Spoilers ahead for “Armageddon, Part 2” of The Flash. Read at your own risk!
Things are getting intense on The Flash for the “Armageddon” event and even though we’re only two parts in, it has already made big changes for the show. During Part 2, Barry’s mind started to get out of control, leading him to black out and wreak havoc in Central City and attack his friends. But that’s not even the worst part, as it was revealed that Jesse L. Martin’s Joe West has been dead for six months.
The reveal came as a shock to not only Barry, who was trying to make sense of the whole thing, but to fans. It's not a shock that something major has happened with Joe, however, as showrunner Eric Wallace teased to TVLine before Season 8 premiered that he would be in a much different position when the series returned:
Let’s just say that Joe is going to get an incredibly different perspective on life, and it’s going to lead him to, I think, a really big choice. Everybody seems to think the big choice he made was last year, to put down his badge, but there is a much bigger choice coming his way in Season 8 that takes the character down a path that he didn’t know he was on, but that will feel like it’s the place he always needed to go.
It's interesting to see what Wallace said about Joe. On the one hand, he didn't talk about Joe in the past tense, and even suggested that the character has a future on the show. On the other hand, his words also seem like they could suggest this death could be permanent.
There weren't many details given for Joe’s death in the episode, or what really happened with Barry. The Scarlet Speedster encountered a mind-twisting meta who messed with his head in more ways than one. Not only did it make him go a tad crazy, but it also made him black out at points, and even made him think that Joe is alive.
It’s hard to tell whether this death is permanent or not, but considering Eric Wallace’s careful choice of words, it seems like that there could be something bigger in store for Joe down the line. The death is definitely something that could get Barry to lose his mind, especially since the reveal was so sudden. Could this be the work of Despero or another meta to get him to fully break?
There are still three episodes left of the “Armageddon” event so it’s likely that we’ll get more answers about Joe soon. Hopefully his death is not permanent and we’ll be getting him alive and well when the series picks back up in March following the event. Fingers crossed that everything turns out the way it should, but with The Flash you can never be too sure.
Catch new episodes of The Flash on Tuesdays at 8 p.m. EST on The CW!
