Truer words have never been spoken! Last night’s episode of The Flash was quite a return after a few weeks of hiatus. No punches were withheld and there was plenty going on, so if you’re like me, you’re probably still picking up your jaw from the floor. Time travel, identity reveals, confessions of love, death and a rogue villain were all in the mix last night on The Flash: Out of Time. Spoiler alert!
Dr. Harrison Wells is Eobard Thawne
Last night’s episode of The Flash had a lot to process, but here’s where prior knowledge about The Flash comics becomes really useful. In the comics, Eobard Thawne is in fact the Reverse-Flash and he is from the future. Now, prior to last night’s episode it was strongly suggested that Dr. Harrison Wells—the scientist responsible for the particle accelerator explosion and by default the creation of all of the meta-humans, including The Flash—was in fact the Reverse-Flash, but like some I just thought that the writers were diverging from the comics a bit. Surprise, surprise, they were not.
Thanks to the super intelligent mind of Cisco—who mind you was acting on a hunch from Detective West—it was further confirmed that Dr. Harrison Wells is not only the Reverse-Flash, but in a typical villain-esque monologue, Dr. Wells also confessed to his prodigy that his real name is Eobard Thawne and that everything he has done is in an effort to facilitate his return home. The gauntlet had officially dropped. What’s more is that when Cisco mentioned that Iris’ current boyfriend has the same last name, Dr. Wells casually explained the coincidence away by admitting that Iris’ boyfriend, Detective Eddie Thawne, is in fact a distant relative; all before using his super speed to reach into Cisco’s chest and kill him.
Revelations
Just when we started to get our bearings from the sudden death of resident comedian Cisco at the hands of Harrison Wells/Eobard Thawne/Reverse-Flash, Barry and Iris have the moment that we have all been waiting for. Iris finally confesses her feelings for Barry and, drum roll please, he responds in kind. It was perfect timing, for once. Then again, in retrospect that should have clued me in that something was very wrong from the start. They’re rarely ever in sync. But, that’s not all.
Once the Weather Wizard started doing his thing—you know creating weather catastrophes and all to harm people, this time to exact revenge for his brother’s death—Barry then revealed to Iris that he “didn’t want her to find out this way” before exposing himself to her as The Flash in costume. All I could think of was: what is happening right now? For second, I actually thought that it was the season finale. It wasn’t.
Then I realized the connection between earlier sequences of events in the episode where The Flash saw a copy of himself running alongside him, but the surroundings indicated it was several days prior. During his attempt to deter the Weather Wizard’s disaster and the death of his father figure Detective West, Barry/The Flash using his speed, he inadvertently ran back in time. And, I’m guessing that the writers basically had all of these great reveals: like Barry and Iris confessing their feelings for one another and Barry exposing himself as The Flash to her, all to completely negate everything by next week or sometime after. After all, The Flash is known for defying the laws of physics, including time travel, and even though it was awesome to see, you have to remember that the DC Universe is notorious for its ret-cons.
The Flash airs Tuesday nights on CW at 8:00pm EST/7:00pm CST.