Wow. Wow. Spoilers follow.
1. Well, they’re holding nothing back, are they?
I know I can tend to beat a dead horse over this, but I honestly cannot believe how much has happened this season. Most shows would’ve saved the “Wells is the Reverse Flash” story for, at least, season 2 or 3. But nope, we aren’t even at the finale and every major character not named Iris knows who the Reverse Flash is, and that he is a time traveler.
In addition, the Barry/Eddie/Iris love triangle has moved much farther than I think anyone would’ve expected – we now know that a) their feelings for each other aren’t as secret as either would like, b) they wind up married in the future, c) Eddie isn’t going to take it well. Eddie has actually been one of the more surprisingly interesting characters on the show, defying expectations and being more of a nuanced character than just tough guy cop/love interest for Iris.
However, two potential plot points have been barely at all teased, so perhaps those are the clues as to what next season holds: except for Caitlin’s last name, her future as Killer Frost hasn’t been teased in the slightest, and Cisco’s eventual powers were hinted at in one line in one episode. If I may be so bold, I would presume that Barry’s S.T.A.R. Labs team will keep being eroded until, eventually, he needs a new team. A League, if you will.
2. Gideon
This week we get the bit of information that Gideon, the AI software that Wells uses in his secret time bunker, was designed by Barry. This means a few things: first of all, it means that not only is Barry a CSI genius, but he can also claim “programming supergenius” on his CV. I don’t know if that necessarily jibes with the character as created so far, but the producers have a trick up their sleeve for any “new” Barry talent – he could read ten thousand books in the time we read one. He could sign up for a Lynda course and complete it in the time it takes us to type our credit card information into the payment module. So, giving him a new, learned, skill isn’t really the obstacle it would be for, say, Oliver Queen to suddenly be a master hacker.
Plus, Barry could run back and forth to Starling City and get private lessons from Felicity. I would pay attention to anything she taught me.
At what point does my Felicity crush become problematic?
But that scene also was useful as it introduced the idea of paradox, which I will get to in a moment, as well as doubling down on the idea that the Flash is important. That might not sound like an obvious point, but look at Arrow. People on that show think Oliver Queen is a bad person, and the Arrow a menace to society – they want him arrested, even after he has done a lot of good for the city. That isn’t the public’s perception of the Flash – he is a hero, and one that is beloved and integrated into the mythos of Central City less than a year after his debut.
And Gideon, as oracle, allows the S.T.A.R. crew to see that, and perhaps double down on this mission because, if Wells succeeds, they just won’t personally die, but their entire city will be let down in an immeasurable way.
3. Cisco’s got balls
For a character that would have been easy to write off as a joke – especially since he is the proxy for the audience – Cisco has developed into one of the most compelling characters on television. This week’s episode is proof positive that the writers know what they are doing with him. We see his fear when put into the lucid dream machine, and then we see him overcome that fear to try to trap Wells, a supervillain/time traveler/genius of unknown proportions. Cisco’s bravery means that he is, indeed, on the path to heroism, even if he is one of the least likely heroes this universe has produced thus far.
Continued belowA big part of that is Carlos Valdez, and the truly remarkably performance he gives the character. Valdez makes every scene better, by bringing out the best in his fellow actors. Each scene between Wells and Cisco – especially the two confrontational ones – allow Tom Cavanaugh to go full on supervillain so easily because Valdez is such a babyface (in the pro-wrestling terminology). You can’t help but root for him, and since he is, again, the proxy for the viewers, we are rooting for ourselves and our avatar each week.
4. The Wells paradox
Ok, so I am a huge time travel geek and, so far, this show had played the traveling pretty straight: The Reverse Flash, in a future timeline, travels back to the 90s, kills Barry’s mom, and facemorphs into Harrison Wells, where upon the particle accelerator’s creation, the Flash is born.
But here is where it gets tricky – because we have no record of the “original” timeline, so much of the show is potentially paradoxical. For instance, as Cisco reminds us, now we know that his suit will get redder and the logo will have a white backdrop – is that because they were always going to do that, or is that because they saw this and then did it. That’s not quite paradox, but Eddie’s presence introduces one – this is the whole “kill the grandfather” paradox. If Eddie Thawne is to die, does that erase Eobard from time, therefore erasing the particle accelerator, therefore erasing Barry? Or since that already happened, does that continue?
Outside of Eddie, the show has handled time travel in a pretty brilliant way, especially by physically differentiating the Eobard Thawne yet to be born and the one wearing Harrison Wells’s face. Of course, there are all sort of philosophical dilemmas posited, about the nature of choice and free will, but that’s for another day.
5. Please don’t erase this
It occurred to me that this show’s ending could, potentially, simply be a reset, and that would bum me out beyond belief. Think about it: things get so bad that Barry travels back in time to the night of the particle accelerator, and gets out of town. Or, he travels into the future, snapping the neck of newborn Eobard Thawne, stopping all of this from happening. Granted, I don’t think the show will get that desperate or dark, but the possibility is there for the show to undo everything when it deems necessary.
I beg you – let the show progress in a logical and exciting way, and let the consequences be what they are. Hell, you’ve got a minimum of two more Flashes you could easily introduce – don’t let this be the story of Barry Allen, let this be the story of the Flash.
Let me know how many times your heart skipped a beat in the comments!
