The FlashBack: ‘The Flash’ – Episode 22 ‘Fast Enough’

The Flash is DC’s television adaptation of the comic book of the same name. It airs Tuesday nights at 8/7 Central on The CW. Our writer, Nicole Drum recaps the series each week updating you on the latest episode here in The FlashBack.

All good things must come to an end (until the fall) and last night the first season of The Flash came to an end. This is totally what we’ve been working up to so consider this your final warning: there are about to be some major spoilers, some screaming, a whole lot of me ugly-crying, and a recap. Step away if you don’t want to know about how Sue the T-Rex (with special guest Gorilla Grodd) takes Toronto.

Has Sue lured away the non-spoiler crew? Okay, good. HOLY SPEEDFORCE FLASH this finale! So last week Flash with his pals Arrow and Firestorm defeated Dr. Creepy. His fate wasn’t exactly clear at the end of the episode, but it turns out that he wasn’t dead. Instead they have him held in the land of the ultimate subterranean blues/bootleg CERN. Everyone else though (except Arrow, who went back to Nanda Prabat) is hanging out topside trying to decide what to do next. And by “trying to decide what to do next” I mean helping Barry with his quandary: Go back to the past to save his mom and ultimately erase this life, potentially screwing everyone over or don’t go back and keep his dad in jail. This angsty round of decision-making is what the first three-fourths of the episode is about. Barry talks to the various people in his life about what he should do. Joe wants him to go. The Nerd Squad is iffy. Iris is okay with it. Dr. Creepy really wants him to go. We get some great little bits from others as well: Ronnie tells Caitlin he’s back for keeps and they should get married. Dr. Stein is getting his science on because of time travel. Cisco has an awkward heartfelt moment with Dr. Creepy and is told he has powers that involve the vibrations of reality. Barry’s dad doesn’t want him to do it. (John Wesley Shipp makes me cry yet again as Henry, telling his son that even his mother wouldn’t want him to go back.)

Image Credit: CW

Barry decides to do it, despite it meaning he has to run faster than ever, and if he doesn’t he dies. He’s ready to do it, then science drops some knowledge: The wormhole Barry will open up in time could cause a singularity (aka my favorite doomsday scenario) and create an extinction level event. Dr. Creepy clarifies even further by revealing that Barry will have just under two minutes to go do his thing in the past and let Dr. Creepy get back home. Now Barry isn’t sure again.

I’m going to take a moment here to mention Eddie. Remember last time we saw Eddie he had pretty much given up to being pointless because Dr. Creepy said so. So he’s moping around the lab when Dr. Stein gives him a pep talk about how what makes him fascinating is that his presence in the story is mere coincidence. What are the odds Dr. Creepy drops into a place where he becomes entangled with his own great-great-great grandfather and has to keep him safe? Science can’t explain coincidences. Eddie leaves this feeling good and decides to get back together with Iris. I would gag, but I actually feel pretty good for Eddie because feeling worthless sucks.

So now that we are in the last quarter of the show or so Barry has decided to go back. He’s going to go back, wait until adult Barry gets little Barry out-of-the-way and then go save his mom. The Nerd Squad will help Dr. Creepy jet out. Everyone synchronizes their watches for that elusive under two minutes mark. Barry runs. He gets up to the needed speed very quickly as Dr. Creepy talks him through what he is seeing: Barry is literally in the speed force and can see all the time and various points. It’s really lovely to watch. In the lab, Dr. Stein makes the call to flip the switch, as it were, and Barry blips into the past.

He gets dropped out in his childhood bedroom and he can hear the sounds of the attack. He makes his way down where he watches the scene unfold. Interestingly the adult version of himself who had shown up previously (the one that saved little Barry) sees him and motions for him to stop. It’s not time for him to interfere yet so Barry closes the door and listens further. Little Barry is whisked away and Barry listens as Reverse Flash stabs his mother. It is then that Barry goes out. We see that his dad is knocked out on the floor, the knife by his body and we see his mother bleeding and dying. I expect Barry to whisk his mother to the hospital, but he doesn’t. Instead, he kneels at her side and reveals himself to her. He tells her that he has turned out well, that he has a good life, that he and his father are alive and that they love her, very much. Barry doesn’t save his mother; he saves himself by getting to finally say goodbye. It is a beautiful scene and I ugly cried. Barry gets to say goodbye to his mom. She gets to see her son all grown up. I’m still crying.

Back in the present, Dr. Creepy is getting his Time Sphere all organized and ready to roll when, suddenly Barry flies out of the wormhole and smashes through the Time Sphere, ruining Dr. Creepy’s escape and sending them both sprawling. Dr. Creepy figures out that Barry did not save his mother and the two fight. As they are fighting the wormhole becomes unstable and is about to go full singularity so Ronnie and Caitlin run around trying to disable it.  It all comes to a head: Ronnie and Caitlin manage to close the wormhole, but Dr. Creepy has Barry in a kill position. And then? A gunshot. Dr. Creepy freezes, but he’s not the one who is shot: Eddie shoots himself. Fatally.

Eddie is Eobard’s many greats grandfather. If Eddie dies having never had kids (and he doesn’t have any) then Eobard never exits. He doesn’t become Dr. Creepy. Just like that Dr. Creepy starts being torn apart by time until he fully disappears, leaving Iris to clutch her dead boyfriend close. Dr. Creepy is gone. Time remains the same. It’s victory, but it doesn’t last. Eddie’s selfless act causes the wormhole to reopen and be unstable. It starts the singularity that turns into a black hole, sucks Eddie’s body into the vortex and starts eating Central City. Eddie, you had won me over there for like a whole thirty seconds, but no, now I’m back to yelling at you for this damn singularity. There is only one shot at stopping it: Barry has to run fast enough to disrupt the formation of the black hole. It’s just like when he stopped the tornado, only faster, harder, and upside down. Run, Barry, run!

And that is the end of the finale. Even as I write this I am sitting here with my jaw still half-open and my eyes wide. This whole season has been great television, but this was just beautiful. It was less about Barry going into the past and more about the choices made which is really what the whole season has been about.

So what will happen in season two? Where do you think we will pick up? I find it interesting that Eddie is sucked into the vortex. I am also looking forward to the exploration of Cisco’s potential powers. And what happens with the Ronnie/Caitlin marriage since we know Firestorm ends up part of another team in the upcoming DC’s Legends of Tomorrow? SO MANY QUESTIONS.

But that’s it until the fall. I’ll be back with more recaps then. In the meantime, let’s talk about this finale in comments! Were you “fast enough” to catch those Easter eggs?