Spoiler warning for those who have yet to watch the Season 3 premiere for The Flash.
As one would have expected from any episode of television that could have followed The Flash's Season 2 finale, the third season opener "Flashpoint" is one wild trip through time that offered up plenty of memorable moments that will surely come back to haunt Barry & Co. as the season continues. Here are the five most insane things that happened in "Flashpoint" as a result of Barry's impulsive timeline alterations.
Cisco As a Bazillionaire
I guess this counts as several moments, which means I'm already cheating, but I figured we might as well go with the most light-hearted option right away, even if light-hearted equates to "pompous douche" at times. Actor Carlos Valdes is pretty genius as an ego-driven and extroverted version of Cisco's usual self, and even in a different timeline, he can't help but drop villainous names (such as Weather Wizard) and make pop culture references. ("Ba-ba-dook, there's your Rival.") Many actors lose cool points when they play shitheads, and even Tom Cavanagh could get irksome when his various Wells iterations wanted to be spiny, but Valdes and Cisco are the perfect match no matter what the character traits. Plus, Cisco brought up how someone can die by having a speedster's hand vibrating through their chest, meaning he might also have some Vibe powers in this timeline.
Kid Flash's Stabbing
Ever since Wally West's name was first mentioned in conjunction with The Flash, fans have been rabidly talking about the prospect of getting Kid Flash in live-action. And sure enough, the Season 3 premiere brought the comic speedster to the show for "Flashpoint," and then quickly popped that balloon of happiness by having the Rival Flash stab him through the torso. While Wally didn't die during the episode, he was lying in a hospital bed and unable to communicate, so it was close enough. Though his bit with Barry and Iris was amusing, we didn't even really get to see Kid Flash do all that much, which was also a bummer. Does this mean he's gone for good? Maybe not. But if so, WTF?
Barry Asking Reverse-Flash For Help
I imagine there's this giant ulcer in Barry's stomach that gets bigger every time he has to do something he regrets, though it probably would have exploded tonight when he was forced to face his time-and-space-crossing nemesis Reverse-Flash and ask him for assistance. And not just any assistance, like opening a jar or getting booster cables for a car. Barry had to ask Eobard Thawne to go back and do what started all this mess in the first place: kill Nora Allen. Adding insult to the heartbreak is the fact that Reverse-Flash was very clear to Barry during the episode that this very thing would happen. "Can you kill my mom again, because you were right?" That's a sentiment no one should ever have to ask for.
The Big Iris Reveal
If anyone started watching "Flashpoint" thinking that Barry would be able to revert back to the "normal" timeline without completely destroying at least one part of his life, apparently that person hasn't been paying attention. In this case, Barry reconnecting with Iris in the episode basically led to everything that went wrong (more on that here), and so it makes sense that Iris is the first big change to come up when he goes back and allows the original timeline to be recreated. In this new time-funked snag, Iris and Joe do not get along, and she apparently isn't around all the time. After already having to re-deal with the concept of both his parents being dead after months of living with them, Barry will undoubtedly be completely broken by this and will probably do something impulsive and dangerous to fix it. "Flashpoint 2.0" anyone?
Doctor Alchemy's Introduction
As it sometimes goes in The Flash's final minutes, one wild moment was followed by another, and here it involved Doctor Alchemy, one of Season 3's two big bads. It was extremely weird when Rival Flash took his mask off and introduced himself to Barry and Wally as Edward Carliss, but it made some sense later in the episode when viewers heard that name again, as spoken by Saw's Tobin Bell. In the revised original timeline, Edward Carliss will become the split-personality-sufferer Doctor Alchemy. Considering how this show has played with identity for both Harrison Wells and Zoom (among others), it's not shocking that the very first episode of the new season has already thrown one at us with this reveal. I like it, though, since it seems to imply that the "Flashpoint" timeline is a cause for Carliss' mental break that leads to his rise to villainy.
The Flash will continue to loop its loops around viewers every Tuesday night on The CW at 8:00 p.m. ET. To see when all the other shenanigans-filled TV shows are coming, check out our fall premiere schedule.
