Spoiler warning for any Flash fans who haven't yet completed Season 4.
With its time-travel scenarios, its multi-powered heroes and big bads, its metaphysical realms and more, The Flash is a TV show that doesn't usually offer authoritatively exhaustive explanations for a lot of its complex storylines and reveals. But while past seasons usually relied on shocking unmaskings and villainous monologues to tie all the dots together, Season 4 left quite a few dangling issues that made us feel like we were unwitting victims of the Enlightenment.
Follow us through a list of the unanswered questions and unresolved plotlines that The Flash viewers were left with when Season 4 ran its final end credits. Some will likely get answered in Season 5, and some will hopefully get hinted at before then. Unfortunately, I suspect a couple may not ever get properly sorted out. Let's start off with a mystery that technically formed at the end of the Season 3 finale. (And if you're looking for a deeper look at the "Thomas" mystery, we've got you covered.)
What Actually Happened With Barry In The Speed Force?
Once Team Flash was finally able to free Barry from his six self-sacrificed months trapped inside the Speed Force (using a DNA orb that the Speed Force is a dolt for accepting), it was clear that Barry had gone through some things in ways unlike Wally's Groundhog Day nightmare and Jay Garrick's normalish stint. He seemingly relived past events (that apparently weren't affected by Flashpoint) and also tapped into his own future (and we're still wondering about those "diapers"), and not all of it has been explained yet. Were those precognitive glimpses tied to how the dark matter worked on the doodle-marked Clifford DeVoe? And will that Speed Force engagement continue evolving The Flash's powers? He is already proficient in the stopping-time thing. Also, will that play into Nora's own potential wraith-attracting time-travel woes, and how Barry tries to keep her safe?
What Are Barry And Nora's Symbols About?
When Barry was yanked out of the Speed Force way back in the Season 4 premiere, he was bearded and spouting gibberish that mostly didn't make sense (at the time), and he was drawing bizarre symbols all over every flat surface he had access to. The Flash went on to explain some of his gobbledygook -- including the immortal "This house is bitchin' line -- but the images are still a mystery. We do know that Nora has some knowledge of them, as one episode revealed she has a notebook filled with the same kind of symbols her dad was scribbling. Although her connection to the symbols may point toward their origin in the Speed Force, The Thinker also seemed to have a connection to them, and he presumably hadn't been in and out of the Speed Force like the speedsters. More Nora in Season 5 will hopefully mean more answers.
Where Did The Thinker's Consciousness Go?
The Flash spent a LOT of time on The Thinker boasting about imminent victories, with his expansive deductions making failure impossible, and he always seemed to finalize development on Plan C and a Plan D just as Team Flash was figuring out Plan A. DeVoe's powers allowed him to telepathically control others, shape-shift, switch meta-powers into other bodies, and move his consciousness into other people, and he was even able to port himself into electrical devices for a comic-teasing digi-Thinker. But we're really supposed to believe that Thinker's grand defeat involved Marlize unplugging his chair? No, not on The Flash, where even Ralph Dibny gets a second shot at life. I wouldn't be surprised at all to learn that DeVoe is now inside Marlize's mind, or that someone is going to power that chair up again in the future, granting The Thinker artificial intelligence.
What Are Caitlin's Repressed Memories?
Caitlin Snow had a rough ride in Season 4, as it usually goes.. After coming to terms with her Killer Frost persona, she lost access to those powers, though there's still a lot going on inside Caitlin. Cisco use his Vibe powers to take Caitlin back to a recently resurfaced childhood memory, which revealed she'd manifested Killer Frost powers as a child, long before the particle accelerator exploded and created The Flash and many other Central City metas. In the memory, a voice (presumably belonging to her father) calls out to her not to look at her reflection. Now, the big questions are all swirling around those repressed memories. How and why did she repress them? Why are they coming back to her now? Is Killer Frost responsible for what memories she does and does not have access to? Do they even have the same memories?
How Did Cecile Get Her Powers?
One of the most unexpected (and surprisingly hilarious) twists of Season 4 had to be Cecile's super-powered developments in the later stages of her pregnancy. The telepathic and empathetic abilities were handy tools for Team Flash, and Caitlin speculated that the pregnancy activated residual dark matter left in Cecile's body after the particle accelerator explosion. The show never delivered a hard answer about her powers, however, and we have to wonder if baby Jenna will wind up exhibiting some powers of her own, presumably akin to what Cecile experienced. Assuming Nora gets to know her aunt in the future. she may be able to shed light on whether Cecile simply developed powers due to leftover dark matter. Could it be she and Joe both brought a recessive predisposition toward meta-abilities to baby Jenna, and she developed powers because of that? Only time, if anything, will tell.
Is Iris Already Pregnant Or Not?
One Season 4 rumor that developed after the Earth-X crossover pegs Iris as being pregnant through some or most of the back half of the season. Partially fueled by Nora's first appearance, Iris' possible "with child" status would offer some explanations. If Iris has future-speedster Nora's DNA within her, it might explain her lack of problems during a Flashtime jaunt, while other non-speedsters were far more affected by it. (It would also add support to Cecile's situation.) As well, it might explain what happened when Nora seemingly reversed time in order to help Barry destroy that satellite; one could easily gather that Barry died trying to do it himself, necessitating Nora's time-travel to save him, which would set up another Flashpoint universe in Nora's future timeline. But the only way that would work is if Iris is already pregnant with Nora. So she is, right?
Who Was Jay Garrick Training On Earth-3?
The ever-awesome John Wesley Shipp reprised his role as Jay Garrick, a.k.a. Earth-3's Flash, in Season 4, crossing over to Earth-1 (along with Jesse Quick of Earth-2) to help Barry stop a nuclear bomb that had already detonated. Unfortunately, the much-older Jay was unable to keep up with the younger speedsters, and he revealed at the end of the episode that he was retiring from his role as the Crimson Comet, and was training a replacement. Jay didn't give away the identity of the speedster he intended to train, but did reveal Earth-3's next Flash is a "she." He probably would have mentioned if the "she" was Earth-3's Jesse Quick or some other familiar character, so could he have been referring to Nora, who might've popped over to Earth-3 for insight? Or is it some other female speedster who has yet to debut?
Are The Weeper And/Or His Tears Still Out There?
Of all the bus metas that The Thinker got his mitts on, The Weeper is the only one whose fate was left relatively unresolved, which is mighty important considering the tears he creates have psycho-active properties when consumed by others. Without the Brainstorm power that DeVoe had in his bank of abilities, the tears probably can't be used to alter others' memories, but they are still powerful, and can be concentrated for further effectiveness. The Flash possibly hinted at Weeper's death (or whatever) whenever Marlize "corrected" DeVoe about the number of non-captured bus metas at the time, but this show is often very blunt about details like that, unless there's a reason to hide them. Showrunner Todd Helbing has since stated that all the other bus metas "are toast," but I'm still skeptical about the tears themselves being completely gone.
With more questions left to blast viewers with in the future, The Flash will return to The CW with new episodes in the fall. The rest of the Arrow-verse series will be shuffling their time slots, and you can find their new places in the lineup on The CW's fall 2018-2019 TV schedule. For what you can watch even sooner, take a look at our summer TV premiere guide.
