Earlier this season on The Flash, Mark Blaine/Chillblaine (Jon Cor) turned on Team Flash to team up with the Red Death after she promised him that she would help him get Frost back. That betrayal led Mark to help Red Death acquire the last critical piece for her Cosmic Treadmill and this week’s “The Mask of the Red Death, Part 1” saw Mark actually building the device for her, even though he’d started to be skeptical of the villain and her plans. But being a tech for the Big Bad wasn’t the only thing in store for Mark this week and where things left will have major implications for everyone going forward.
Warning: This article contains major spoilers for The CW‘s The Flash Season 9 episode, “The Mask of the Red Death, Part 1.” Read beyond this point at your own risk.
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After Mark gets the Cosmic Treadmill close to completion, Red Death captures The Flash so that she can use him as a power source, wanting to use Barry to literally run until he dies to get her back to her own timeline where she plans to take Iris so that she can lure out the Flash there and kill him. However, while Red Death was out getting Iris, Mark and Barry ended up having a talk in which Barry told Mark that he was still Team Flash and that it was never too late for a second chance. Those words stick in Mark’s mind and, instead of powering the treadmill as planned, he overloads it and destroys it, temporarily knocking Red Death out so Barry can go free.
Unfortunately, what running Barry did on the treadmill has drained his speed so he can’t run. Mark goes to fight with the other Rogues to buy time, which ends up allowing Team Flash and the Rogue Squad to show up for a rescue. But there isn’t time to save Mark who, as the heroes teleport away, looks like he is being killed by the bad guys, having sacrificed himself.
It looks, at least where things left, that Mark was killed, but since we didn’t actually see him die, this may not be the end of the line for Chillblaine — and in a recent interview with ComicBook.com Cor did tease that fans would have to stick around.
“And man, bless the writers, I’m so grateful that everybody behind the show has given me so much to do this season. This is, we’re just a few episodes in, and like I said, I haven’t seen them yet, but hoping that the audience responds the way you’ve described. This character is very much someone that we designed to love to hate and hate to love. But I think this season, we see that struggle come full circle. And he has to reckon with himself once and for all. And we find out who he really is and what he is really made out of. You’ll have to stick around I suppose is the short answer,” he said.
The Flash airs Wednesdays at 8/7c on The CW.
