In the future where he came from the particle accelerator event happened at a later date; it's possible that Firestorm wasn't created in the original timeline. It's also possible that Oliver and Barry weren't friends in that other timeline.
The second Eobard changed the past, the events of the future would have changed with that (even the smallest of things). Working on this; he's going to be in for a shock when he returns to his time, only to realize that it's different (or at least, it should be).
This is why he has the newspaper though, isn't it? I thought it was basically his anchor, that as long as that's still the same he'll be able to use the disappearance to get back to roughly "his" time. It's why he was so upset earlier in the season when the newspaper changed.
The paper just shows 1 event though. Flash vanishing.
The enviroment around that event could be different though. For example, the Flash vanished in a world where the accellerator wasn't activated till 2020. As said above, Barry wouldn't have been hit with the lightning the week after visiting Starling so his friendship with Felicity could be different or non existant and thus his friendship with Arrow could be non existant as Barry/Felicity might have just drifted apart and been casual friends by 2016 and not talking by 2017. Barry wouldn't be able to free his friends from Nanda Parbat so they could all be dead for all we know in the other universe.
So this universe might have Felicity and co all in it when he returns (the universe where the activation was in 2014). Which could be why Oliver sells to Wayne Enterprises, to spend his time with Felicity. In the universe that the Newspaper is about though (or the one Eobard came from with a 2020 activation), perhaps Oliver was selling up because he was fed up putting everything he had into Queen business after losing Felicity and co to Ra's. He wants to leave and go back to the Island to be alone with his thoughts.
However, in both universes the Flash will vanish in 2024 and Oliver sells up. Different circumstances though because of the change in 6 years for the accellerator activation.
Mega Buzz: The Flash to Introduce Multiple Universes
Adam Bryant
May 18, 2015
On The Flash's Tuesday finale, Barry (Grant Gustin) travels back in time to try and save his mother's life, and thus also save his father from a life in prison. That seems like a fairly noble mission, until you take into account all the repercussions traveling that far back in time could have on the world.
Gustin admits Barry's trip to the past "doesn't necessarily go as planned," and that everything we knew about his future -- including his future marriage to Iris (Candice Patton) -- is now up in the air. But that might not be the biggest news. "What's fun about this show is that there's going to be multiple timelines as we move forward," Gustin says. "I think we're going to start showing Earth-One and Earth-Two in the near future. There will be kind of different dimensions going on."
In DC Comics, Earth-One and Earth-Two are only a few of the parallel universes that make up the elaborate multiverse. Having an Earth-One and Earth-Two within The Flash would open up radical new possibilities for the show, including alternate versions of characters we already know or even new versions of the same superheroes, such as Jay Garrick's The Flash or perhaps the superhero or villain sides of Cisco Ramon (Carlos Valdes) and Caitlin Snow (Danielle Panabaker).
However, having parallel universes could make the future cross-overs with Arrow and Legends of Tomorrow that much trickier. "It gets a little Rubik's Cube-y in terms of keeping consistency between all these timelines and whatnot," Valdes says. "But the writers have their stuff together. If I were to trust anyone, it would be them."
The Flash's first season finale airs Tuesday at 8/7c on The CW.
(Full disclosure: TVGuide.com is owned by CBS, one of The CW's parent companies.)
So, maybe we'll see Ollie and Chloe from Smallville?
One would summarize that a multiverse is entered after the events of one timeline change. That being the case, how would Barry ever get back to his own universe unless he again changed time? Just opened up a whole different can of worms here, and whilst I trust in the writers (they've not let us down thus far) I am not particularly keen on the idea of multiverses.
The odd episode (and the fallout of messing with time), sure. But having our characters travel between them at will (which seems to be implied) I do not like at all.
Well in a way you can theorise that they already have introduce multi-verses.
One theory of time travel is that when you go back in time you actually jump to a different universe and create a pocket timeline. Basically the universe you start off in ends and another begins. Think of it as lines on paper. You star off on the far left side and draw a line to the centre. Stop. Move up 1cm and start a second line and continue to the far right side. THe point at which the first line stops and the second begins is the point Barry would have jumped back in time from the Tsunami. Everything since has been in a new timeline or some would say, a new reality/Multi-verse. A Universe where there was no Tsunami and Barry didn't kiss Iris on the hill and Singh didn't die. Then when he goes back in time to save his mom, a new line will be created and a third verse in the multi-verse will begin. That's one theory. Another is that time is a great big ball of wibbly wobbly timey wimey mess and understanding it is very difficult.
In an interview with Buzzfeed, Flash star Grant Gustin explained that Arrow, Legends of Tomorrow and his series are “all one show, in some ways.”
Like, I’m on Flash, but as far as a lot of those other characters are concerned, they’re just on three TV shows at one time, which is really cool. Wentworth [Miller, who plays Captain Cold] and Dominic [Purcell, who plays Heat Wave] are on Legends, but they’ll be on Arrow and Flash, too. It’s like a revolving door for all three shows.
So I decided to get up earlier so I could watch it before I went and holy crap was it a good decision.
What an incredible episode with lots of emotional parts, I hope the Eddie thing doesn't stick and I can't believe it ended on a cliffhanger, well worth the wait until season 2 though.
I guess he was looking for a more instant fix to prevent Wells/Thawne from killing Barry.
My question is with Barry having not saved his mother, Iris is now going to marry Eddie and thus Eddie's descendants should no longer include Eobard, why was that itself not enough to wipe out Eobard. However, timey wimey and all that, too complex for this mere mortal. It did seem to me that Eobard needed Barry to have saved his mother, otherwise Eobard's future would not exist or would be radically different.
Very mean of them, giving such a big cliffhanger, any hints from comic readers (spoilered obvs) as to how this ends up, or did it go totally off piste?
If Eobard has now been wiped from history, does that mean the real Dr Wells could be alive and well? Just trying to come up with a scenario that would allow that actor to still be in the show!
So he goes to the effort of going all the way back to save his mom, gets there, decides "nah", then returns all angry at DrYellowFlash for killing his mom. Surely Barry must take some of the blame for her death since he KNEW it was going to happen, could have prevented it but chose NOT to prevent it.
btw: and here was me thinking the ptb were going to use Barry's mom save to complete revamp both the Flash and the Arrow shows. Instead nuttin changed. Oh well.
So he goes to the effort of going all the way back to save his mom, gets there, decides "nah", then returns all angry at DrYellowFlash for killing his mom. Surely Barry must take some of the blame for her death since he KNEW it was going to happen, could have prevented it but chose NOT to prevent it.
btw: and here was me thinking the ptb were going to use Barry's mom save to complete revamp both the Flash and the Arrow shows. Instead nuttin changed. Oh well.
His older self stopped him maybe when he did it it only made things worse so stopped "Current" Barry making the same mistake
So I decided to get up earlier so I could watch it before I went and holy crap was it a good decision.
What an incredible episode with lots of emotional parts, I hope the Eddie thing doesn't stick and I can't believe it ended on a cliffhanger, well worth the wait until season 2 though.
Couldn't disagree more. I thought it was terrible.
Not only did he not stop his mother dying, he watched her bleed out when he could have rushed her to ER. Cold, Barry, cold.
They'll have a Barry/Iris romance season two for just long enough to bring Eddie back, now buffed with speedforce powers and probably under Eobard's tutelage, because paradox.
But yeah, you better believe I'll be back for season 2.
His older self stopped him maybe when he did it it only made things worse so stopped "Current" Barry making the same mistake
Hmm, maybe I need to rewatch it but all I saw was OldFlash giving him a "woh" gesture, no holding him up against the wall telling him this would be a mistake (or something similar). At that moment did Barry stop because oldie told him to, because he was concerned about the resultant ripples it would cause, or (as he said on his return) he was happy with his current life (or something like that) ?
and btw: the above "he had time to whisk her to hospital", yup I'm with you there. So DrWells just injured her, it was Barry's decision not to whisk her that got her killed.
Very disappointed with the finale. Barry spent 30mins agonizing over a moral choice, that he reverses within a second based on his future-self saying 'No'. There was no action, development or twist in this episode.
I knew from day one that Eddie would sacrifice himself, knowing he had to be preserved to keep Reverse Flash alive. If at any point the Reverse Flash overcame The Flash, Eddie would kill himself. I just hope when he comes back to life, he can become a fully realised character with his impunity.
A little bit off topic. Why do The Flash team makes stupid deals with criminals? Snark (more than one agreement made no logical sense). This one with Eobard? He had already told them what Barry must do, but still helped him return home. Yes, they want to get rid of him, but killing him or neutralising him would've been better. He would've gone to the future and come back in an instance with the same agenda.
Well I enjoyed that. Some good emotional scenes. Little bit too long on the will I wont I stuff so I had a feeling it would end in a cliffhanger as we got nearer the end, especially once the Black Hole formed, there wasn't enough time to sort it and have a "happy" ending. Gutted but leaves me waiting for season 2. I just hope the wait is worth it and it isn't all resolved in the first 5 minutes or wiped out with time travel and Barry going back to the point he deides to go back and decides not to even bother with it. Meaning he never went back to save his mother, they never turned on the machine and the Black Hole never formed and RF never gets wiped out because Eddie won't kill himself.
If it does stick though, then Wells will still be alive but one issue is that if Eddie died, and RF was wiped off the face of the earth....Why could Barry still be the Flash? He ws only the Flash because Eobard built the accellerator early. When he was wiped out, the entire building, the Flash suit, and evryone else should have all vanished because they would never have come together in 2015. The only reason they did was because of Eobard doing his thing and everyone would have been sucked into the Black Hole, which I do believe would still have happened because it would transcend Time and Space and would be the inevitable consequence for the wiping out of Eobard. The only diference is nobody would know about it and everyone would be sucked into it thinking it just appeared for no reason.
Anyway. What about Caitlin not knowing what a Singularity was eh? I mean if Joe or Iris or Eddie asked it I would understand but Barry, Ronnie, Caitlin, Cisco, the professor are all students of Science and worked at STAR Labs. They would all know what it was because the result of the particle accellerator is to possibly create one, they're so small though it does no good but still I'm sure they would all know about them, it's high school physics after all. That was an "....Eh?" moment.
Oh and who does Cisco become? I take it he must be some sort of psychic, a soothsayer or whatever who can see the future/alternate realities? Anyone know if he is an actual person or if this is all show content?
So I decided to get up earlier so I could watch it before I went and holy crap was it a good decision.
What an incredible episode with lots of emotional parts, I hope the Eddie thing doesn't stick and I can't believe it ended on a cliffhanger, well worth the wait until season 2 though.
Couldn't agree more, I was absolutely blown away by the finale and what a cliff hanger they left open for Season Two.
Really wasn't expecting Eddie to make that decision but I did love that he took Stein's words to heart and decided he wasn't going to give in to the pronouncement that his life with Iris was over just because of the newspaper article byline.
Loved the wee Easter Egg mentions of Douglas Adam's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, to Cisco's possible future as Vibe, albeit with a seemingly different super power, to Caitlin's Killer Frost alternative persona and to the forthcoming Legends of Tomorrow's Rip Hunter.
Reverse Flash is just awesome, he is without doubt, one of my all time favourite TV villains and I seriously hope they find some way of keeping Tom Cavanagh on the show for Season Two (hopefully we do have some sort of time travel and Barry is able to "save" Dr Wells.
After all, if Eddie removed Eobard's existence by ending his life in the "existing" time line, then surely there are knock on effects which go into the future to alter the fact that Reverse Flash never existed, therefore he never came back to try to kill Barry/killed his mum so never got stuck in the past and had to kill Wells to bring the particle accelerator project forward etc!
Argh the potential for time travelling paradoxes are endless, one of the things which blows my mind and has the ability to make me cry all at once
I loved how emotional the whole finale was as well, it was beautifully played and acted by all involved.
Comments
This is why he has the newspaper though, isn't it? I thought it was basically his anchor, that as long as that's still the same he'll be able to use the disappearance to get back to roughly "his" time. It's why he was so upset earlier in the season when the newspaper changed.
The enviroment around that event could be different though. For example, the Flash vanished in a world where the accellerator wasn't activated till 2020. As said above, Barry wouldn't have been hit with the lightning the week after visiting Starling so his friendship with Felicity could be different or non existant and thus his friendship with Arrow could be non existant as Barry/Felicity might have just drifted apart and been casual friends by 2016 and not talking by 2017. Barry wouldn't be able to free his friends from Nanda Parbat so they could all be dead for all we know in the other universe.
So this universe might have Felicity and co all in it when he returns (the universe where the activation was in 2014). Which could be why Oliver sells to Wayne Enterprises, to spend his time with Felicity. In the universe that the Newspaper is about though (or the one Eobard came from with a 2020 activation), perhaps Oliver was selling up because he was fed up putting everything he had into Queen business after losing Felicity and co to Ra's. He wants to leave and go back to the Island to be alone with his thoughts.
However, in both universes the Flash will vanish in 2024 and Oliver sells up. Different circumstances though because of the change in 6 years for the accellerator activation.
Adam Bryant
May 18, 2015
On The Flash's Tuesday finale, Barry (Grant Gustin) travels back in time to try and save his mother's life, and thus also save his father from a life in prison. That seems like a fairly noble mission, until you take into account all the repercussions traveling that far back in time could have on the world.
Gustin admits Barry's trip to the past "doesn't necessarily go as planned," and that everything we knew about his future -- including his future marriage to Iris (Candice Patton) -- is now up in the air. But that might not be the biggest news. "What's fun about this show is that there's going to be multiple timelines as we move forward," Gustin says. "I think we're going to start showing Earth-One and Earth-Two in the near future. There will be kind of different dimensions going on."
In DC Comics, Earth-One and Earth-Two are only a few of the parallel universes that make up the elaborate multiverse. Having an Earth-One and Earth-Two within The Flash would open up radical new possibilities for the show, including alternate versions of characters we already know or even new versions of the same superheroes, such as Jay Garrick's The Flash or perhaps the superhero or villain sides of Cisco Ramon (Carlos Valdes) and Caitlin Snow (Danielle Panabaker).
However, having parallel universes could make the future cross-overs with Arrow and Legends of Tomorrow that much trickier. "It gets a little Rubik's Cube-y in terms of keeping consistency between all these timelines and whatnot," Valdes says. "But the writers have their stuff together. If I were to trust anyone, it would be them."
The Flash's first season finale airs Tuesday at 8/7c on The CW.
(Full disclosure: TVGuide.com is owned by CBS, one of The CW's parent companies.)
So, maybe we'll see Ollie and Chloe from Smallville?
One would summarize that a multiverse is entered after the events of one timeline change. That being the case, how would Barry ever get back to his own universe unless he again changed time?
The odd episode (and the fallout of messing with time), sure. But having our characters travel between them at will (which seems to be implied) I do not like at all.
One theory of time travel is that when you go back in time you actually jump to a different universe and create a pocket timeline. Basically the universe you start off in ends and another begins. Think of it as lines on paper. You star off on the far left side and draw a line to the centre. Stop. Move up 1cm and start a second line and continue to the far right side. THe point at which the first line stops and the second begins is the point Barry would have jumped back in time from the Tsunami. Everything since has been in a new timeline or some would say, a new reality/Multi-verse. A Universe where there was no Tsunami and Barry didn't kiss Iris on the hill and Singh didn't die. Then when he goes back in time to save his mom, a new line will be created and a third verse in the multi-verse will begin. That's one theory. Another is that time is a great big ball of wibbly wobbly timey wimey mess and understanding it is very difficult.
In an interview with Buzzfeed, Flash star Grant Gustin explained that Arrow, Legends of Tomorrow and his series are “all one show, in some ways.”
http://www.buzzfeed.com/jarettwieselman/grant-gustin-looks-back-on-his-first-year-as-a-superhero#.lcbYGvzOeJ
And some cool photos from the Variety photoshoot with Grant and Melissa Benoist whose playing Supergirl: here.
What an incredible episode with lots of emotional parts, I hope the Eddie thing doesn't stick and I can't believe it ended on a cliffhanger, well worth the wait until season 2 though.
My question is with Barry having not saved his mother, Iris is now going to marry Eddie and thus Eddie's descendants should no longer include Eobard, why was that itself not enough to wipe out Eobard. However, timey wimey and all that, too complex for this mere mortal. It did seem to me that Eobard needed Barry to have saved his mother, otherwise Eobard's future would not exist or would be radically different.
Very mean of them, giving such a big cliffhanger, any hints from comic readers (spoilered obvs) as to how this ends up, or did it go totally off piste?
If Eobard has now been wiped from history, does that mean the real Dr Wells could be alive and well? Just trying to come up with a scenario that would allow that actor to still be in the show!
Also loved the helmet coming through the time portal for none fans that belongs to Jay Garrick the original Flash.
http://images-cdn.moviepilot.com/images/c_fill,h_435,w_640/t_mp_quality/zyggykjvlghyla3qq6z2/the-flash-season-2-teaser-plus-jay-garrick-earth-two-and-several-others-confirmed-for-se-413147.jpg
https://www.hyperborea.org/flash/bigimages/jay1.jpg
btw: and here was me thinking the ptb were going to use Barry's mom save to complete revamp both the Flash and the Arrow shows. Instead nuttin changed. Oh well.
His older self stopped him maybe when he did it it only made things worse so stopped "Current" Barry making the same mistake
Couldn't disagree more. I thought it was terrible.
They'll have a Barry/Iris romance season two for just long enough to bring Eddie back, now buffed with speedforce powers and probably under Eobard's tutelage, because paradox.
But yeah, you better believe I'll be back for season 2.
I wonder if we'll ever get to see any of that timeline, I'm curious what he did to so enrage Eobard!
And... and... it looks like we're getting an Evil Willow version of Caitlin.
and btw: the above "he had time to whisk her to hospital", yup I'm with you there. So DrWells just injured her, it was Barry's decision not to whisk her that got her killed.
I knew from day one that Eddie would sacrifice himself, knowing he had to be preserved to keep Reverse Flash alive. If at any point the Reverse Flash overcame The Flash, Eddie would kill himself. I just hope when he comes back to life, he can become a fully realised character with his impunity.
A little bit off topic. Why do The Flash team makes stupid deals with criminals? Snark (more than one agreement made no logical sense). This one with Eobard? He had already told them what Barry must do, but still helped him return home. Yes, they want to get rid of him, but killing him or neutralising him would've been better. He would've gone to the future and come back in an instance with the same agenda.
Still not a fan of time travel unless it's the sort that can't be avoided, it makes it too easy to wipe whole plots clean.
If it does stick though, then Wells will still be alive but one issue is that if Eddie died, and RF was wiped off the face of the earth....Why could Barry still be the Flash? He ws only the Flash because Eobard built the accellerator early. When he was wiped out, the entire building, the Flash suit, and evryone else should have all vanished because they would never have come together in 2015. The only reason they did was because of Eobard doing his thing and everyone would have been sucked into the Black Hole, which I do believe would still have happened because it would transcend Time and Space and would be the inevitable consequence for the wiping out of Eobard. The only diference is nobody would know about it and everyone would be sucked into it thinking it just appeared for no reason.
Anyway. What about Caitlin not knowing what a Singularity was eh? I mean if Joe or Iris or Eddie asked it I would understand but Barry, Ronnie, Caitlin, Cisco, the professor are all students of Science and worked at STAR Labs. They would all know what it was because the result of the particle accellerator is to possibly create one, they're so small though it does no good but still I'm sure they would all know about them, it's high school physics after all. That was an "....Eh?" moment.
Oh and who does Cisco become? I take it he must be some sort of psychic, a soothsayer or whatever who can see the future/alternate realities? Anyone know if he is an actual person or if this is all show content?
Couldn't agree more, I was absolutely blown away by the finale and what a cliff hanger they left open for Season Two.
Really wasn't expecting Eddie to make that decision but I did love that he took Stein's words to heart and decided he wasn't going to give in to the pronouncement that his life with Iris was over just because of the newspaper article byline.
Loved the wee Easter Egg mentions of Douglas Adam's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, to Cisco's possible future as Vibe, albeit with a seemingly different super power, to Caitlin's Killer Frost alternative persona and to the forthcoming Legends of Tomorrow's Rip Hunter.
Reverse Flash is just awesome, he is without doubt, one of my all time favourite TV villains and I seriously hope they find some way of keeping Tom Cavanagh on the show for Season Two (hopefully we do have some sort of time travel and Barry is able to "save" Dr Wells.
After all, if Eddie removed Eobard's existence by ending his life in the "existing" time line, then surely there are knock on effects which go into the future to alter the fact that Reverse Flash never existed, therefore he never came back to try to kill Barry/killed his mum so never got stuck in the past and had to kill Wells to bring the particle accelerator project forward etc!
Argh the potential for time travelling paradoxes are endless, one of the things which blows my mind and has the ability to make me cry all at once
I loved how emotional the whole finale was as well, it was beautifully played and acted by all involved.