“Crisis on Infinite Earths” is coming to the Arrowverse. It’s something that The CW confirmed for fans at the end of the “Elseworlds” crossover event, but even though Crisis was confirmed, fans have been left wondering exactly how the end of the Multiverse as we know it will come about. However, tonight’s episode of The Flash may hold a few clues.
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Spoilers for tonight’s episode of The Flash, “Memorabilia”, below.
Tonight’s episode of The Flash was very Nora-centric. The episode opened with Nora sending a message to Eobard Thawne in the future wherein she revealed that the lies she’s had to tell in order to keep her mission a secret has been weighing on her. She’s so concerned about her family finding out about her partnership with Thawne that when the team decides to attempt to wake up Cicada’s niece, Gracie, by entering her mind, Nora takes a huge risk and goes alone simply so her father can’t see into her own memories. Ultimately, none of the heroes are harmed and while Gracie isn’t awakened, Nora comes to understand that lying is just something she has to do in order to save her family. She has to continue her mission to stop Cicada.
Stopping Cicada is shown to have a specific importance for Nora in the episode, however. As Barry and Iris see in Nora’s memories, The Flash’s failure to stop Cicada before he vanished in the mysterious Crisis has had a lasting impact on the hero’s legacy. The show doesn’t quite come out and say it, but it seems pretty clear that Nora wants to stop Cicada once and for all, thus saving her father’s legacy.
So, how does this tie into Crisis? While we now have a clearer view of Nora’s mission, we also can theorize that Thawne has his own ulterior motives for working with Nora. You see, Thawne wants to destroy Barry himself. Barry disappearing in the Crisis isn’t a win for him. It is highly possible that Thawne, being from even further in the future than Nora and having a more complex relationship with the concept of time generally, Thawne knows that there is a very specific window of time in which changes can be made in 2018/2019 that would prevent the Crisis or, at a minimum, alter its outcome. It’s also possible that the fix involves defeating Cicada so while Nora is simply trying to protect her dad, Thawne is outright trying to change the timeline in a much bigger way.
Of course, messing with the timeline doesn’t exactly go as planned. Nora’s pursuit of Cicada has already started having an impact on the timeline and we saw a major example of that tonight. One of the subplots in “Memorabilia” involves Iris wanting to start her own newspaper. However, she’s concerned about doing things that will keep them on track for Barry to disappear in 2024 — including creating The Central City Citizen. She even tries to get a different name for the publication only to discover that Citizen is the only one she can take. However, after seeing into Nora’s memories, Iris decides to move forward. Nora pulls up the paper, hologram-style, from the future and reveals that the founding date has shifted, from 2021 to 2019.
That means that Crisis is, in theory, now two years closer than it was at the start of the season. It also means that if they are ultimately able to defeat Cicada, it could shift the timeline even further, bringing Crisis to the Arrowverse in just a few months rather than a few years. The heroes will believe they’ve won only to discover the real fight is only beginning.
What do you think about the possibility that Nora is bringing about the Crisis? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
The Flash airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET on The CW.
