After nine seasons, the CW's "The Flash" has finally ended its run.
Now that the show has crossed the finish line,
what's next for our favorite speedsters? Here's the ending of CW's "The Flash" explained.
Fittingly, "The Flash" is an extremely fast-paced show. Villains and storylines
move in and out at rapid speed. Even before the four-part finale event,
Barry actually dies in Episode 9 at the super-vibrating hand of Wally West,
who is under the influence of Ramsey Rosso's toxic zombie cells.
Luckily, Barry ends up in a woodsy afterlife area where Oliver Queen
hangs out. As part of his posthumous duties as the Spectre, Oliver is able
to bring Barry back to life. He's even able to return to the land of the living himself,
but only as long as the multiverse is in peril or there's an after-party to attend.
"The perks of being the spectre."
While all that is going on, Khione, still discovering her powers,
freezes all the water in the toxic zombie bodies of Team Flash, incapacitating them,
then reanimates John Diggle so he can help Flash and Arrow as Spartan.
Episode 10 of "The Flash" begins with a mystery man, but soon cuts to Iris who's still battling
early-term morning sickness and is days from labor. Iris gets a text about winning
the Pulitzer, but Barry, who is baby proofing the apartment, vanishes in a bolt of blue lightning.
He's transported back to the date his mother is killed by the Reverse-Flash Eobard Thawne.
Adult Barry has been here before, but now he is able to spend more time with his parents. Sadly,
this is also the moment he has to be the one to tell his former self not to
intervene in his mother's death. Eobard kills her and is trapped in the past,
closing the loop Barry has revisited throughout his life.
However, a sinister force bigger than Reverse-Flash is at work,
and it possesses Joe through a large blue crystal. It's the Negative Speed Force essence,
forcing Joe to fight Barry. Barry uses his lightning rod connection to Iris to center himself
and separate Joe's consciousness from the crystal, saving both their lives. The crystal disappears.
Meanwhile back in Central City, a large cloud of red lightning flashes
in the sky and strikes the mystery man in the chest. When he wakes,
he finds the confidential police file on Eddie Thawne, who looks exactly like him.
Khione avoids the pesky chore of opening doors by turning herself
into mist and wafting in underneath. She speaks to her plants and journals,
but the person she really wishes she could talk to is Mark.
"These last few months, there were so many things I wanted to talk to you about.
I guess you just didn't want to talk to me."
Coincidentally, Mark is back, except he's actually the Negative Speed Force's current
vessel. He berates Khione, causing her to flee, then attacks the rest of Team
Flash in her and Barry's absence, as the latter is still trapped in time.
Speed Force Nora counsels Khione on her powers. She doesn't understand
them yet but can feel the whole world at once. Speed Force Nora
responds that it sounds like Khione understands her powers very well.
Khione confronts the possessed Mark and with a snap of her fingers reduces his
entire body — save the crystal — to dust. The crystal vanishes before she can grab it,
so with another snap, she reassembles Mark.
Cecile senses intense panic and joy, which can only mean that Iris is in labor. Barry
manages to return at exactly the right time, and everyone heads to the hospital.
Across Central City, the Eddie doppelgänger goes to CCPD for answers
but his looks stun everyone speechless. As he starts recalling Eddie's memories,
he realizes he is Eddie resurrected. He digs up Eddie's empty coffin to prove it
and pulls the fatal bullet out of his own chest. A singularity cloud opens above.
"What the hell?"
Barry is pulled to 2049. Previously, Barry didn't exist in 2049, having vanished in the Crisis
of Infinite Earths. In this episode, however, 2049-Barry exists and is simply away in space.
The blue crystal is also there and has possessed Nora. When Eddie, transported by the Negative
Speed Force, wanders into the museum looking for Barry, the possessed Nora tells him Barry
stole the life Eddie should have had, but Barry zips in and takes Eddie out of there.
Back at Eddie's place, Barry notices everything is covered in tachyons,
which means they're inside the Negative Speed Force. Eddie is persuaded by all that negativity
and won't listen to Barry's reasoning. He feels his sacrifice was wasted and goes to see Iris.
Cecile projects her 2023 consciousness into her 2049 body to save Nora from possession.
With little trouble, she forces the temporal body of the Negative Speed Force out of Nora's
physical form. She accepts her superhero name, Virtue, but the crystal disappears once again.
Meanwhile, Iris tells Eddie that Barry was always between them,
that her love for Barry was there even when she wouldn't recognize it,
and that the family they built is the life she was meant for. Infuriated,
Eddie goes back into the Negative Speed Force and accepts the crystal, becoming its new avatar.
This is not the first time "The Flash" has featured the Negative Speed Force,
so while it's a fitting antagonist for the end of the series, it portends an unending
cycle that hardly indicates closure. The first three parts of "A New World" follow that formula,
as each episode features a new member of Team Flash being possessed and saved by another member.
It's essential that Barry finds a way to break that pattern. "Reunions" closes the
loop on Barry's past, fulfilling the destiny revealed all the way back in Season 1 — he's
fighting Reverse-Flash when his mother is killed, and he dissuades his other
Flash-self from intervening. In order for the show to end, it needs to close this loop of
conflict between the positive and negative forces surrounding Central City as well.
The other major character development over the first three parts of "A New World" involves
Khione. She has rapidly accessed powers above and beyond anything she ever thought was possible,
and certainly beyond anything her alter-egos have done before. Her recognizing these changes
and admitting to being a goddess implies huge changes ahead. Khione herself warily
accepts that she will have to leave Central City for good. She can't just help these few
people in this one place — she must be everywhere, for everyone and everything.
"The more I embrace who I truly am, the more I see the natural order of things."
Episode 4 has a lot of ground to cover, so the show wastes no time in bringing back some dearly
departed foes. Zoom and Godspeed appear and nearly come to blows when Eobard Thawne comes downstairs
to snarkily put them in their place. Savitar arrives too, and Eddie — calling himself Cobalt
Blue — introduces himself, saying he brought them all here to defeat Team Flash together.
That doesn't quite happen. In fact, the battle ends quickly with Nora tricking
Savitar, Virtue mind zapping Godspeed, Allegra unleashing ultraviolet energy onto Wells-Thawne,
and Khione knocking out Zoom with his own lightning. Eddie, meanwhile, gets
redeemed just in time for Barry to return to the hospital as Iris is ready to deliver their baby.
The second half of the episode is all celebration and goodbyes,
with people across several different timelines and multiverses there to see
the new baby. Even Harrison arrives to tell the goddess Khione that she must prepare to ascend.
Barry closes things out by sending lightning to three future speedsters.
Titled "A New World, Part Four: Finale," the last episode embraces several themes.
One is allowing positive and negative forces to exist in concert instead of clashing. This idea
carries into society at large, where opposing viewpoints frequently lead to violence. The
show asserts that disagreements are inevitable, but ultimately, we are all trying to improve
things for ourselves and our loved ones. That, in and of itself, is a goal everyone can recognize.
"The Flash" also focuses on family, as Nora's birth is a throughline of all four episodes
of "A New World." As Barry battles across time, it's his love and relationships that center him
and give him strength. Even the redemption of Eddie comes from the recognition of his past;
his enduring love and belief in doing the right thing allows him to die honorably.
Farewells also come into play, for the show and for Khione, who is taking her place in the ether
as protector of the natural world. She tells the team that she is also abandoning her mortal body
as well. In her place stands Caitlin, who died unnaturally and therefore, according to Khione,
deserves her own second chance. And second chances have always been a central theme in "The Flash."
In the denouement of the Flash finale, Eddie is drained of power by Jay Garrick's Flash
in the middle of Jitters. Eddie recharges himself with his fallen
Legion and enters the Negative Speed Force to amplify his speed even more.
As this was how Eobard himself once died, it seems Eddie is doomed too.
Khione tells Barry that she can send him to confront Eddie,
but to what end? If Barry wants to save Eddie — who once sacrificed
himself for Barry — then Khione tells him he must change his perceptions.
Barry has always known balance to come with strife, but Khione opines that it's
"about coexistence, not in conflict, but in mutual trust." Barry finds this impossible,
because even if he refuses to fight, his enemies continue to come after him. She tells him,
"Then you need to believe in the impossible,
because it's the only way to create a better world."
Barry repeats that message to infant Nora, saying the lightning chose him,
but now he is choosing to share that gift with others. He sends his lightning
to future speedsters, hoping to grow a better world and break the cycles.
In the Negative Speed Force with Barry for the final time, Eddie lashes against him with blow
after blow, letting his fury overtake him. He even starts to sound like Eobard, continuing the cycle
that has played out time and time again. Barry picks up on this and he tells Eddie what a good
man he is, and how he is becoming the very person he once sacrificed himself to defeat. He tells
Eddie that he is the Negative Speed Force's avatar now, and he doesn't have to give in to the hate it
builds around him. He can fight it. Eobard Thawne lived and died in hate, but Eddie has known love.
As he says this, Eddie is flooded with memories of his previous life,
his happiness, and finally how Iris cried over him as he died. His final words expressed
how he had always wanted to be her hero. Present-day Eddie is moved by these memories,
so he pulls the crystal from his chest and smashes it on the ground.
Although Eddie will always be part of the Negative Speed Force,
he vows to work with Barry, instead of against him, for the good of the world.
In Season 3 of "The Flash" Iris tells Barry,
" ... wherever you go, you'll always be Barry and I'll always be Iris,
and we always find each other."
Those words are remembered again as the couple celebrate the birth of their first child,
Nora. Now a happy trio, they look forward to many more years together,
which seems almost guaranteed. In 2049 the two are still setting off sparks when
Graying Iris gets to talk with 2023 Barry. Their love is palpable and everlasting.
Iris, of course, has won one Pulitzer and will go on to win at least one more, while Barry chooses
to share some of his Flash powers with new heroes. Of course, that doesn't mean he's going to stop
fighting crime himself. As we learn in "Part Three," in the future, the Flash is sometimes
needed in space, while on Earth he and Eddie try to work together to maintain the natural order.
Furthermore, even though Barry says watching their daughter Nora hold her infant self is "trippy
even for us," Nora assures them that her little brother Bart's birth will be even more eventful.
Joe can barely hold back tears as he marvels at how much Iris has grown. She's a mother herself
now, and he feels amazing about how lucky he is to have lived this life. Riding that high,
he finally proposes to Cecile, praising her accomplishments.
"And I know that wherever our dreams may take us, we will always keep loving each other."
This reinforces what Chuck tells her in "Part Three," when she worries that
her long absence from Joe in 2049 must mean something goes wrong.
Chuck, meanwhile, is attacked by Reverse-Flash during part four of the finale. He's saved by
Allegra but weirdly came out of the attack unscathed because of the black hole energy
he absorbs during his experiment in the Season 6 premiere. He's now a
Consciousness-Honed Universally Neutralized Kerr anomaly, or C.H.U.N.K., and in 2049,
he and Allegra are long married but still hot and heavy for each other.
The time-traveling Harrison Wells has words of advice for Khione. He
tells her that time traveling isn't what matters for people like them. What matters
is keeping pieces of your loved ones with you wherever…and whenever you go.
Khione takes this to heart and while Mark is sad to see her go,
he's grateful she never gave up on him. He's also surprised and happy to see Caitlin back,
but Caitlin, for her part, is eager to get back to work.
Talking with Entertainment Weekly, Grant Gustin spoke about his own life changes
during the latter seasons of "The Flash," and his desire to see Barry go through similar
new experiences. He felt that he and Barry went through similar ups and downs across the years,
in similar stages of their lives, so the timing felt natural to him.
"Arrow" star Stephen Amell also spoke with EW about how "The Flash" finale means an end to the
Arrowverse as well, and how happy he is that "The Flash" is the show to see it out. Furthermore,
he talked about his favorite scenes with Grant as Oliver and Barry. One of his favorites was his
first appearance on the show, in the pilot, when Oliver gives Barry his superhero name.
"Saving people…in a flash."
One of his other favorite scenes, however,
involved a simple drink at a bar between Barry and Oliver. He said,
" [Season 9 showrunner Eric Wallace] wrote this beautiful scene of the two of us sitting
there having a beer. If you go back and you really pay close attention to the dialogue,
it's pretty much verbatim what I said to him in
the pilot of 'The Flash.' That was a really neat full-circle moment."
With that, "The Flash" closes yet another loop.