The FLASH TV SERIES

[Huntsman Spider]

Did this episode have tons of fanservice? Sure.
Was a lot of it cheesy? You betcha.

Did I still love it? Heck yeah.

In that respect, it's a lot like Power Rangers for me, and I say that as a compliment.

[Jon Clark]

Back to Barry and Diggle- how much time has passed in the Arrowverse since Oliver died? And how old was William? I felt like he was in middle school in Season 6 (I may be mis-remembering), and Mia should still just be a baby. But now Wiliam is in college, and Mia is mastering the salmon ladder?

I was assuming it was future Mia still stuck in our present. And considering William seemed to be the type of tech savy Felicity was, maybe he got accepted to college a few years early.

[Batgrayson]

When Barry asked Oliver "Aren't you a billionaire?", I loved his reply: "You can't take it with you."

Back to Barry and Diggle- how much time has passed in the Arrowverse since Oliver died? And how old was William? I felt like he was in middle school in Season 6 (I may be mis-remembering), and Mia should still just be a baby. But now Wiliam is in college, and Mia is mastering the salmon ladder?

As for Barry and OG Thawne next week, well, take a shot for every Barry you see in that house. You'll be drunk in no time. That said, I do feel like they needed to do it, to close that loop. And it would have been terrible to do it in the final episode and end the whole series on a down note. So do it now, and have some big blow-out battle on the final episode. Plus, any excuse for Barry to interact with the OG Thawne, who was the ONLY Thawne he should have been interacting with since season 2.

Diggle said at the beginning of the episode that it has passed 3 years since Oliver's death, just like in real life.

[AnakinFlair]

I was assuming it was future Mia still stuck in our present. And considering William seemed to be the type of tech savy Felicity was, maybe he got accepted to college a few years early.

Except- when Oliver reset the multiverse, he actually sent Mia, William and Connor back to the future. That was the whole backdoor pilot in Season 8 of Angel- Laurel 2 traveled to the future (I think she said Sara dropped her off) and had a device that gave Mia (who was now a rich heiress who had lived a happy, pampered life) her memories of the other timeline back. Dinah Drake was also there, having (somehow) traveled to the future as well. And a bunch of shadowy people kidnapped William from in front of the statue of his father (and in front of Mia, whom they incapacitated), and they ALSO had a device that gave John Diggle Jr. his memories of the alternate timeline, where he was the new Deathstroke. Which would make things kind of awkward, as he had just proposed to Mia.

Of course, the spinoff wasn't picked up, and aside from Mia mentioning in The Flash last season that she was still looking for her brother, none of those plot threads have ever, or will ever, be picked up again (unless it's in a comic).

It WOULD have been better if Mia, William, and Connor were stuck in the past. It would have made more sense for a spinoff. But no, they were in the future, which looked just like modern day Vancouver.

[Jon Clark]

Except- when Oliver reset the multiverse, he actually sent Mia, William and Connor back to the future. That was the whole backdoor pilot in Season 8 of Angel- Laurel 2 traveled to the future (I think she said Sara dropped her off) and had a device that gave Mia (who was now a rich heiress who had lived a happy, pampered life) her memories of the other timeline back. Dinah Drake was also there, having (somehow) traveled to the future as well. And a bunch of shadowy people kidnapped William from in front of the statue of his father (and in front of Mia, whom they incapacitated), and they ALSO had a device that gave John Diggle Jr. his memories of the alternate timeline, where he was the new Deathstroke. Which would make things kind of awkward, as he had just proposed to Mia.

Of course, the spinoff wasn't picked up, and aside from Mia mentioning in The Flash last season that she was still looking for her brother, none of those plot threads have ever, or will ever, be picked up again (unless it's in a comic).

It WOULD have been better if Mia, William, and Connor were stuck in the past. It would have made more sense for a spinoff. But no, they were in the future, which looked just like modern day Vancouver.

I thought the last we saw of Mia had her back in Barry's time during mini-season with Despero which was set after the spin-off Arrow episode I can't recall if that eneded with her returning to her future or not. Either way I thought it left enough time for Dig to speak of adult Mia as someone he knew.

[AnakinFlair]

I thought the last we saw of Mia had her back in Barry's time during mini-season with Despero which was set after the spin-off Arrow episode I can't recall if that eneded with her returning to her future or not. Either way I thought it left enough time for Dig to speak of adult Mia as someone he knew.

I think Sara had given her a time courier on the final episode of Arrow, when she brought Mia back to the past to go to Oliver's funeral. That's how she traveled back in time to be in that episode of The Flash.

[Captain Craig]

I finally watched last weeks episode.
Of all the villains we could've chosen from to re-visit they chose Bloodwork?
As noted Joe's absence was noticeable. Wally is in it, with clear issues about family, he has a heart to heart with Iris and Joe isn't around? If Jesse Martin's episode count was the issue then he should've sat out somewhere else cause he could've been put to good use here.
It was nice to see Oliver again even if we did get some cheesy over the top tropes from the character.
At least we got Barry being Flash for large parts of the episode after weeks of the title character literally not appearing.

The episode was decent but this season has been so much basement dwelling that it didn't have to try to hard to cross a low bar.

[90'sCartoonMan]

I guess Bloodwork does have the proper power set to do something like this. Definitely worth it to see Barry interact with Wally and Oliver again. As random as Allegra's mask and Oliver's bow were, even things like that felt right in this episode. I didn't feel like Barry's character regressed at all. He is allowed to have his doubts every now and then, and Oliver is the perfect person to give him encouragement.

They acknowledge Caitlin's death! And it has a bit more weight to it than when it actually happened.

Diggle and Oliver was also a great moment, but man, that Diggle plot just gets more and more weird every time it's talked about. Who is trying to test John Diggle? And they still got in a "brightest day" reference.

[tabo61]

The Reverse Flash rebirth????

[Frontier]

Starting the final arc, "The New World," off with a bang with the return of none other than...Eddie Thawne...except it's not actually Eddie, but an alternate version of Eddie that's actually Barry, down to the same origin? Only I'm assuming that was Negative Speed Force lightning that chose him and instead of becoming The Flash he's going to become Cobalt Blue...which oddly enough mirrors Cobalt Blue being Barry's evil twin brother.

That outfit would've been a better fit for either Rainbow Raider. Meanwhile Allegra just wants to be Superhero casual. Although that light effect on her face looked kind of goofy.

That whole Khione scene was really weird...so she has like a bunch of "whatever powers we can come up with" now, writes letters to the dead sisters she never knew, and gets like an in-depth writing sequence and looks straight at the camera to talk to the audience and how she wants to see Mark (like why though?). It was just a really strangely directed and executed scene.

I guess it wouldn't be the final season without going back to the night of Nora Allen's death one last time. I think this is the first time we've seen Henry and Nora in the flesh since Flashpoint. Every other time it's been as Jay, Joan, or the Speed Force.

2000's Singh looked straight out of the comics.

I love how Thawne is so petty that the first thing he does is try to get Barry run over so he can spend time with his parents before Thawne twists the knife even deeper and gloats about how Barry can't stop him. Classic Thawne, complete with his old face back.

So in the Arrowverse the Zatara's own an Italian restaurant instead of being magicians? Um...okay. Shame we never got to see Arrowverse Zatanna though.

Man, the Allens' have such an immense well of empathy that they treat some guy they saved like their own son and basically help Barry live out saying a proper goodbye to his parents as an adult. Although maybe it helped that Barry apparently has an uncanny resemblance to his grandfather on Nora's side.

Joe as a bad guy firing laser beams was...definitely not something I was expecting to see. Nor a cameo from Ramsey/Bloodwork's mom.

It's kind of funny to me that originally on the night Nora died Barry was wearing his season 4 suit (or a close proximity to it) but now we have his uber-comic accurate costume which makes it even better.

Season 1 Barry! Complete with the original suit! Man, that takes me back. Not to mention all the voices saying "Run Barry Run" complete with Wellsobard.

Barry did it. He managed to take Thawne's greatest victory and overcome it by finally 100% accepting it and moving on, and leaving Thawne to wallow in screwing himself over because of his own pettiness while he ended up giving Barry something utterly precious...one last moment with his parents. He even THANKED Thawne. And in doing so basically beat Thawne in every way that mattered (even aside from erasing him from existence last season). If last season finale was the greatest defeat of Wellsobard, this was the greatest defeat of Letscher!Thawne.

[Huntsman Spider]

Starting the final arc, "The New World," off with a bang with the return of none other than...Eddie Thawne...except it's not actually Eddie, but an alternate version of Eddie that's actually Barry, down to the same origin? Only I'm assuming that was Negative Speed Force lightning that chose him and instead of becoming The Flash he's going to become Cobalt Blue...which oddly enough mirrors Cobalt Blue being Barry's evil twin brother.

That outfit would've been a better fit for either Rainbow Raider. Meanwhile Allegra just wants to be Superhero casual. Although that light effect on her face looked kind of goofy.

That whole Khione scene was really weird...so she has like a bunch of "whatever powers we can come up with" now, writes letters to the dead sisters she never knew, and gets like an in-depth writing sequence and looks straight at the camera to talk to the audience and how she wants to see Mark (like why though?). It was just a really strangely directed and executed scene.

I guess it wouldn't be the final season without going back to the night of Nora Allen's death one last time. I think this is the first time we've seen Henry and Nora in the flesh since Flashpoint. Every other time it's been as Jay, Joan, or the Speed Force.

2000's Singh looked straight out of the comics.

I love how Thawne is so petty that the first thing he does is try to get Barry run over so he can spend time with his parents before Thawne twists the knife even deeper and gloats about how Barry can't stop him. Classic Thawne, complete with his old face back.

So in the Arrowverse the Zatara's own an Italian restaurant instead of being magicians? Um...okay. Shame we never got to see Arrowverse Zatanna though.

Man, the Allens' have such an immense well of empathy that they treat some guy they saved like their own son and basically help Barry live out saying a proper goodbye to his parents as an adult. Although maybe it helped that Barry apparently has an uncanny resemblance to his grandfather on Nora's side.

Joe as a bad guy firing laser beams was...definitely not something I was expecting to see. Nor a cameo from Ramsey/Bloodwork's mom.

It's kind of funny to me that originally on the night Nora died Barry was wearing his season 4 suit (or a close proximity to it) but now we have his uber-comic accurate costume which makes it even better.

Season 1 Barry! Complete with the original suit! Man, that takes me back. Not to mention all the voices saying "Run Barry Run" complete with Wellsobard.

Barry did it. He managed to take Thawne's greatest victory and overcome it by finally 100% accepting it and moving on, and leaving Thawne to wallow in screwing himself over because of his own pettiness while he ended up giving Barry something utterly precious...one last moment with his parents. He even THANKED Thawne. And in doing so basically beat Thawne in every way that mattered (even aside from erasing him from existence last season). If last season finale was the greatest defeat of Wellsobard, this was the greatest defeat of Letscher!Thawne.

Cosigned on that last paragraph, though I would add that in light of how some people here and there mused that Eddie Thawne's actor might have been a more comic-accurate Barry Allen insofar as hair color, it'd definitely make for a "full circle" moment with him becoming the Arrowverse's Cobalt Blue instead.

[90'sCartoonMan]

There's a lot of intensity between Barry and Thawne. So much hatred. Kind of amazing they can go back to this crucial scene in Flash history, after having revisited it a few times already, and add more to it. I'm definitely here for this arc. The scenes Barry had with his parents were some of the best this season.

Starting the final arc, "The New World," off with a bang with the return of none other than...Eddie Thawne...except it's not actually Eddie, but an alternate version of Eddie that's actually Barry, down to the same origin? Only I'm assuming that was Negative Speed Force lightning that chose him and instead of becoming The Flash he's going to become Cobalt Blue...which oddly enough mirrors Cobalt Blue being Barry's evil twin brother.

Could this Cobalt Blue be Eddie Thawne's long lost twin brother who ended up on another Earth? As much as I hate the Speed Force and all the Wally West plots that have gone to Barry over the years, it does make sense for Cobalt Blue to be involved in a Barry story.

That whole Khione scene was really weird...so she has like a bunch of "whatever powers we can come up with" now, writes letters to the dead sisters she never knew, and gets like an in-depth writing sequence and looks straight at the camera to talk to the audience and how she wants to see Mark (like why though?). It was just a really strangely directed and executed scene.

Her powers and talking to the audience reminded me of Music Meister. Could she be the same kind of being that he was?

[tabo61]

Frightening cemetery scene.

[Kirby101]

So Khone is an earth goddess? Okay, whatever. And surprise! The power of love saves Barry.

[Frontier]

I guess it says a lot that even after so many years later people at CCPD still remember Eddie. Also, Korber as Captain! It's nice to see her out of uniform.

Oh hey, they mentioned Cisco at ARGUS! Though I'm kind of worried that's the most we'll get with him this season.

Cobalt! They mentioned Cobalt!!!

I can think of only a few people who would care that Mark came back and Khione is probably one of them. It was pretty surreal to see him turn into the guy Team Flash rallies around (doubly ironic becuase he turned out to be a saboteur), but I guess he does owe Barry a lot. When were he and Cecile close though?

She can telelport...she can turn people into plants...she can reduce people to dirt and then re-form them...I mean, it's hard not to think of Khione as an elemental Goddess before they actually had her say as much. Which feels like a bit much, even for this show, though even Khione acknowledges how out of place she is. And how did Caitlin's one experiment to bring Frost back create a Goddess in her body? Also, if Khione is going to leave can she at least give Caitlin her body back? Or maybe her and Frost together since she's a Goddess and all.

Chester was taking it remarkably well that the love of his life was in a coma until Cobalt Mark prodded him about it.

Does anybody actually like hearing Cecile talk about obvious emotional cues and saying she "felt" them?

I guess it was inevitable we'd get at least one tussle between the Speed Force and the Negative Speed Force.

Thanks for doing nothing, security guy.

So this story was happening in parallel to Barry's, judging by the scene of Barry fighting Cobalt Joe while Iris records the message for him and Barry showing up when he did. It's nice of the Negative Speed Force to bring him back to his daughters' birth...except not.

What even is Khione and Mark's relationship? She acts like they were close and he's her best friend even though he mostly just projected Frost onto her and complained about her even when they were "bonding." I guess he was the first person she ever got to know so she kind of imprinted on him, but it feels weird. I also can't tell if they're meant to be platonic or romantic but there's enough weird undertones about this whole story in general.

Malcolm (a name reference to the comic Cobalt Blue) IS Eddie, just apparently transported (and empowered?) into the future with no memory or a whole new life after his corpse got absorbed by the storm at the end of season 1. Did the Negative Speed Force have him back then? Is it trying to activate him as it's final avatar because it's that desperate to beat Barry? It seems like Eddie seeing that Barry basically stole the life he wanted with Iris after he killed himself, bolstered by the Negative Speed Force, will be what turns him into Cobalt Blue and the final boss.