After defeating Thawne and Godspeed, Barry is enjoying his newfound strength and power, while Iris has heavily expanded the Central City Citizen into a major news corporation. With everything coming up roses, Barry and Iris are about to enjoy some alone time when Ray Palmer drops by unexpectedly. As Barry and Ray discuss their futures, a new bad guy named Despero arrives, claiming that Barry will ruin the Earth in 10 years time. Ray attempts to assist Barry, but ultimately Flash himself has to find a way to beat Despero other than his simple speed.
Tropes:
- Actor Allusion: When Ray runs off to change into his Atom suit, he rips his shirt open.
- Adaptational Nice Guy: This incarnation of Despero is solely attacking Flash because he believes Flash is going to destroy a lot of lives in the future. And he's willing to give civilians and even The Atom a chance to leave before he attacks, making him more of a Noble Demon than usual. Most past versions of Despero aren't known for caring about innocent lives or the casualties they might cause.
- Arc Words: The term "Leveling up" is used a great deal throughout the episode.
- Author Appeal: Flash EP Eric Wallace has admitted
Despero is his all-time favorite Justice League villain. - Batman Can Breathe in Space: Despero mentions being born among the stars, thus Barry trying to create a vortex to trap him in a vacuum has no effect on him.
- Broken Pedestal: When Ray tells Chester he doesn't plan on starting another tech company, the latter is crushed and avoids interacting with Ray at all for most of the episode. He comes around again at the end of the episode.
- The Bus Came Back:
- The Royal Flush Gang returns for the first time since Season 1, with new members this time.
- Ray Palmer comes back to the general Arrowverse since his departure from Legends of Tomorrow.
- But for Me, It Was Tuesday: Only in Central City can a news staff decide a gang of metahumans staging a robbery is considered not worthy of serious reporting.
- Car Fu: Despero throws a car at Flash and Atom, which the heroes dodge by Ray shrinking them down.
- The Chains of Commanding: Vanya, Aariz, and Taylor at first don't take the newly promoted Allegra seriously at all. It's only after she makes it clear that the Citizen is supposed to be a voice to all the people that they begrudgingly follow her instructions.
- Continuity Nod:
- Barry mentions Deon still helping Iris with her temporal sickness.
- Barry flashes back to the Royal Flush Gang's first appearance when examining their second crime.
- After Ray shrinks down Barry to dodge Despero's attack, Barry remarks that he finally knows how Diggle feels.
- When the group discusses how to deal with Despero, they decide to call in Alex for advice.
- Ray mentions that, even though he's not a Legend anymore, he gets together with Nate at least once a month just to hang out. However, Ray recently seems to have lost contact with him. What Ray doesn't know is that his ex-teammates are stranded in the 20s after the events of the Legends Season 6 finale.
- Cosmic Retcon: Caitlin mentions that, for the first time since Ronnie's death, she feels ready to date again. Apparently, the Crisis erased her brief flings with Zoom as "Jay" in Season 2 and Julian Albert in Season 3. However, considering that her relationship with "Jay" was based entirely on lies (and that he tried to kill her friends), she probably doesn't want to count him anyway.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Despite being outnumbered, the Flash makes short work of the Royal Flush Gang, and even looks like he was having fun doing it. Even with the presence of a telepath, Flash countered her power with his speed-thinking.
- Dedication: When Ray decides to open his new non-profit organization, he names it in honor of Chester's father.
- "Eureka!" Moment: The team has one when Chester mentions Tech Con paying in cryptocurrency this year. They then deduce that the Royal Flush Gang has not changed their MO - all of their previous targets connect to them planning a crypto heist.
- Forced Friendly Fire: When the Royal Flush Gang all try to rush at Barry, he just goes into Flashtime and redirects their attacks to hit one another.
- Future Me Scares Me: Apparently, Barry breaks bad in 10 years from the current point in time, devastating the world, which Despero tries to stop.
- Halfway Plot Switch: The majority of the episode involves Team Flash dealing with the Royal Flush Gang, which Barry manages to apprehend at the halfway point of the episode. Afterwards, it focuses on the encounter with Despero and his claims that Barry will destroy the world.
- Hero of Another Story: Ray mentions Nora still making children happy throughout the world.
- Hero-Worshipper: Chester towards Ray, leading to the Broken Pedestal above (and Rebuilt Pedestal below).
- Kill Me Now, or Forever Stay Your Hand: How Barry manages to convince Despero to reconsider. When he reappears, he just stands there, allowing his enemy to read his mind. Despero then gives him 7 days to prove him wrong.
- Lampshade Hanging: It is noted how enhanced criminals breaking into a company to steal a cutting-edge piece of technology is extremely common-place in Central City.
- Lie to the Beholder: With the tech in his belt, Despero can transform into a more human form.
- Master of Illusion: Despero can make himself appear in different places, confusing both Flash and Atom during their battle.
- Mistaken for Racist: Kramer initially mistakes Barry's uneasiness about her abilities as him having a problem with her being a meta, when he is really worried about his identity being discovered.
- Moment Killer: Ray crashes in Barry's and Iris's place just as they are about to make out, and they seem mildly annoyed with him at first (which he doesn't notice).
- Noble Demon: Combined with Well-Intentioned Extremist, Despero seems sincere in doing what he does to save the future, and he strictly goes after Barry, telling civilians and even Ray to just run away, as his quarrel is not with them. He later even gives Barry a chance to prove him wrong after reading his mind.
- No Honor Among Thieves: The Royal Flush Gang try to pull a You Have Outlived Your Usefulness on Jared Haywood after the latter successfully finishes the crypto heist. Thankfully, Barry intervenes.
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Mass breakout at Iron Heights? All that was seen is a distant view of the prison as the Flash apprehends all the inmates in seconds.
- Oh, Crap!: A guard's reaction when dealing with the Royal Flush Gang.
- One-Steve Limit: Averted. The episode mentions Barry and Iris's future daughter Nora and Ray's wife Nora.
- Out of Focus: Kramer gets only a handful of scenes near the beginning, just enough to tell us she's disbanding her meta-hunting unit.
- Pungeon Master: The Royal Flush Gang are fond of card game-related puns.
- Put on a Bus: Bart and Nora went back to their own time.
- Rebuilt Pedestal: After Ray puts on the Atom suit again and later dedicates a non-profit organization to Chester's dad, the latter's admiration for the former is reignited.
- The Reveal: Ten years from now, Flash will go insane and start destroying everything, causing panic and destruction everywhere.
- Riddle for the Ages: Ray sabotages Despero's belt, temporarily sending him off...that not even Ray himself is sure where or when.
- Runaway Train: The Royal Flush gang causes the train where they are stealing their beryllium core from to go out of control, causing Flash to evacuate it before it crashes with another train.
- Set Right What Once Went Wrong: Despero comes back to the past in order to kill Flash before he goes evil.
- Timey-Wimey Ball: Despero is convinced that Flash is going to destroy the world ten years from now...except that just last season Flash interacted with his 20+-year-old children, who didn't mention anything about their dad going berserk and trashing everything.
- Title Drop: Despero tells Barry about how he is going to usher in "Armageddon".
- Underestimating Badassery: The Royal Flush Gang figure that both numbers and having a telepath on their side means they can make short work of the Flash. They realize too late the Flash thinks as fast as he can run.
- Transformation Trinket: Despero shifts between human and alien forms with a belt like device.
- The Worf Effect: Barry completely demolishes the Royal Flush Gang, easily countering Queen's telepathy by thinking at super speed. Enter Despero, who easily reads his mind and makes short work of him. He gets described as "thinks like Grodd, punches like Fuerza".
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are:
- Iris gives Allegra a motivating speech when the latter is struggling with her new position.
- Barry is convinced by Despero that he is going to destroy the world ten years from now. Team Flash talk him out of it, and Ray adds that the best way to convince Despero:
"Just show him who you really are, like you do with this team each and every day." - You Are in Command Now: Iris promotes Allegra into the position of Supervising Editor, much to her initial dismay, as the more experienced co-workers don't take her seriously at first.
