Check out Josh’s recap on The Flash season finale, and get ready for tonight’s season premiere for season 2! Check out our thoughts on the finale as well!
Don’t need the The Flash episode recap for Fast Enough? Click here to jump directly to Violet’s thoughts on the episode!
To see Josh’s thoughts on this week’s The Flash episode, Fast Enough, click here to get directly there!
The Flash Episode 23, Fast Enough Recap Overview
The season finale opens up with Wells/Eobard Thawne, and Barry Allen interrogating him. Thawne reveals to Barry that he hates him, and that’s why he killed his mother, and tried to go back in time to kill him before he would become powerful. Thawne reveals that future Barry fought Thawne in the past, and so Thawne decided to kill his mother. Then Thawne got stuck in the past, and was forced to create the Flash so that he could help Thawne get home. Thawne then tells Barry he can save his mother, if he helps Thawne get home.
Barry presents this idea to his team, and it seems like most people are on board. Dr. Martin Stein does explain that no one would ever know the past that they are current having now, and their life would be changed. Joe seems to think it is a good idea, but Barry talks with him more, and it turns out that Joe might be saying this stuff, but might be a little sad about losing Barry as a “son”.
Barry heads to visit his father, who tells Barry that he is against this plan, because things are supposed to happen for a reason, the way they do.
Back at STAR Labs, Ronnie tells Caitlin that he loves her, and they decide to finally get married.
Iris finds Barry hanging out alone, and tries to comfort him, and asks him about what his decision will be. Then they talk about their feelings, and Barry admits he waited too long to tell Iris about his feelings towards her. He also admits he has had a great life in this version.
But in the end, Barry heads to Eobard and he decides to move forward with trying to save his mother. To go back, Barry has to use the particle accelerators, to create a wormhole, which will allow both Barry to travel to the past, and Eobard to travel back to the future. there is a problem with making the time machine for Eobard, so Cisco works it out with Eobard. They have their emotional exchange about Cisco being killed in the alternate timeline. Eobard apologizes to Cisco–about him being able to see other timelines. Turns out Cisco has some sort of abilities as well.
Stein asks to use the computer that Eddie happened to be hanging out at. Eddie talks with Stein, and basically tells Stein that he feels useless. Stein tries to reassure Eddie that he isn’t useless, and tells him that Eobard coming back to the time period and place where Thawne is, makes his place in this world the most special. But then Stein realizes that this whole time travel thing could end up destroying the world, with a black hole opening up. Eobard says that everything will be fine if Barry is back from his “trip” in 1 minute 52 seconds.
This causes Barry to rethink his thoughts, as the mission is much more dangerous. He talks with Joe, who now says he doesn’t know what the best decision is, and really just wanted what he thought is best for Barry. Barry still decides to move forward with the plan, despite the risks.
Moving the story back to Eddie for a second, he visits Iris at her work. They talk, and Eddie talks about his meeting of Iris, which was another coincidence, as Eddie met Iris through saving her belongings from a mugger.
Then moving to Stein and Ronnie, a quick wedding is held outside STAR Labs, for Ronnie and Caitlin. The whole team is in attendance, including Iris and Eddie.
After the wedding, Barry gets ready for his mission. Cisco gives him some last minute advice, and he says his goodbyes to everyone. He heads into the accelerator, and begins his sprint. Wells gives him one last pep talk, and off Barry goes. he begins seeing scenes from his current past, present and future. Eobard tells him to think about where he wants to go, so he can get there. The wormhole opens up and Barry winds up in his house, back on the night his mother died. He sees the fight between himself and Reverse Flash happening, then he sees this future self look at him, telling him to stay out. He listens, then looks to see his father knocked out and his mother dying. He talks with his mother before she dies, and reveals to her that he is future Barry. He tells her that he and his father are both ok, and how much he loves her. She dies, and Barry is distraught.
Meanwhile in the present, Cisco and Joe set Eobard free. But through the wormhole comes a winged helmet. This as Eobard refers to it is his, “queue to leave”. Eobard gets into his time machine, and gets ready to head home. But, Barry comes flying back in, and destroys the time machine. Joe and Cisco are knocked out. Eobard is angry that Barry didn’t save his mother, and initiates a fight with Barry as Reverse Flash. Ronnie is hurt in the process, and Stein tries to shut down the wormhole.
Barry looks to be on the losing end of the fight, and says he will kill everyone else after he kills Barry. But Eddie comes up with a plan. He shoots himself. This causes Eobard to fade from existence, since Eobard is of Eddie’s lineage. But another problem presents itself–the wormhole opens up further, and growing. Eddie is pulled into the wormhole, dead, while the rest try to flee. Outside, the wormhole begins pulling in everything in its path. Barry makes the decision to try to stop the wormhole, as he stopped the tornadoes in the first episode, trying to reverse the energy field. The last thing we see in the episode is Barry heading ujp into the wormhole, speeding around it as fast as he is capable.
Violet’s Thoughts on Season 1 Episode 23 of The Flash: Fast Enough
What a great episode! After watching it, I thought to myself, This, THIS is the perfect example of an amazing season finale. It had so many things we had been building toward this whole season. It was very emotional, yet at the same time, very exciting. I think a lot of viewers may have been just as torn as Barry over whether or not he should go through with trying to save his mother.
Personally, I thought that he should do it, because that’s what he’d been working toward for so long, but his dilemma certainly tugged on the heartstrings as he went to each person for advice. However, I thought that if he did save her, he would still have scientific aspirations, and that it was entirely possible that he could still end up working at STAR Labs and still become friends with Cisco and Caitlin. It would also be possible for him and Iris, as next door neighbors and classmates, to end up together, and maybe even more so possible than if they had lived together in the same house with the same parental figure (and certainly a lot less creepy). But then, he would most likely be sacrificing his relationship with Joe. I could keep going down the rabbit hole of “what ifs,” but I guess that’s one of the things that makes this show, and more specifically made this episode, great – the timey wimey aspects of all the different ways things could have been affected had certain things been done differently.
Of course, this is also something that makes things problematic. Eddie did such a heroic thing by shooting himself to save everyone, and I’ve always felt he’s been undersold this season, partially because he has been underselling himself, mainly where Iris is concerned. I’ve always liked Eddie, so I’m glad that the show did something that proved his worth to everyone who hadn’t noticed how great he is. Or should I say was. It’s unfortunate that we had to lose him to do so. But what are the repercussions of Eddie’s actions? Now that Eobard Thawne has never existed, does that mean he never went back in time and killed Barry’s mom? Will all of this season be erased? Will we come back to a completely different existence for Barry and the others? I guess that’s what that black hole was all about, trying to put things back into balance.
I really enjoyed this first season of The Flash, and loved the season finale, which was the culmination of what we’ve been building up to all season, but which also introduced new problems that left me wanting more of the show. The Flash is without a doubt my most anticipated returning TV show this Fall season.
Josh’s Thoughts: The Flash, Season 1 Episode 23: Fast Enough
Over all I thought this was a very exciting episode of The Flash. I am a sucker for time travel plots, and the plot here was an interesting one. It has a great premise, and when you watch it without thinking about it too much, it is a fun episode. But I will bring up the problems I have with it.
First, the reaction of Eddie shooting himself, would seemingly alternate the timeline significantly. This is because, if Eddie never continues his lineage to the eventual birth of Eobard, Eobard can never come back in time to create the Flash, and this whole timeline would simply not exist. Now I am curious to see if that is the reason for the singularity happening. Maybe this wormhole is the result of the paradox? Scientifically it still doesn’t really make sense though, as I would think the effects would be some outside the realm of what we as humans can perceive, no one would ever know what happened. But I guess for the sake of excitement in a TV show, I guess how it was displayed was interesting.
One very odd thing I thought was everyone’s willingness to allow Barry to change the timeline, including Barry himself. He freely admits he has had a great life. Why change it? I understand the saving the parents thing, but this change would almost guarantee he never gets so close with Joe, or Iris, or becomes the Flash, and who knows where his normal life would end up? I just don’t understand the risk really. The only person seeing it from my perspective seemed to be his dad, which I thought made the most sense of anyone.
I guess the one thing I wonder is if maybe Barry decided before going back in time that he just wanted to say goodbye to his mother, or if it was (future) himself that told him not to change anything. I also wonder why future self told him to not do so, and why Barry was so willing to listen.
There is also the question of what power Cisco will have. There is a lot of unanswered stuff going into season 2, and I hope that it is done well so that we can have a great second season! Overall, aside from a few cheesy things, I thought season 1 of The Flash was a lot of fun!
Scenes from The Flash, Season 2 Premiere
Here are scenes from the season premiere of The Flash
