The Flash "The Mask of the Red Death Part 2" Preview Released

By Nicole Drum

The CW has released a preview for "The Mask of the Red Death Part 2," the fifth episode of The Flash's ninth and final season. The episode is scheduled to air on Wednesday, March 8th. This week, the Red Death made her presence truly known to Team Flash, revealing herself to be Ryan Wilder from another timeline as well as revealing that her plan was to use Barry to power her Cosmic Treadmill so she could get back to that timeline — with Iris in tow — to kill her world's Flash. That didn't go so well and next week, she plans to take over this timeline instead.

As you can see in the preview below, the villain is ushering in the Era of the Red Death in Central City, and that's definitely not good news for anyone involved. You can also read on for the episode synopsis.

THE ERA OF THE RED DEATH – As the Red Death wreaks havoc on Central City, Barry (Grant Gustin) and Iris (Candice Patton) come up with a plan and turn to Cecile (Danielle Nicolet) for help. Barry is faced with what he thinks was his greatest mistake, and the Red Death's greatest success. Khione (Danielle Panabaker) wants to help Team Flash, but Barry can't risk losing her. Joe (Jesse L. Martin) gives Barry a very much needed pep talk.  Rachel Talalay directed the episode with story by Jonathan Butler and teleplay by Dan Fisk.

Who is DC's Red Death?

A relatively new addition to DC canon, Red Death made his debut in Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo's Dark Days: The Casting #1 in 2017. A member of the Dark Knights — a group of alternate multiversal versions of Batman led by The Batman Who Laughs — Red Death was revealed to be a dark mashup of Batman and The Flash. In the alternate universe of Earth -52, Bruce Wayne was traumatized by the death of his various Robins, and decided to escalate his crimefighting by harnessing the Speed Force. Bruce then absorbed his version of The Flash's powers by combining his Batmobile and the Cosmic Treadmill and decided to suit up as the Red Death.

Red Death was previously name-dropped in a future-set Season 5 episode of The Flash, which made some wonder if and how the character could factor into the Arrowverse. A line in 2021's "Armageddon" crossover, in which Ryan Wilder referenced fighting "the lady in red," further stoked those theories.

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"There's small Easter eggs, there's big Easter eggs. When we were in season three, Savitar was talking about DeVoe being one of his biggest foes," former The Flash showrunner Todd Helbing previously told ComicBook.com. "We like to leave it up to the fans to try to figure out which it's going to be. Who's maybe a big bad the next season, who's just a name drop. Godspeed sort of fell into the best of both worlds. We can have an episode with him, introduce him and then bring him back at some point in the future because he's a major comics villain so we would never want to do a guy like that in just one episode."

The Flash airs Wednesdays at 8/7c on The CW. "The Mask of the Red Death, Part 2" airs March 8th.

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