The Flash Recap With Spoilers: Here’s Everything You Missed in “Armageddon, Part 3”

The Flash‘s five-episode “Armageddon” event continues this week and after last week’s “Armageddon, Part 2”, Barry Allen/The Flash (Grant Gustin) is in a bad place. Last week’s episode saw Central City’s hero have arguably the worst day of his life between losing his job, losing his lab, discovering that his surrogate father Joe West (Jesse L. Martin) is dead, and potentially even losing his mind. The final moments of last week’s episode saw Barry run off to the Hall of Justice where he met with Black Lightning/Jefferson Pierce (Cress Williams) and when asked what was going on had only one word for the other hero: Injustice.

This week, we’ll see Barry continue to turn to Black Lightning for help while things take a dire turn with Despero (Tony Curran), the mysterious alien who arrived with bleak news of the end of the world that Barry allegedly causes in the future. However, this week’s episode will also see Iris (Candice Patton) begin to question Despero’s vision of the future, leading her to seek help from an ally of her own.

Need to find out what’s next for Barry and which ally Iris calls in? We’ve got you covered in our recap of “Armageddon, Part 3” but be warned: there are spoilers beyond this point. 

Joe’s death

Black Lightning questions Barry about what’s happened to prompt him to invoke Injustice and Barry gives him a very brief rundown about the chaos in the last 24 hours. Barry can’t calm down and is insistent that they need to activate the Injustice protocol and Black Lightning needs to take away his powers. Black Lightning wants to call in the others, but Barry says no. Barry just isn’t listening to reason and explains that he forgot that Joe died as proof things are incredibly bad. Black Lightning reminds Barry that if he takes away his powers, they’re gone permanently.

At STAR Labs, Despero is in the cortex trying to find Barry while, at Chester’s house, the team is trying to sort out what’s going on with Barry. The team is making Barry and his mental health the priority and Iris suggests that something is off about Despero. She thinks that maybe someone is framing Barry and comes armed with a video that might suggest Joe isn’t dead. Iris’ skepticism about Joe’s death isn’t received well by Cecile who says the team will save Barry without her if she chooses to pursue her hunch. Iris leaves and Allegra goes after her.

Top

Cecile, Chester, and Caitlin work on trying to find Barry with Cecile wanting to use her powers to look for Barry that way. She tasks Chester with building a psychic booster so she can do that. Meanwhile, Iris and Allegra go to the train station to look for clues about Joe. They find something a little strange in the location where Joe allegedly died – or more specifically Iris does. Allegra doesn’t but does figure out where the security cameras go. They question the security guard, but he says that the data was probably lost due to a sporting event going on and they have the straight footage there. It does appear to show Joe’s death.

At a bar, Cecile meets with Top and asks her for help, but Top isn’t necessarily inclined to. Cecile makes her a deal and Top agrees to assist.

At the Hall of Justice, Barry is struggling with his work on the thing that will take his power from him and Jefferson suggests music. Barry pulls up music that Joe loved and it prompts Jefferson to open up about Henderson’s death. Barry finishes the device Jefferson needs to take his powers and they prepare to do so. The process begins.  

The Timeline

At The Citizen, Allegra has a breakthrough in Joe’s death. She’s found many strange coincidences leading to the accident. Someone was pulling the strings, but Iris no longer wants to hear it. Allegra gives her a pep talk and as she does, Iris sees something strange happen to the report that Allegra has. It prompts her to hurry back to the station.

Meanwhile, the B Team now has an amplifier as well as Top to help with the brainpower aspect of things. It works, but it works a little too well. Cecile starts to get overwhelmed but it’s Top wants to continue. Top gives her some tough love and tells her to get over her own emotions so that she can power through. Cecile does and it works. Cecile finds Barry but the signal shorts out. Cecile overloaded it. Meanwhile, Despero is watching.

Iris meets with Deon at the station. She tells him about the particles that she saw and that she thinks someone is messing with reality. Iris wants Deon to undo her treatments for her time sickness. He’s reluctant to do it at first but then agrees. Sure enough, Iris starts to see particles. They’re decaying isotopes. Someone tapped into the negative Still Force to rewrite the timeline meaning Joe never should have died.

Finding Barry

Caitlin talks with Cecile about how Top tried to get her to repress her feelings and tells her about her own experiences with grief about Ronnie’s death. Caitlin is worried about Cecile heading down a dark path. As they’re talking, Chester gets a notification that someone turned on the particle accelerator at STAR Labs. It’s Despero.

Cecile and Top get hooked back up to Chester’s device to search for Barry and they find him pretty quickly. Cecile quickly realizes that Despero is there and Top tries to cut a deal with Despero and he gets into Top’s head to get The Flash’s location, nearly killing her. He doesn’t get all the information he needs and goes after Cecile next. However, Cecile fights back and fights him off. Chester locates Barry, but they realize Despero now has as well. 

A fight between friends

At the Hall, Barry still has connections to his power and he’s eager to finish things. He tells Black Lightning what Despero told him and now that Black Lightning knows, he wants no part of taking Barry’s power. Barry snaps and hurls lightning at Black Lightning.

Escape

Black Lightning still doesn’t bend to Barry’s demand, convinced that he’s saving the world by saving one of its protectors. The pair spar a bit and then Black Lightning extends his hand, but Barry doesn’t take it in good faith. The fight continues until they are both lying on the ground with Oliver’s bow and arrow knocked on the ground as well. Jefferson invokes Oliver’s sacrifice to get through to Barry. However, Despero arrives just then and prepares to kill him, but Deon and Iris show up as well. Despero doesn’t believe her, but Black Lightning attacks Despero to buy The Flash some time. Deon gives Barry some Still Force energy so he can head off to figure who is framing him.

The truth

Central City 2031. Barry arrives in the future to find out what is going on and finds a private event, the “West Party”. What he walks into is an engagement party for Iris and Eobard Thawne and everyone there, when spotting Barry, are unhappy to see him.