Spoilers ahead for Episode 4 of The Flash Season 6, called "There Will Be Blood."
The Arrow-verse is hurtling toward the five-show "Crisis on Infinite Earths" crossover, with The Flash and Arrow in particular focusing on the coming conflict with The Anti-Monitor. This was to be expected for Arrow, but The Flash has packed in a big bad in the form of Bloodwork along with Team Flash dealing with the reveal that Barry has to die for the multiverse to be saved in "Crisis."
Now that we're four episodes into Season 6 and "Crisis" kicks off with Episode 9, combined with the latest "Crisis" reveal courtesy of "There Will Be Blood," the question is: does The Flash have time to defeat Bloodwork?
The Flash actually finally took Ramsey Rosso into full villain mode in "There Will Be Blood," as he realized that he needed to ingest the blood of people he killed due to the fear-induced epinephrine. He went on a killing spree, which unexpectedly created zombies, then escaped. Bloodwork is a full-on bad guy now, and if this was any other season of The Flash, I'd expect to see Bloodwork continue to develop and elude Team Flash for another 18 episodes or so.
Since this is pre-"Crisis" Season 6 of The Flash, however, the show has only four episodes to wrap up the Ramsey Rosso arc as a villain. Showrunner Eric Wallace revealed back at San Diego Comic-Con in July that Bloodwork will be the main villain for only the first arc of the season, with "Crisis" as the second arc and a new big bad for the third, which picks up following "Crisis" in 2020.
If The Monitor is to believed, Barry won't be around following "Crisis," but there are a lot of reasons to doubt his word. Basically, few Arrow-verse fans will probably blame Barry and Oliver if they're "pissed" when they find out what The Monitor has been playing at. Bloodwork has four more episodes as the big bad, and the "Crisis" twist at the end of "There Will Be Blood" suggests that The Flash isn't laying off of setting up the crossover any time soon.
The Flash Season 6's New Wells Will Reveal A Mind-Messing Secret
So, what happened as the latest big "Crisis on Infinite Earths" twist? In the tag at the end of the episode, Harrison "Nash" Wells ventured down into the sewer tunnel he'd been trying to explore in the previous episode. Using a gadget designed by Cisco, Nash accessed a holographic recording that seemingly showed The Monitor in the same place at some point in the past.
In the recording, The Monitor passed right through a stone wall. Not to be discouraged, Nash picked up a pickaxe and prepared to start swinging. He definitely didn't give away precisely what was going on, but he did say this: "So this is where you've been hiding." Has The Monitor been hiding out on Earth-1, as Earth-2 is clearly no longer an option? Or did he stash something on Earth-1 and that's what Nash is after? Or was this actually The Anti-Monitor?
We'll have to wait and see, but it seems clear to me that The Flash will continue trying to balance Bloodwork with setting up "Crisis on Infinite Earths," and there may not be time to tell a satisfying story for Dr. Ramsey Rosso. Still, I've been wrong about the Arrow-verse before. In fact, it took Arrow's awesome Season 8 premiere to convince me "Crisis" will be amazing!
Find out what happens next on The Flash with new episodes airing Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET on The CW, ahead of new episodes of Arrow.
