Hello! It’s been nearly a week since we FINALLY confirmed the identity of The Flash’s big bad. With three more episodes to go, The CW has released a sizzle reel of what’s to come for Team Flash.
The video sounds pretty ominous. “Whether you kill me or become me, you lose!” SavitarBarry declares. What exactly does this mean for Barry and the gang?
Westallen the epicentre
SavitarBarry has identity issues. When Joe calls him ‘Barry’, he yells “that’s not my name!” similar to how Killer Frost abhors being called ‘Caitlin’. It is possible that he has simply rejected the identity of ‘Barry Allen’, as if rebranding himself. This is different from how Killer Frost speaks of Caitlin as a completely different person, or an alternate personality that could become dominant. If it’s a Jekyll -and-Hyde situation, however, there must be a way to bring good Barry back out, right? Instead of stopping Savitar, the team has to save Barry from himself. Which leads me to my next point…
Can Iris get through to SavitarBarry? Early in the video, there is a moment where (who appears to be) Iris stroking SavitarBarry’s burnt cheek. I think it’s SavitarBarry because EmoBarry doesn’t have those scars/burns in 2024, but it could be an injured 2017 Barry. Can you get scalded by speedforce lightning? Nevertheless, SavitarBarry was still Barry once. Surely somewhere deep down inside he must still feel something for Iris? Joe describes Savitar as a “wounded soul” on top of his above-mentioned identity crisis. Can Iris ‘heal’ him by making him good ol’ Barry again, or is he too far gone?
There’s also this moment, although it could be two completely different scenes spliced together for the promo:
Side note: I’ve been wondering what is the worst moment of his life that SavitarBarry relived in the speedforce prison. His mother’s death? Iris’ death? Ironic if it’s the latter. Your younger self traps you for something you haven’t done and don’t know you will do, so when you escape you exact revenge by doing the exact thing that made him imprison you in the first place…
Bad news for Team Flash
Wally gets hurt: In one of the more alarming scenes shown, Wally lies on a gurney, face twisted in pain. “You trusted me and I let you down,” he tells Barry. What happened?! We already know Wally won’t be the one confronting Savitar when Iris is to die – it’s Barry’s job alone. So what is Wally’s new role in the plan to stop SavitarBarry, and how does it land him in this position? A different scene shows Savitar throwing him against a ceiling. We don’t know if it’s the fight that injures him or worse – paralyses him and sends him to catatonia, but it doesn’t look good.
SavitarBarry and Killer Frost don’t have the best relationship. In one scene, he slams her into a wall. In another shot, SavitarBarry and Killer Frost gaze at each other, but it’s underlined with (what sounds like) Cisco saying “Savitar needs something from you. Once he’s done with that, it’s over.” Flashfrost shippers who were hoping for some Caitlin/Future Barry romance will probably be disappointed. At the most, we might see Savitar try to seduce Killer Frost to keep her on his side, but he will just end up using her (a la Theo and Tracy in Teen Wolf). Question is, what exactly does he need Killer Frost for?
Killer Frost vs Vibe: I had the impression the big battle between Killer Frost and Vibe, where Cisco loses his hands, takes place in future between Iris’ death and 2024. However it looks like it might happen soon. We see Killer Frost cornering Cisco, her hands ready to fire.
With a little help from my frenemies
In the video, Barry wonders what he must become to stop Savitar/his future self. When he says that, the video is edited to show Barry seemingly staring at Reverse Flash’s suit. We never really got Eobard Thawne’s backstory – how did he get his speed exactly? In the comics, he reverse-engineered his speed from a sample of the Flash’s suit, hence ‘reverse’. Will we see Barry trying to artificially enhance his speed with tachyeons or other technology? Velocity 9?
Juxtaposing Barry with Reverse Flash’s costume may also symbolise a future turn to the proverbial dark side for Barry. Iris’ death, per SavitarBarry, is solely to drive Barry “so far into the dark that I can be born.” The line plays into the idea that SavitarBarry is not an inherently evil Barry, but a Barry gone off the rails, stripped of positive emotions.
Much more exciting: Looks like The Flash will enlist everyone’s favourite smart-talker – Leonard Snart! The ex-criminal’s advice: make the plan, execute the plan, expect the plan to go off the rails, throw away the plan. When he says “expect the plan to go off the rails”, they show a scene from this week’s promo where Barry sits in a machine that will presumably prevent his brain from making memories. That does not bode well for Barry and Team Flash. King Shark also appears before the spoken line ends – looks like Barry and co might pit the monster fish against the God of Speed.
ETA: Saw some people point out online that Snart seems to be wearing the same outfit as when he died in Legends of Tomorrow. Is he back for good? Is his existence a result of Flashpoint or other time-travelling? Did he get stuck in a timestream limbo and get pulled out by Barry? Will he rejoin the Legends?
One last thing to think about…
I can’t believe I didn’t consider this before, but it’s fairly obvious. Whatever put Barry on the path to becoming Savitar and murdering Iris happened between season 2 and 3, or during season 3 itself. The byline on the “Flash Disappears” article only changed this season.
What was the biggest thing to happen between seasons 2 and 3? Flashpoint. When Barry restored the timeline, he still changed people, Caitlin being the prime example. What if he also changed himself?
“The thing about time travel is the more you do it the less the rules apply to you,” says SavitarBarry in the sizzle. It sounds like a general statement, but what if it has something to do with Barry’s past time-travelling? Maybe every time he travels, he loses a bit of his true self and becomes a bit more like Savitar? EmoBarry also said he/they make time remnants of himself/themselves. That involves time travel. It’s another way SavitarBarry could be setting Barry on the path to becoming, well, himself.
Whatever happens, we have three weeks to go…
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(featured image: The CW)
