The Flash: What Tonight's Cliffhanger Could Mean

Spoilers ahead for tonight's episode of The Flash.In the comics, lightning really does strike [...]

By Russ Burlingame

wallywest

Spoilers ahead for tonight's episode of The Flash.

In the comics, lightning really does strike twice for The Flash.

Barry Allen, after having been struck by lightning and sprayed by chemicals, became the Fastest Man Alive. Years later, he was showing his nephew Wally around the lab when, standing in the same spot and being showered with the same chemicals, Wally was struck by lightning and transformed into Kid Flash.

After Barry's death during the Crisis on Infinite Earths, Wally would go on to become The Flash for years, one of only a handful of Golden and Silver Age sidekicks to actually elevate into the role vacated by their mentor.

On tonight's episode of The Flash, a now-powerless Barry knows that he needs to re-establish his connection to the Speed Force in order to defeat Zoom and save Caitlin Snow, whom the villain has taken hostage.

Harrison Wells of Earth-2, who emigrated to Earth-1 when Zoom had his own daughter hostage at the start of the season, has an idea of how to do it: he wants to recreate the particle accelerator explosion that turned Barry into The Flash.

In other words, Wells wants to recreate the exact conditions that transformed Barry into The Flash...and hope that lightning strikes twice.

Given that there are two new players on and around Team Flash -- Wells's daughter Jesse and Barry's half-step-brother Wally -- who are destined to be speedsters if their comic book destinies have anything to say about it, it seems pretty likely that next week's experiment may not go exactly as planned...and we might see Wally West (or Jesse Quick) get a little faster as a result.

Maybe even both. I mean, if the Wells family returns to Earth-2 after they've defeated Zoom, that world's Central City will need a new speedster, given what we know about Jay Garrick, right?

The Flash airs on Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on The CW.

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