Warning: This article contains major spoilers for The CW‘s The Flash Season 9 episode, “A New World, Part Three.” Read beyond this point at your own risk.
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The episode opens with a montage of events leading up to Eddie Thawne in his own grave — at the end of last week’s episode. He says he needs to find out what’s happening. He says he needs to find The Flash. When the police Korber questions things, she’s sucked into a mysterious blue vortex that opens up in the sky. At STAR, the team tries to process what they know, that the Negative Speed Force is attacking them across space and time. Barry is still missing. Speed Force Nora shows up and tells them that the NSF has cloaked Barry in its own dark energy and he’s bouncing across time and is heading toward 2049 as is the crystal. That crystal will choose another victim and attack Barry. SF Nora can no longer help him but warns that if Barry dies, their timeline will be erased forever.
In 2049 at STAR, the team celebrates a victory with Nora as team leader. Barry is in space at the Watchtower. Chester and Allegra are married in the future. There’s an energy surge at the museum up top meanwhile Eddie is in the museum. Eddie tells a guard he’s looking for The Flash and is directed to his costume. He also sees a video of Barry’s greatest enemy, Reverse-Flash, and Eddie doesn’t believe it because he saw the Reverse-Flash die. Meanwhile, he’s approached by a blonde version of Nora saying she’s his daughter. Eddie says he doesn’t have one and the Blonde Nora says he can have one, but he just has to come with her. However, the real Nora super speeds in and rescues him from the vortex. She recognizes him.
Team Flash figure out that Eddie is Eddie, but he is giving off a lot of Hawking radiation and they think his emotions are triggering the opening of the vortexes. Nora goes to talk to him. He realizes she’s Barry’s daughter and she tells him about when she met him back in 2013 during some time travel shenanigans earlier in the season. She tells him that the vortex is a singularity that almost destroyed Central City the day he died. Eddie starts to realize that his sacrifice back in Season 1 was futile. Nora says he has a second chance he just has to decide how to use it.
Back in the present, the team continues to try to figure out how to help Barry. Mark says that the crystal really hates Barry and his love wasn’t enough to fight it. Cecile suggests that her empathy could have helped and Chester thinks that could be key. He thinks she should try to project her consciousness into her future sense. IN 2049, Nora sends Barry a message to the Watchtower, but before she can leave the vault, the crystal finds her.
Nora goes and talks to Eddie and starts to help him. Back in 2023, Cecile projects herself into her future self with the warning that anyone could be influenced by the crystal. It works. Past Cecile ends up in her future self. However, there’s a bunch of stuff that Past Cecile doesn’t know about her future self, which includes that she only sees her family very sporadically. Realizing that, she passes out and ends up back in her past self. She declares that she can’t do it. Cecile storms off and Khione tells him that he’s the one should go talk to Cecile.
At Mercury Labs in 2049, he and Nora investigate, but Nora is possessed by the crystal and she starts asking him questions and suggests he’s there for a purpose. She suggests it has something to do with the Thawnes, prompting Eddie to have a flashback to Eobard telling him that he was the only Thawne forgotten by history. Nora suggests to Eddie that he could get his life back. Eddie starts to question Nora when he realizes she’s talking about hurting Barry so she starts to goad him. She offers him the crystal, which calls to him, but he resists and runs out for air. However, while he’s getting air, Barry appears. He hugs her, unaware she’s possessed and she zaps him with the crystal.
Barry tries to tell Nora that this isn’t her it’s the NSF, but it tells him that he either needs to kill his daughter or she’ll kill him. Eddie shows up at that time and it’s enough of a distraction and Barry is able to speed himself and Eddie away to the West house, which is Eddie’s house in the future. Eddie has a breakdown, crying that everything is wrong. Barry says that maybe the two of them can stop the crystal and the Negative Speed Force together. Eddie starts telling him that he had the life and memories of Malcolm Gilmore and when Barry picks up something in the house, it morphs into something of Joe’s. Barry realizes it is a false reality made of negative tachyons. Barry realize this is the work of the Negative Speed Force and that it brought Eddie back to life to be its avatar.
Barry tries to explain the situation, but Eddie isn’t sure because what he’s seen of the Negative Speed Force so far has only been good. Eddie hears the crystal calling to him and telling him that Barry is lying to him. Eddie tells him that he can hear the crystal and that he’s starting to not be able to tell the difference between it and his own voice. Eddie thinks that if he chooses the crystal, he could be the hero and he could get everything he lost. Barry tries to tell him that Iris and Nora aren’t his family, but Eddie can’t hear it. Barry asks Eddie what Iris would want him to do before Possessed Nora demands that he bring Eddie to her. Barry leaves Eddie behind and tells him that he believes that he will make the right choice.
In 2023, Chester goes to talk to Cecile. She tells him she feels like a failure for what she learns about herself in the future. She tells him that she feels like the choice she’s made means she will lose her family. Chester gives her a pep talk and tells her that if she’s making it work now, she should trust that she can do it in the future too. He tells her that her greatest strength is her heart and her dedication to the people that she loves.
The Flash confronts the Possessed Nora while in the present, Cecile decides to go back into her future self. Barry and Nora face off and race through Central City fighting one another, culminating on a rooftop. Barry tries to appeal to Nora on the inside beyond the possession but fails. She hurls him from the building and injures him. Elsewhere in the city, Iris sits on her couch and is visited by Eddie. He tells her that he has a decision to make and he needed to see her to make it. He sees a photo of Iris with her family with Barry but it morphs into a photo of a family with him and Iris and he decides that maybe he should stay.
Nora prepare to kill Barry but Cecile stops her. Cecile uses her powers to throw the crystal out of Nora and saves her. Cecile then approaches Barry and reveals her hero name: Virtue.
Back with Iris, Eddie tries to win her over and she tells her that she loves Barry and her family and her life. She rejects Eddie. It upsets him and he tells her that she will regret that and leaves after threatening everything she loves. As Barry and Nora make up, a storm forms over the city with red lightning.
At STAR, Barry and Cecile catches the team up on things. The attacks are happening simultaneously, which is why the team doesn’t know. All that is left of the Speed Force lives in Barry’s family now. Speed Force Nora is gone. Chester discovers that the timeline is fracturing and they are running out of time, literally. Cecile says she will warn the 2023 team. Iris arrives to talk to Barry. Barry is dragged away by the blue energy again.
Elsewhere, Eddie sits in his lab forlorn. He starts destroying things and questioning why he was brought back and what he did to deserve this. The voice calls to him and the crystal shows up in its case. The crystal shows him everything he can’t have and tells him that it’s waiting for him he just has to accept the power. Inside the crystal are all of the speedster villains. He reaches out his hand, opens a vortex.
