmed that the shape-shifter Everyman (last seen in 119) is alive on Earth-Prime.

Barry makes reference to the Plastoids, who were mentioned by Breacher in 404.

Barry also considers the possibility that the fake Iris might be a Martian, but dismisses that as if she were a Martian, J'onn J'onzz would have sensed her presence and alerted him.

Barry tracked Iris' phone to McCullouch Technologies on the night she disappeared. 

Barry spent the last week gathering evidence that Iris was a fake.

When explaining why he thinks Iris was replaced with a duplicate, Barry cites her suddenly being able to cook good pancakes, hitting a bar bouncer over the head with a bottle and speaking fluent Italian (611) along with her kicking him out.

Caitlin and Frost's apartment number is 301.

Ralph brings Frost a plush polar bear as a get-well-soon present. Cisco brings a portal bi-lab so she can start catching up on her work.

Cisco and Ralph find Caitlin in a semi-frozen state, having apparently put herself into an ice coma as her ice-healing powers stopped working, effectively entering a state of cryogenic hibernation. 

Iris suggests breaking the mirror Eva can control and dissecting it. Eva stops her and then storms off to work in her lab.

Iris examines the mirror and finds a button leading to a secret room behind the mirror.

Barry hacks Iris' computer at the Central City Citizen and finds Kamilla's photo with a Prismatic Filter showing Iris to be something other than human from 614.

The Singh, Kamilla and Iris clones set mirrors up around Iris and Barry's apartment.

The clones refer to each other as brother and sisters and Eva McCulloch as Mother.

Eva needs one more thing to escape and it involves Bloodwork, who was last seen in 608.

Barry lures the Iris clone to STAR Labs, where Cecile and Nash are waiting. He accuses her of being from another dimension.

Iris turns on the computer in Eva's secret room and begins to experience headaches as it shows her images of her being brought into the Mirror Dimension and Eva's argument with Joseph Carver in 616.

Eva is shown to have been watching Iris when her source died in 610.

This prismatic scanner reveals nothing when it is focused on Iris.  

Iris accuses Barry of being a fake, saying the real Barry would have tried harder to come home to her.

When the scanner is focused on Barry, it shows him to be a mirror duplicate.

Cecile puts a pair of power-dampening cuffs on Barry and Nash locks him in a cell in the Pipeline.

Caitlin says her wound ruptured whens he tried to use her ice healing to fix it. 

Caitlin says she thinks she's going to need her mother's help to fix herself.

It is revealed that Eva replaced Barry's prismatic scanner with mirror version of the same device which made Barry look like an mirror duplicate and the Iris duplicate look human.

The Singh Clone gets the Iris and Kamilla clones in to do an interview with Bloodwork.

Bloodwork determines that Iris isn't the real Iris right away, based on the fact that the real Iris would never offer to release him from his cell. 

Bloodwork is familiar with Dr. Eva McCulloch and her work. 

The Kamilla clone shorts out Bloodwork's cell  by throwing herself into the containment field. This causes a power failure.

Bloodwork says he senses that the Iris clone is almost human, maybe something more, and that she has a modicum of free will the other duplicates lack.  

Bloodwork demands to know what the Iris clone wants. She says she wants to be alive. Bloodwork says she is worthy of it and gives him a sample of her blood.

Bloodwork elects to stay in his cell, saying there's more than one way for him to be free and that he's playing a long game.

Cecile lets Barry out of his cell, saying she can't explain why but she trusts Barry and his instincts.

The Iris clone shape-shifts her limbs into razor-glass shards and is able to stab Barry through the mirrors the duplicates arranged earlier.

When the mirrors are broken, the Iris clone is able to stab Barry through all the shards, leaving him bleeding and weak.

Iris is able to disable the Iris clone remotely by upsetting Eva, asking how long it took her to realize her husband had abandoned her. This causes the Iris clone to begin having headaches and gives Barry a chance to rally.

Barry says that the Iris clone had to have been made from part of Iris but that she could be her own person if she chose it.

The Iris clone tells Barry to find Iris and save her before she starts cracking into a pile of shards, saying she feels alive before she dies.

In the real world, Eva can control all mirror shards and teleport through them. She reflexively stabs Barry when he confronts her, but says he isn't much of a threat now.

Eva steps through the mirror and tells Barry to stay out of her way if he wants Iris and the others to live. She says she's keeping them in the Mirror dimension as insurance. 

Eva says she has a whole world to liberate before she escapes. 

The Boomerang Factor

Barry is made to look seven kinds of crazy just to sell the idea that he went nuts in thinking Iris is not Iris, so he is left all alone during the battle with Mirror Master. 

The Bottom Line

Another weak episode. Barry is given the Idiot Ball while simultaneously figuring out what everyone else on the cast close to Iris already knew, but never mentioned to him. Cecile's powers prove totally useless during the one instance they should be incredibly useful. And just when you think it can't get any worse, Bloodwork comes back. Still, at least Eva is out of the mirror and the Iris clone is dead. Unfortunately, due to the shortened season, it seems unlikely we're going to see this pay off in a convincing way since there's only two episodes left this season and next week is a filler piece heralding the return of Godspeed. Meh.