Tonight is the mid-season finale of The Flash, and we can’t wait to see what happens.
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Now in its third season, The Flash had been lagging a bit, but has been energized by two back-to-back episodes that have got the fans excited and curious for what’s coming up next, and as we go into tonight’s mid-season finale, it’s hard not to think about what changes might be coming in an episode that showrunners have said will provide a tracjetory-changing reveal.
Up to now the main source of this season’s villains has been Dr. Alchemy empowering individuals whose personal histories were altered by Flashpoint, but according to executive producer Andrew Kreisberg, that’s going to get back-burnered as Savitar’s real plan comes into focus.
“There’s a villain coming up who’s another one of the husk villains that was created by Alchemy, so there’s that to deal with, but the midseason finale kind of creates a new problem for our heroes that they weren’t anticipating — something that they’ve never faced before,” Kreisberg said. “And it’s so big we’re actually considering changing the saga sell from talking about Flashpoint to talking about that, because that’s what’s driving a lot of the episodes, actually. Flashpoint won’t loom as large as the threat that presents itself in 309.”
Whatever that is, it’s likely to need an army to deal with it; Jay Garrick will appear in this week’s episode, with 1990s’ The Flash star John Wesley Shipp suiting up and playing action scenes for the first time alongside Grant Gustin’s Barry Allen. Set photos have also revealed what appears to be the Flash of Earth-19.
That’s the kind of excitement we can get behind, but in terms of specifics? What do we hope to see tonight?
Well, read on — and if we missed anything, comment below.
SAVITAR
Now that we’ve seen Savitar and we have some sense of the scope of his powers…how about a little something else?
It might be nice to have some idea of what his motivation is before we go into a month or so without a new episode, and certainly some idea of why he’s so much faster/more powerful than Barry seems to be in order. We never really got that with Zoom, even; he just seemed implicitly faster, with Barry only able to overcome that with a little help from the Speed Force.
In the comics, of course, Savitar’s motivation and powers are very much tied to the Speed Force, so including him this season feels very much like a natural evolution of that idea. But getting that message across to people unfamiliar with that one, random story Savitar appeared in twenty years ago is probably a good place to start.
WALLY IN COSTUME
It’s time.
The show has been building toward introducing Wally as Kid Flash since the first episode of the season (arguably longer), and so it’s time to rip the Band-Aid off and just get him there. At this point, especially after his appearance in “Invasion!,” nobody is fooled anymore by a will-they-or-won’t-they thing with Wally.
The Savitar story in the comics (there really is only one, to speak of) came to a head when an army of speedsters led by Wally West took him out. Obviously the role of “lead speedster” will be played by Barry Allen on TV, but if there’s going to be a bunch of costumed speedsters fighting Savitar on The Flash, for God’s sake, Wally West should be one of them.
MEGAN LOCKHART
Hey, who doesn’t love Megan Lockhart?
There have already been a great many guest appearances by characters and actors from 1990’s The Flash, but one who’s been absent up to this point is Joyce Hyser’s character, Barry’s onetime girlfriend, who was instrumental in bringing the Trickster into custody, and then played a role in “The Trial of The Trickster,” an episode which John Wesley Shipp has already said will be referenced in one way or another this week.
So why not a cameo? She’s arguably one of the last major characters from the original series who hasn’t either popped up or, in the case of Barry’s family members, who don’t exist anymore.
IRIS
Iris West was given a great direction at the start of the season, and the idea of her being Barry’s lightning rod — the thing that won’t change no matter what happens to the universe — is a great one that’s really appealing.
Unfortunately, she’s been subsumed by the drama of the season, and hasn’t had a ton to do for the most part. It’s understandable, becuase she’s one of the ones least affected by the post-Flashpoint status quo…but now that Flashpoint seems to be getting back-burnered a bit in favor of a new and different threat, maybe it’s time to pay off all the potential they’ve been setting up for one of the series’ most beloved characters.
JAY AS A MENTOR
We happen to know that this one is coming tonight, but it’s the #1 thing we would have wanted to see anyway if we didn’t.
Jay Garrick’s relationship with Barry Allen in the time since he was reintroduced in The Flash #123 in the Silver Age has been one of the richest relationships between a hero and his successor in all of comics — and John Wesley Shipp was Barry Allen 25 years ago, meaning that he’s got a deep understanding of and empathy for the idea of passing along the Flash legacy.
So far, we’ve seen very little of the Jay/Barry dynamic: all we really know is that he’s not a huge fan of what Barry did with Flashpoint, but as we saw on last week’s episode, neither is literally anyone else.
Time to see the two run together!
