After Nora is erased from existence, Barry and the rest of Team Flash have to deal with the consequences of the newly altered timeline while the Crisis on Infinite Earths looms.
Tropes specific to The Flash (2014) Season 6 are as follows:
- Arc Words: "A world without the Flash." Barry is trying to prep his team and the world for when the Crisis comes and Barry meets his prophesied end. Even though the prophecy becomes Not His Sled, the words take on another meaning when it's revealed the events of Crisis has killed the Speed Force.
- Big Bad Ensemble: Black Hole is one of the villains for this season at least, while the Anti-Monitor readies his game plan leading up to Crisis on Infinite Earths. Meanwhile:
- The first half of the season has Dr. Ramsey Rosso, a.k.a. Bloodwork, as the main villain.
- The second half has this show's version of Mirror Master, Eva McCulloch, biding her time to free herself from a mirror dimension and get revenge on her husband, who happens to be the leader of Black Hole.
- Black Blood: Ramsey Rosso/Bloodwork's powers manifest as a dark black liquid, as opposed to the comics, where he is quite literally made of bright red blood.
- The Bus Came Back: Wally returns during the second half of this season, as does Amunet Black and The Reverse Flash.
- Call-Back:
- At the beginning of the premiere, a version of Godspeed is running around 2019 Central City. Since Nora isn't there to stop him in the new timeline, imperfect clones/test subjects of his are in present-day Central City.
- Iris notes that the original article about the Red Skies Crisis involved Barry fighting Thawne rather than an attempt to combat the Anti-Monitor.
- The Final Temptation: The two-episode arc, "The Last Temptation of Barry Allen", just before Barry expects to die in the Crisis on Infinite Earths, during which Bloodwork tempts Barry with the prospect of a life with Iris and baby Nora if Barry gives into Ramsey's infection, which would technically allow him to survive the Crisis.
- Foreshadowing:
- Jay Garrick's antimatter tracking map in "A Flash of the Lightning" shows that the next antimatter wave is expected at Earth-2. Earth-2 is promptly destroyed at the end of Arrow's Season 8 premiere, "Starling City," hours after the episode aired.
- The season premiere sees Barry once again stopping a black hole. In the second half of the season, the main villains the heroes go up against (briefly alluded to in the first half) are a shadowy group known as "Black Hole".
- Internal Reveal: Barry learns in the premiere that he is destined to die in the crisis, not simply disappear as the article stated. Barry and Iris also learn in the same conversation that the Crisis has been moved up to December 10th, 2019.
- Intrepid Reporter: While Iris still finds the time to serve as Team Flash's Mission Control and Co-Leader when they need her, her Journalism career at "The Citizen" really starts to take off, as she, Kamilla and Alegra, a.k.a. Team Citizen, begin looking into "Black Hole" to help Barry take them down.
- Left Hanging: Production for this season had to end several episodes early due to the worldwide pandemic going on at the time. As a result the season's running plot won't be fully resolved in the season finale. The first three episodes of season 7 were used to resolve it, albeit with some rewrites.
- Like You Would Really Do It: The Monitor tells Barry and Iris in the season premiere that in order to survive the Crisis, "Flash must die." However, the show was renewed for a full season, Barry sits the events of the fifth episode out, and Oliver is also fated to die in the Crisis under much more likely circumstances, all of which imply that Barry is going to make it out of the Crisis.
- Nothing Is the Same Anymore: The world of Oliver's Earth-Prime is much more different from Earth-1 than Barry realizes.
- Real Life Writes the Plot: Caitlin's absence from some episodes, due to Danielle Panabaker's pregnancy, and the Sudden Downer Ending due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
- Screw Destiny: Iris telling Barry that since the Crisis hasn't happened yet, they can still prevent his deathnote , but Barry resigns to his fate after seeing that only one timeline resulted in Iris's and the others' survival, and that was the one timeline where Barry sacrifices himself to stop the Crisis.
- Stepford Smiler: Barry and Iris originally act like they are relatively unbothered by Nora's erasure at the beginning of the season and act like they simply got some time with adult Nora before actually having her as a child, but eventually the two break down by the end of the premiere, with Barry throwing himself into his work as the Flash and Iris eventually breaking down crying that it won't be the same Nora. It gets even worse once the two find out Barry is destined to die in the upcoming crisis, courtesy of the Monitor, and Barry sees billions of timelines, all but one resulting in the erasure of everyone Barry cares about except for one timeline where he sacrifices himself instead.
- Timey-Wimey Ball: Par for the course with the show, obviously, but major timeline changes take place after the end of Season 5 due to Thawne's manipulations, including the Crisis happening on December 10th, 2019, not in 2024, as the article had originally read. Nora is also erased from existence, obviously, as a result of the timeline changing after Cicada's dagger was destroyed, which is a major part of Barry and Iris's character arcs this season, with the two grieving heavily over the loss of their child.
- Tragic Keepsake:
- Nora's will, originally, but eventually Barry and Iris settle for Nora's jacket after the Monitor destroys the former.
- Diggle returns the Mask that Barry gave Oliver.
- You Can't Fight Fate: The Monitor appears at the end of the season premiere to let Barry and Iris know that the former is destined to die in the Crisis on Infinite Earths. Initially, the two refute this possibility, but after Barry mentally projects his consciousness to the time of the Crisis, he sees that the only possible timeline that Iris and the others survive is the one timeline where Barry sacrifices himself, and resigns himself to the fact that he has to die.
