When The Flash returns for its highly anticipated Season 3, the status quo will be a thing of the past. (Or future, or alternate present, etc.) Flashpoint is changing up everything about Barry Allen's world, at least temporarily, and it looks like his Earth won't be the only one set up for some alterations, as The Flash will be welcoming back Earth-3's version of The Flash, Jay Garrick. But how in the worlds is this going to happen?
The Flash released new images for Season 3, mostly from the second episode, titled "Paradox" - this is also where the first looks at Harry Potter's Tom Felton came up - and while we knew actor John Wesley Shipp was going to be around in various capacities this year, I didn't think we'd get to reconnect with Jay Garrick so soon. But I certainly hoped we would, considering the character spent most of last season with an iron mask on his head. Shipp is great as a dad, but it's fantastic to see him back inside a superhero costume.
So, again, how is this going to happen? The Flash's dense story structure allows for several different scenarios that would allow Barry and Jay Garrick to team up during Flashpoint. One way could have Barry facing a huge problem that could only be helped out by another speedster - a third one, I guess, considering Kid Flash is also around - and the Scarlet Speedster has to zip over to Earth-3 to talk Jay into assisting. That opens up its own fork in the road concerning whether or not Flashpoint affected Earth-3, and whether or not Jay even knows who Barry is. (And that starts up talks about whether Harry and Jesse would remember their Earth-1 adventures, and so on.)
In another scenario, perhaps Jay came to Earth-1 to get Barry's help on a completely different problem that was caused by the effects of Flashpoint. The episode's description does say that the ramifications are greater than Barry had originally thought, so it's possible other worlds got flipped around in some way. Maybe the image is on Earth-3 and not Barry's home planet.
Hell, last season gave us Cisco and Caitlin posing as Reverb and Killer Frost, so there's no ruling out the possibility that this could just be Earth-1 Henry Allen inside of Jay Garrick's Flash costume, posing as the speedster hero. So long as we don't have to watch Henry die again, I'm happy with whatever the writers came up with.
I also want to know if this Jay Garrick is the one that will hook up with the Legends of Tomorrow squad at some point, but I guess I can wait to find out. The Flash will return to Earth-1's version of The CW on Tuesday, October 4, at 8:00 p.m. ET. To see when everything else is speeding back to primetime, check out our fall premiere schedule.
