The Flash: After Tonight, Everything Changes

Courtesy of The CW

Warning: Spoiler Alert

Mark Mardon, that last name should sound familiar because Clive Mardon was the first meta-human we were introduced to, walks into the morgue demanding to know the identity of who killed Clive Mardon almost six months ago. The answer of course is Joe West.

After the call came in about the morgue killing (you didn’t think they’d leave the coroner alive did you?) Barry takes off to the scene of the crime. In full gear Barry races towards the morgue but is distracted. As he’s running, he sees over his shoulder matching his speed an image that looks just like him. Not the Reverse Flash or a different speedster, but just like Barry. Dark red suit and all.

I’m required to mention the cold shoulder that Eddie is giving Iris after the previous night’s double date. Always feeling like the third wheel whenever Barry is around. Moving on.

While Joe and Barry enjoy lunch in the car, Barry asks for advice he shouldn’t be asking Joe for. As Joe put it, “You’re asking your adopted father about being in love with his daughter who is dating his partner.” Then it started to rain. Hard. Mardon is right behind them. He sends lightning into Joe’s car but Barry was able to get Joe out in time. Upon returning to the precinct, Joe gets put on desk duty until Mardon is detained.

Mason, Iris’ professional mentor has a file on Harrison Wells and flat-out asks her to do her own digging, starting with her friends. True to form, the naiveté of Barry leads him to tell Iris that Harrison Wells is a good man and there is no story there.

Mardon walks right into the precinct and announces himself. In the early moments, Mark Mardon is rather civil. After Mark suggests that many people will be hurt in the process of hurting Joe, Joe lunges for the ‘wizard wand’ Cisco made to protect Joe from Mark’s powers. Joe doesn’t get there in time. Captain Singh dives shoving Joe to the side and taking a lightening bolt to the torso in the process. Barry arrives in time to grab the wand and neutralize Mardon’s powers. Mardon escapes. Barry grabs Captain Singh and runs out of there too.

At Star Labs Cisco looks detached. Caitlin walks up and he is still in a daze. Then he asks her, “what do you think of Wells”? This is the third reference to the idea that Harrison Wells is not exactly who they think he is. Cisco is picking up on some of the breadcrumbs. Then he asks Caitlin to do something that may be tricky.

Cisco: Can you keep Wells out of Star Labs tomorrow morning?

At the hospital, the news is not good. Early indications are that Captain Singh may never walk again and he may not even return to being the man they once knew. With Singh’s fiance in the room Joe begins to storm out. Barry tries to stop him but he’s determined. Mardon used the word ‘avenge’ in combination with the inability to protect one’s family. In Joe’s mind, that puts Iris and Barry at risk. Joe then demands that Barry watch over Iris, never to leave her side.

Cisco is at Star Labs attempting to do something with the trap that the Reverse Flash escaped from in order to determine how he was able to escape. The readings confuse Cisco. He walks towards one side of the apparatus when the Reverse Flash appears in the trap. Across town, Caitlin sits down for coffee and eggs with Wells. Caitlin is not good at lying and Harrison can read that. He gives her some theory about how they might be able to find Mardon, but they’ll need Cisco. She goes to get the coffee to go. When she turns around Harrison’s wheel chair is empty and his glasses are on the table.

Eddie anticipating Joe’s next move meets him at the former Mardon spot, an old run down apartment building. Inside they find a newspaper left intentionally. Then we notice a window open. Before they can figure out what the next move is, Joe gets sucked out of the apartment in a hurry. Like the wind grabbed him. Joe wakes up on a fishing boat, handcuffed, bloody and sporting a broken leg. Mardon calls Iris and gives her the typical, “If you want to see him alive, come alone” bit. She decides to tell and bring Barry.

While Cisco watches the Reverse Flash in the trap, he hears a familiar voice finish the Reverse Flash’s sentence. Cisco turns slowly. The voice belongs to Harrison Wells. Who is standing without glasses in the same room with Cisco. Cisco has tears in his eyes when he proclaims that Harrison is the Reverse Flash.

Harrison: You are incredibly clever Cisco. I’ve always said so.
Cisco: You’re him. The Reverse Flash.
Harrison: You and I have never been truly properly introduced. I am Ubart Thawne.
Cisco: Thawne? Like Eddie.
Harrison: Let’s call him a distant relative.

Cisco asks about that night. There were two. Harrison takes a moment, and separates into two different but identical people. Or so that’s how it appears. He calls it a sort of speedster mirage. Harrison Wells was not in Barry’s home 15 years ago to kill Nora Allen. He was there to kill Barry. There is a connection to Barry’s increasing speed that somehow is the answer to returning Harrison Wells/Ubart Thawne/Professor Zoom back to his world. And nothing will stop that from happening, as he slowly looks towards Cisco.

Cisco is now as close to full on crying as one can get before actually doing it. He even offers to help Wells in this endeavor. Wells tells him that he has been like a son to Wells. Then stabs Cisco through the chest with his hand. Then Wells utters, “but to me, you’ve been dead for centuries”.
Barry and Iris arrive at the waterfront. The storm is over the water. Barry sincerely tries to get her to get as far away as possible. She interrupts him and starts in on how she can’t stop thinking about him since his confession of love for her. Really? Is now the best time for this? And then there’s a kiss. About time, he’s only grabbed the back of her neck romantically three times in this episode.

Mardon doesn’t want to hurt Iris or Barry. He wants to hurt Iris and Barry and everyone else within a certain radius. He is creating a tsunami. He calls Caitlin for tactical advise. She tries to tell him about Wells, but Barry cuts her off. He will have to run back and forth fast enough to create a wall of wind to subdue the tsunami. He hangs up the phone and looks at Iris with apologetic eyes.

Barry: I am so sorry. I did not want you to find out this way.
(He becomes a blur, then stands still before her in his Flash suit)
Barry: Now RUN!

Barry begins running as fast as he can creating a wall of wind in front of the coast protecting the city and its inhabitants. He runs so fast that he sees what is now believed to have been a speedster mirage of himself from the beginning of the episode. Barry stops running to find himself in the exact same place and time as the beginning of the episode. Barry effectively ran so fast he did time travel. A few days as opposed to fifteen years, but time travel nonetheless.