As Iris receives word of a career milestone, Barry is suddenly nowhere to be found. In trying to get back home, Barry runs across many familiar faces. Khione continues to figure out her powers and Chester works on a suit for Allegra.
Tropes
- Ambiguous Situation: It's unclear if the revised timeline was always meant to happen, or if, with the timeline being rewritten so much, our Barry was put in the place of one whose mother wasn't killed by Thawne (as seen with other time travel moments in the Arrowverse, time is satisfied as long as the timeline is close enough).
- Artifact Domination: The Negative Speed Force incarnates as a vibrantly blue Power Crystal that possesses whoever picks it up to carry out its desire to kill Barry.
- Back for the Finale:
- Matt Letscher reprises the role of the original Eobard Thawne.
- John Wesley Shipp and Michelle Harrison return as Henry and Nora Allen.
- Jesse L. Martin returns as Joe West after being absent for most of the season.
- Victor Garber also makes a Voice-Only Cameo as Martin Stein.
- Rick Cosnett appears as Dr. Malcolm Gilmore, having previously played Eddie Thawne in the first season of the show and in various other episodes since then.
- Back from the Dead: Averted - whilst Eobard Thawne returns as the Reverse Flash, he's actually from an earlier point in Thawne's timeline and thus, from his perspective, hasn't died yet.
- Back to the Early Installment: Barry winds up back in 2000 circa the opening of the Pilot episode and his mother's murder.
- Big "NO!": Eobard's Skyward Scream as he realizes that Barry is going to grow up to be a hero due to Nora's death being a fixed point.
- Call-Back:
- In the middle of Thawne's attempt to kill young Barry, Barry from the Season 1 finale turns up to stop Thawne, before being warned off by his future counterpart.
- Barry once again goes by Bart, albeit under different circumstances.
- Cassandra Truth: Barry warns Thawne that if he goes through with his revenge, his life will end up a living hell. Thawne doesn't believe him both out of arrogance and because the Time Loop's in play.
- Close-Enough Timeline: The confrontation between the Flash and Reverse-Flash at the Allen house in 2000 plays out more or less identically to how it was previously depicted in the Season 1 episodes "Tricksters" and "Fast Enough", despite several timeline changes and a multiversal reboot having taken place in the interim. However, some of the details and circumstances surrounding the fight have changed. For instance, instead of battling during a Crisis in 2024 before traveling back to that night in 2000 together, Thawne and Barry arrive earlier in the day separately - with Barry being transported there by the Negative Speed Force. Barry also interacts with his parents before the confrontation, something which did not occur in previous timelines (as Nora did not recognize the unmasked adult Barry in "Fast Enough").
- Continuity Nod: Ramsey's mom Rachel is still alive, being an attending physician at Central City Hospital in the year 2000.
- Demonic Possession: The Negative Speed Force decides to forgoe the use of willing avatar and just take over Joe's body in an attempt to kill Barry.
- Dramatic Irony: For once, Barry has foreknowledge over Thawne instead of the other way around. He (and the audience) know Thawne won't succeed both because of events to come and because of the Time Loop.
- Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: A confused, disbelieving Thawne doesn't understand why Barry saved himself and let him kill his mother. Barry explains he had no choice...and Thawne slowly realizes Nora's death is a fixed point in time. They're in a time loop — and Barry knew all along what was coming.
- Failed a Spot Check: When Thawne unwittingly reveals he's the very original incarnation, Barry instantly grasps what's about to happen hours from now: Thawne's here to kill his younger self. He says so and Thawne is (grudgingly) impressed Barry figured it out. But he's also too busy gloating that he completely misses that Barry's reaction was less of a deduction and more of a resigned realization (Imeaning Barry already knows what's about to happen, ergo it won't end the way Thawne's hoping).
- Foregone Conclusion: Even with all the changes to the timeline (let alone the multiversal reboot in Crisis on Infinite Earths) over the show's run, Nora's murder has remained a constant and fixed point. So, sooner or later, Thawne was going to travel back in time to kill young Barry before ultimately killing her instead and ending up stuck in the past after losing his powers. That day has finally arrived.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: Rick Cosnett's character isn't named during any spoken dialogue; his character's name of Dr. Malcolm Gilmore is only provided by way of his briefly seen ID card.
- Go-Karting with Bowser: Played for extremely Black Comedy when Thawne takes Barry out for drinks to celebrate his impending death and to rub it in his idol's face.
- Have We Met?: Obviously, neither Singh, Joe or his own parents recognize Barry.
- Here We Go Again!: When Barry gets transported to the past, he immediately asks what he did wrong this time.
- Hypocrite: Thawne mocks Barry by claiming he won't kill him because of his "self-righteous morality". But later, he insists that Barry is the villain of this story.
- I Let You Win: Barry has no choice but to let Thawne kill his mother, due to it being a fixed point.
- In the Back: How Thawne strikes Barry down in order to get his parents to help him.
- Kick the Dog: Thawne, petty as always, not only deliberately knocks Barry out in front of his parents, knowing they'd help him, but he also insists on Barry telling him that he won.
- Kid from the Future: Barry to 2000-era Henry and Nora Allen, unbeknownst to them of course. Spending the day with them enables Barry to finally gain some closure over their deaths.
- Laser-Guided Karma: By killing Nora rather than young Barry, Thawne winds up powerless and trapped in a timeline where he gets to watch Barry survive and grow up to become the Flash — the hero Eobard's always wanted to be, but never will now. Eobard takes this as well as you'd expect.
- And of course, to rub salt in the wound, Barry and the audience both know that Thawne will also ultimately have to ironically help create and mentor his most hated enemy (in an ultimately futile attempt to return to his time period).
- Last-Second Chance: Barry attempts to give Thawne one last shot to give up his revenge by asking him to walk away, and points out how if he follows through with his plans his life will be hell. Unfortunately but unsurprisingly, Thawne doesn't take it.
- Mistaken for Prank Call: When Barry gets stuck in 2000, he tries to call Professor Martin Stein for help getting back to the present. Even when Barry displays knowledge of his research, Stein thinks this is a prank call and hangs up on him.
- Moral Myopia: Once again, Thawne, in spite of everything he's done (and will do), claims to be the "hero" and that Barry is the "villain".
- Morton's Fork: Gleefully lampshaded by Thawne when he tells Barry how screwed he is. He can't put Thawne in Iron Heights, because it will derail the Flash's timeline (of course, that's not a choice, since Cisco hasn't meta-proofed the cells yet) — and Barry won't kill his greatest foe either out of self-righteous morality. Of course, the irony is Thawne doesn't know this no-win scenario will be undone by killing Nora later that evening.
- Mythology Gag:
- The younger Detective Singh of the year 2000 has facial hair reminiscent of his comic book counterpart.
- Barry has dinner with his parents at a restaurant named "Zatara's" - the surname of Zatanna, another DC superhero.
- When Malcolm Gilmore (the character Rick Cosnett is playing in this episode) is struck by lightning in The Stinger, he's wearing a lab coat, much like Barry has traditionally worn in most comic book depictions of his origin story.
- The name "Malcolm Gilmore" is one to two separate characters in the Flash mythos: Malcolm Thawne, Barry's biological twin brother, the closest comic book counterpart to Eddie and the real name of Colbalt Blue, and to the Dr. Gilmore who delivered Barry and Malcolm. Gilmore was unable to save Hugo and Charlene Thawne's baby due to being drunk, so he stole one of the Allen twins, Malcolm, claiming he was stillborn, and gave him to the Thawnes.
- The closing scene of the episode recreates the moment that Barry was struck by the lightning, as originally seen in Arrow episode "Three Ghosts" but with Malcolm Gilmore in Barry's place.
- Nature Lover: Khione actually gives her plants names.
- Not Me This Time: Eobard says he is not the reason why Barry is stuck in 2000.
- Once More, with Clarity:
- We finally see Nora Allen's death from the perspective of the Barry who chased Thawne to the year 2000.
- In the first season finale, the future version of Barry that warned his Season 1 self against stopping his mother's death was shown as a blurred figure. In a rather literal instance of the trope, the Flash from Season 9 is clearly visible as he warns his past self from interfering.
- On a lesser note, it was also unclear at the time why exactly Future Barry had stopped his younger self from interfering (let alone how he even knew his younger self was there and didn't seem surprised). Now, thanks to subsequent events in the show's run — particularly "The Race of His Life" and "Flashpoint", we finally have the missing context for this scene: Future Barry is actually the Season Nine Barry. He knows all too well that Nora's death is a fixed point in time and nothing can be done to change it (and that if Season One Barry tries it here and now, it'll only prematurely trigger Flashpoint). More, we know now Season Nine Barry has to allow Thawne to kill his mother in order to close out the time loop and ensure the events of the entire show come to pass.
- The episode also revisits the Reverse-Flash-centric flashbacks from Season 1's "Tricksters" as we also are shown an addition to the scene of Thawne screaming into the air, with Barry pointing out he knew he couldn't save his mother the whole time.
- Out of Focus: Team Flash are only present in the episode until Barry is dragged back to the year 2000, at which point the focus of the episode is squarely on Barry and the day his mother dies.
- The Reveal:
- The longtime assumption since Season One has been that the Future Barry that fought Thawne was from the original timeline (before Nora's death altered history). Now, however, it's revealed that Future Barry was always (or at least now in the post-Crisis Arrowverse) Season 9-era Barry — meaning that the altered timeline and loop was always predestined to happen.
- Barry didn't chase Thawne into the past to save himself, the Negative Speed Force transported him to the year 2000 so he would have to doom his mother to save himself and preserve the timeline.
- Revenge: The Negative Speed Force wants to kill Barry for killing their host, Thawne.
- Shout-Out: Allegra thinks the Beta Outfit Chester made for her makes her look like Rainbow Brite.
- Stable Time Loop: Future Thawne finally makes his move against young Barry (and ultimately kills Nora), closing out the loop that Barry and his allies have known was in play since Season One — a loop that requires Nora's death in order for Barry to become the Flash and for the events of the show (and Barry's impact on the larger Arrowverse) to come to pass.
- Stock Footage: Footage from the Pilot, "Tricksters", and the Season 1 finale is reused and combined in the fateful confrontation at the Allen residence.
- Strike Me Down with All of Your Hatred!: Thawne eggs Barry on to kill him, knowing he won't do it.
- Sympathy for the Devil: Despite everything Thawne has done to him, Barry still tries to deter him from his path of revenge, knowing that this path will only bring him pain and misery. When Thawne rants about how he will dedicate his life to destroying Barry's, Barry can only respond with a look of sheer pity.
- Time Skip: At least a few months have passed since the last episode, as the present day portion shows Iris is now close to giving birth to Nora.
- Title Drop: The Negative Speed Force says to Barry, "You were the chosen one for nine years. But tonight, a new world begins."
- Trapped in the Past:
- The plot of this episode is kicked off by Barry being transported to the year 2000 by the Negative Speed Force, and being unable to return to the present.
- After killing Nora Allen, Thawne, as we already knew, ends up stranded in the past.
- Villainous Breakdown: The once smug Eobard breaks down into rage as he realizes not only is he destined to watch Barry grow up, but Barry thanks him for giving him closure, instead of being upset.Eobard: Killing your mother... it's a fixed point. You knew this was gonna happen. And now I'm stuck here in a hell where I get to watch you grow up, and become the hero I should have been! I swear, even if I have to tear the universe apart, I will find a way to destroy you and everyone you love! Because from this moment forward, my life's work will be finding ways to kill you.
- Wham Line: In-universe example with Thawne revealing he's here to wipe Barry from existence. Barry instantly realizes that this isn't just another temporal incarnation of the Reverse-Flash. This is the Thawne, the very original incarnation and he's here to kill the younger Barry — meaning the time loop that's been in play for the entire series is about to finally close.
- Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: Ironically invoked by Barry towards his younger self when Thawne first reveals his plan. If Thawne was planning to do this, why is he wasting time and waiting? Justified, as Thawne wants to savor what enjoy what he believes to be his final triumph before pulling the trigger. This delay will, of course, ultimately cost him everything.
