As Barry wrestles with the idea that he's completely losing his mind, Iris and Allegra investigate the death of Joe West, while the rest of Team Flash try to get to Barry before Despero does.
Tropes:
- Arbitrary Skepticism: Cecile, owing to her grief, refuses the possibility that Joe's death could have been set up or that Barry has been framed by an outside party, despite years of dealing with metahumans.Cecile: No...no...it's impossible...Iris: Is it?
- Bad Future: Ooh boy. Thawne is seen making a speech about the future, side-by-side with Iris, who seems to be in a relationship with him. Ryan Wilder, Ryan Choi, Chester, Cecile, Alex and Allegra look on, with all of them turning hostile at the sight of a shocked Barry.
- Beware the Superman: The Injustice Protocol was created because, as Barry described it "If one of us goes rogue, the rest of the world doesn't stand a chance.".
- Bloodless Carnage: Joe being hit by the train (if, in fact, he was) leaves no blood or even torn clothing behind.
- The Bus Came Back: Deon, Top and Thawne all return.
- Canon Foreigner: While conceivably an idea, there was no "Negative Still Force" in the comics at the time of this episode's release.
- Catch and Return: Barry, in a burst of anger, hurls a lightning blast at Jefferson — who uses his own powers to intercept it and throw it back at him, knocking Barry to the ground.Jefferson: It's your lightning. You keep it.
- Continuity Nod:
- Crisis on Infinite Earths (2019) is referenced multiple times in the episode, mostly between Jefferson and Barry.
- Alvin Pierce's motto gets recited.
- Jefferson reminisces about Henderson saving his life back in his own show.
- Jefferson compares Barry's technical talent to Gambi's.
- Jefferson does a Catch and Return on a lightning bolt Barry threw at him, just like how Zoom did a few seasons ago.
- Thawne's speech at the end includes the phrases "like a shock" and "part of something greater", hearkening back to the speech he gave Barry when he first taught him to phase.
- Contrived Coincidence: Out of everywhere on 2031 Earth Barry could've shown up, he just happens to emerge right by the sign for Iris' engagement party. Handwaved as the energy infusion from Deon pulling him to temporal hot-spots.
- The Cuckoolander Was Right: While only Allegra believes her, and Iris starts to doubt herself, she is proven correct about her father's death not being an accident.
- De-power: Barry asks Jefferson to help take away his powers in order to prevent Armageddon. By the time Barry realizes something fishy is going on, he doesn't have enough Speed Force left to time travel, needing a boost from Deon.
- Energy Absorption: Despero turns on the Particle Accelerator to boost his powers.
- Get A Hold Of Yourself Man:
- Rosa shouts at Cecile to control her emotions, so that they can find Barry together.
- Jefferson tries to set Barry straight, though it takes a quick scuffle between them and reminding him of Oliver sacrificing himself to finally do the job.
- Godzilla Threshold:
- The "Injustice Protocol." In case any of the Justice League members went rogue, contingencies were set up so that the heroes could shut down their allies before too much damage is done. For Barry, it's recruiting Black Lightning to take away his powers.
- Cecile asks Top for help in using their psychic powers to find Barry.
- Iris asks Deon to remove all the temporal matter out of herself so she can find out the truth about what happened to her father and husband, even if that mean's she'll move in and out of timelines again.
- Heroic Willpower: Cecile actually overpowers Despero and forces him to flee, when drawing from her emotions regarding Joe. He still manages to get the information he wanted, though.
- Idiot Ball:
- Not once does anybody consider that Eobard Thawne could be behind the whole plot, considering that he is notorious for manipulations of Barry's life in similar ways (up to and including having killed his mother in the first place).
- Absolutely no one points out the Bloodless Carnage on the tracks.
- I Have You Now, My Pretty: Taken to another level by Thawne, who seems to have altered time in such a way as to make Iris his fiancée.
- Internal Reveal: Jefferson gets brought up to speed by Barry about everything that has been happening.
- Jerkass Ball: Cecile holds it several times, blowing up at Iris in particular because she doesn't want to be confronted with the truth about Joe's death, and at Caitlin for trying to sympathize with her.
- Kick the Dog: Despite being previously portrayed in the past two episodes as a Well-Intentioned Extremist, Despero brainwashes multiple radiation workers (who were just doing their jobs at STAR Labs) into attacking and killing each other, his most villainous act by far.
- Make It Look Like an Accident: Joe's death, which was actually orchestrated by Thawne.
- Mythology Gag:
- The “Injustice Protocol” takes its name from Injustice: Gods Among Us, which depicted a reality where Superman abandoned his ideals and effectively conquered the planet to eliminate all crime.
- The idea of the protocol itself comes from the iconic Tower of Babel storyline, in which a contingency is set up in case a member of the League ever goes rogue.
- Thawne being engaged to Iris in 2031 is possibly a nod to his obsession with getting Iris in the Silver Age comics.
- Despero with a chess set in STAR Labs evokes the image of the first issue of Justice League of America Vol. 1.
- New Powers as the Plot Demands: Thawne is revealed to have the "Negative Still Force" which enables him to time travel with different residue left behind than his normal negative tachyons, just in time for him to want such a thing.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Supposedly. Despero tells the heroes that they just doomed their own world after they stalled him to help Barry escape to the future.
- Noodle Incident: Something happened with "Faust" (likely Felix Faust) and the Crisis Team that led to them setting up the Injustice Protocol.
- "Not So Different" Remark: Caitlin, when Cecile tells her that she doesn't know how she feels, but Caitlin then brings up Ronny's death and how it affected her. In fact, she's been through it twice!
- Oh, Crap!:
- Jefferson when he hears Barry invoke the Injustice Protocol.
- Deon, when he realizes that somebody tapped into the Negative Still Force to rewrite the timeline.
- Plot Hole: Barry hides out in the Hall of Justice hangar, but not only do the rest of Team Flash not think of checking there once, nobody mentions the possibility of making the Hall their new base of operations, since Barry still owns the property.
- Phrase Catcher: Deion tells Barry to "Run, Barry, run!"
- Psychological Projection: Cecile is projecting her past of mental illness onto Barry. This, and desperation to move on from Joe's death, is why she viciously denies there's a chance everything is not all in Barry's head.
- Pun: Rosa, when challenging some guys to a game asks who wants to come out "on top".
- The Reveal: Thawne used Negative Still Force power to rewrite time, leading to Joe's death.
- Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: Rosa, after Cecile asks for her help in exchange for lifting her parole restrictions, renders Caitlin and Chester unconscious and offers Despero to help him find and kill Barry. Despero however is not in the mood for bargaining and extracts the information from her forcefully, leaving the treacherous meta in a coma.
- Shout-Out:
- When asked to build a machine to amplify Cecile's powers, Chester name drops Cerebro. He later opts to just call it Neural Conjoiner.
- Barry plays "Blue Monk", by Thelonious Monk. Jefferson recognizes it and assumes Barry is trying to impress him, but Barry tells him his foster father Joe frequently had songs by Monk, Miles Davis, Johnny Hartman or Ella Fitzgerald on while Barry was growing up.
- The Stinger: Barry travels to 2031 and just happens to show up in front of a party held by the West family. Heading inside, he finds the rest of the Justice League celebrating Iris' fiancé...Eobard Thawne. And then all of them turn to look at Barry with a mixture of anger, shock and disgust.
