Spoilers for Tuesday’s episode of The Flash are ahead. If you haven’t watched it yet, speed out of here!
The Flash promised us big moments in the midseason finale, and they did not disappoint. In “The Man In The Yellow Suit,” Barry Allen finally came face-to-face with the man who murdered his mother as a boy: the Reverse-Flash. Barry may be fast, but his psychotic doppelgänger is faster, and the Scarlet Speedster got kicked around several times during the episode. In fact, it was only because of a save from Ronnie Raymond (now calling himself Firestorm) that Barry made it out of the second battle relatively unharmed. There were other big moments, including Barry finally telling Iris how he feels about her and Cisco observing to Joe that there was another speedster at Barry’s house the night his mother died, but as per the usual with these episodes, the last two minutes delivered a stunning revelation.
While Wells is alone in his future-tech room, he slips on a ring with a familiar lightning bolt insignia. A section of the wall opens that contains an unusual black costume, but when Wells holds the ring up to the suit, it changes to the yellow Reverse-Flash costume. He then attaches the stolen tachyon particle to the costume and says “Merry Christmas” in the sinister Reverse-Flash voice, seemingly confirming that he is the yellow speedster. Although an interesting twist, it isn’t entirely a surprise. The professor has been a common suspect among fans due to his secret plans for Barry and hailing from the future. Still, it’s interesting that the show decided to reveal this so early, and needless to say this will have huge ramifications on the rest of the season. Though as is the case with big TV reveals, there are more questions than answers, specifically elaboration on Reverse-Flash’s identity.
Wells may be the Reverse-Flash, but there’s still the issue that he was in the room at the same time as the yellow-garbed speedster and got beaten up by him. He may be fast, but he can’t clone himself. There are several possibilities here. One is that the Reverse-Flash that was causing all the trouble this episode is Wells from another time period. We know Wells is a time-traveler, so maybe it was a past or future version of him that was responsible for these events, while the Wells we’re familiar with was playing along. Since he had the tachyon particle device at the end, it may be that these two versions of Wells are in cahoots with each other, and their plan has something to do with energizing the costume with the Mercury Labs invention.
Another possibility is that it was another person in the suit. In the comics, there are several Reverse-Flashes, although only two wear the trademark yellow costume. There’s Eobard Thawne, Barry’s Reverse-Flash before the New 52, and Hunter Zolomon, a.k.a. Zoom, who fought Barry’s successor Wally West. It’s possible that the Reverse-Flash that caused this episode’s shenanigans is someone else who has inherited the mantle. When he was beating up the cops at S.T.A.R. Labs, Reverse-Flash briefly stared at Eddie. Although he’s a good guy right now, perhaps Eddie will eventually become a villain, and this Reverse-Flash is a future version of Eddie that’s turned to the dark side and traveled back in time. This would bring him closer in line with the comic book character who shares his last name. However, with his time-travel background, Wells has more in common with Eobard than Eddie does, and considering that Hunter Zolomon was a criminal profiler, the TV series may be setting Eddie up as this universe’s Zoom.
The Flash is on break until late next month, so fans will have to speculate among themselves what exactly is going on with Wells and the Reverse-Flash, but as we learned, the evil speedster has it out for Flash, and believes it’s Barry’s destiny to lose to him. With all the time travel elements this series has given us, Reverse-Flash’s threat may not just be prideful boasting. With Wells’ knowledge of the future, he knows all about what’s in store for Barry (at least in the timeline that Wells originally came from), and if his main goal is to ruin his life, then Barry is in for a world of hurt. The Flash may be facing other supervillains soon, but Reverse-Flash is clearly going to be his most dangerous adversary.
