As Barry is reeling from Henry's death, the gang takes matters into their own hands, the identity of the Man in the Iron Mask is revealed (and it's a doozy!), and Zoom reveals his plans. Then Barry does the unthinkable....
Let's start with Barry and his reaction to Henry's death. Unsurprisingly, he becomes unhinged and obsessed with ending Zoom. When Zoom challenged him to that race, I have to admit to mixed feelings about the whole thing. I think Barry was right when he decided to race Zoom and save everyone else, but I could see the gang's point. Barry was not thinking clearly, but he needed time to do that and he wasn't going to get that time. I do think that locking him up was going too far, but I can sympathize with their motives. I knew that their plan to take down Zoom on their own was going to go sideways, but I wasn't expecting Zoom to grab Joe on his way out, so that was an interesting development.
I was so glad that Wally let Barry go. He was right that the gang was making the wrong decision. Leaving Joe to Zoom's tender mercies would have been a horrible idea and Iris would have tortured herself over the decision. Not to mention the fact that they would have totally lost Barry because I don't know if he ever would have forgiven them for that one, and rightfully so. Again, good intentions, but poor execution.
When they revealed that the Man in the Iron Mask was the real Jay Garrick and that he was Henry's doppleganger fro Earth-3, I was floored. I thought for a second that maybe he was Ronnie (hey, hope springs eternal!), but seeing John Wesley Shipp in the Flash outfit again was totally awesome. I watched several of the episodes from the 90's TV series (and I have the DVDs!), so seeing him as the Flash again was a total trip! It sucked that it was super hard on Barry, but it was a really nice bone to throw to people who watched that series.
I wasn't far off about Zoom's plan. He wanted to use the energy generated when he and Barry raced in order to power a machine that would destroy every other universe in the multiverse. As I've been commenting on all season, this was a variation of Crisis on Infinite Earths, right down to Barry (albeit a time remnant) sacrificing himself in order to save the multiverse. That was quite the nice way to wrap up the whole Zoom storyline, which leads us to the ending....
Barry ran back in time and saved his mother from being killed by Eobard Thawne. The ramifications of that are too varied to really list. By saving his mother, Barry completely altered time and created a brand new timeline. Rather than simply changing a relatively small moment like he did once or twice last year, he altered a formative event in this timeline. By saving his mother, he made it so he wouldn't live with the Wests and he will have lost his reason to work as a CSI. He may or may not have stopped Thawne from killing Wells, which would also mean that the Accident would never have happened and he won't become the Flash. Also, since Thawne (as Wells) hired Cisco and Caitlin so that he could create the Accident, they won't be there either. And that is only on The Flash itself.
If you extend the potential ramifications to other shows in this universe, Firestorm will never exist which will affect the team on Legends of Tomorrow and who knows what the effects will be on Arrow. I suspect that the other shows will continue on the current timeline and that only The Flash will switch timelines, but that will mean that the shows won't be able to sync up again until Barry restores the original timeline. There is a story in DC comics called "Flashpoint" which seems to fit in with what they are doing, and that may provide some clues about how Season 3 will go. I plan on writing some more thoughts on all three finales in a week or two after I've had some more time to process and think things through.
Tomorrow is the Arrow finale and then I'm done until The Fosters returns on June 20th. Until tomorrow!
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