'The Flash' Season Finale Recap: Taking a Bullet for Barry
Warning: This recap contains storyline and character spoilers for this week’s season finale of The Flash.
That’s a lot of talking for the season finale of an action comic book series, right? But it all pays off when, at the last moment, Barry is forced to change his decision by… himself?
The Plot
Reverse Flash/Harrison Wells/Eobard Thawne is imprisoned in the Pipeline. Barry confronts him and learns how he can go back in time and save his mother’s life: All he has to do is give Thawne access to all of history by creating a wormhole through the Speed Force.
Related: Get Up to Speed With Our Recaps of ‘The Flash’
Joe says do it; Henry says don’t. Iris says he should do what is in his heart, so Barry goes back. Once there, his future self stops him from saving his mother, but he does get to say goodbye to her as she dies. He returns to the present and prevents Reverse Flash from escaping. They fight, but Eddie ends it by killing himself, thus erasing Eobard from history. That triggers a singularity, though, and as Barry rushes into the breach, the season ends.
My Three Dads
It’s always fascinating to see the show put Joe, Henry, and Wells side-by-side and explore the different father figures they represent to Barry. Joe as the adopted father (that “Goodbye, Dad,” from Barry was heartrending); Henry as the idealized father; (“I am in awe of the man you are becoming”); and Wells as the surrogate father — not just to Barry, but Caitlin and especially Cisco.
Tom Cavanagh does such a marvelous job conveying the character’s twisted love along with his cold pragmatism that you kind of, almost, sort of don’t want him to die. Almost.
“That’s All I Ever Wanted to Be: Your Hero”
Ronnie and Caitlin get married in the midst of all this, and it’s a beautiful ceremony presided over by Dr. Stein, who’s also a rabbi. Iris and Eddie also patch things up, and both of those wonderful comings together still don’t make up for the shock of Eddie’s death. In fact, the last one actually makes his death more painful, since he’s sacrificing more than his life: He’s sacrificing the happiness he would have had with Iris.
“It Was Given Out of Love”
The frequent allusions to vibrations in relation to Cisco have not been accidents. It appears that, despite appearances, the accelerator blast did affect him: It gave him the ability “to see through the vibrations of the universe,” according to Wells. In the comics, Vibe could do quite a bit more than that. In fact, the Justice League kept him around because of his ability to disrupt the Speed Force — making him one of the Flash’s most dangerous threats.
Speaking of threats we may see next season… did you catch the split-second glimpse in the Speed Force of a very angry Caitlin Snow with very different — perhaps even super-villainous — attire, and frost coming off of her hands?
“He Had a Newspaper From the Year 2024”
“And I have a mug that says World’s Best Boss.” Sometimes it takes a world-renowned physicist to really break down the complex world of temporal mechanics for guys like Eddie to get it.
How Do Prisoners Get Fed in the Pipeline?
It’s a question that’s nagged at a lot of people for a while, and the producers have finally lived up to their promise and given us an answer: They eat Big Belly Burger. Thank you! That’s all the time we have! No more questions!
So If Eddie Killed Himself, Does That Mean Eobard Never Existed to Kill Barry’s Mother?
Thank you! No more questions!
Don’t They Have a Supercomputer From the Future That Could Have Told Them If Wells Was Lying?
I said no more questions!
Inside Comics Moment
“Time Sphere” is what Rip Hunter (of the upcoming spinoff DC’s Legends of Tomorrow) calls his time machine. The helmet that clattered through the wormhole just before Eobard tries to escape is the helmet of the first Flash, Jay Garrick, who appeared in Flash Comics #1 in 1940. That also opens the door to Bart Allen, Wally West, and a host of other Flashes and pseudo-Flashes (Bizarro Flash, anybody?) to show up next season.
Was it everything you hoped for? Did you get answers for everything you needed answered? Are you sad Eddie’s gone, or have you had enough of him? It’ll be a long wait for Season 2; in the meantime, sound off in the comments below.
The Flash returns for Season 2 this fall on The CW.
