Earlier today brought the world's first trailer for Season 3 of The Flash, and boy is it a doozy, setting the stage for episodes that will delve heavily into aspects of the Flashpoint storyline from the comics. Grant Gustin revealed to CinemaBlend and other outlets at roundtable interviews during Comic-Con that Barry will be affected in a very distinct way by the new timeline. Here's how the actor put it.
He's the only one that knows about the other timeline, but he does start to forget. Only the timeline he's in are the memories - all of his memories are changing. He starts to get memories in Flashpoint with his parents that he never had. He's got brand new memories, but they're replacing things that he had with his West family.
Well that certainly adds a new wrinkle to Barry's situation, which was already one of the most complicated narrative shifts in TV history. After going back in time to save his mother from Reverse-Flash, Barry finally gets to experience the life that he was probably supposed to have had it not been for the future-born villain, and he's obviously going to be eager to keep that particular status quo intact for as long as possible. But that's a very frightening cost to pay for a "better" life.
As we saw in the trailer, Barry may have a pretty good thing going now with Nora and Henry as his fine-feathered family, but it comes at the expense of everything his life used to revolve around. He no longer has a close relationship with Iris, something that will undoubtedly bum him out, and Joe is completely changed from how we knew him in the regular timeline, not to mention billionaire Cisco. I'd find it hard to believe that Barry would readily allow himself to remain in a world where he is cut off from the family he did grow up with, especially if it's one that is also taking his old life away from him.
One has to wonder and possibly assume that it will be that realization that his old memories are disappearing that Barry will make the grand decision to somehow go back again and undo the thing he already undid. (Is it redoing in that case?) Of course, his choice might also be affected by seeing Wally West running around as Kid Flash, or whatever his relationship with whatever Tom Cavanagh's role(s) will be. There are a lot of things that should make Barry want to bring everything back to normal. Or whatever is closest to normal.
We are going to see some wild and crazy shit happening with a lot of different characters in Season 3 of The Flash, which will debut on The CW on Tuesday, October 4. To see everything else hitting the small screen this fall (that doesn't involve replacing entire timelines), check out our TV premiere schedule. And head to the next page to check out that badass Season 3 trailer if you haven't watched it yet.
