Posted in: Movies, TV | Tagged: barry allen, Cisco Ramon, cw, entertainment, flashpoint, Paradox, television, The Flash

Setting Up The Flash To Move Forward

This article contains spoilers for The Flash episode 302- Paradox

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I'm starting to think that the producers of The Flash may have decided to use Flashpoint in almost the same way that DC used it. Not just to create a slightly different timeline, but a chance to fix decisions they've made over the last three to five years. Tonight's episode was less about introducing the villains or setting up the new reality as it was about tweaking things. I'll give some examples.

The idea of all of the villains being held in an un-authorized containment facility inside of STAR Labs. Besides that being highly illegal, it's also a really bad idea and seemed like an obvious set up for a very bad breakout day in the future. But Flashpoint changed that by having the metas being held in a special prison run by the correctional department. No more having to wonder who feeds the prisoners and how do they go to the bathroom.

Folks want to see Cisco Ramon become Vibe and Caitlin Snow to become Killer Frost. Flashpoint fixed that as now Cisco can channel his vibrations through his gauntlets and we see Caitlin chilling out at the end. And what about the future Green Arrow we saw on Legends of Tomorrow? John Diggle Jr. / Connor Hawke… Flashpoint did a gender swap on Diggle's baby. Which works out okay since she was named Sarah after Sarah Lance was killed, but they brought her back so touching name tribute was no longer needed.

But the biggest fix that Flashpoint did was the overuse of time travel to fix things. When Jay Garrick pulls Barry Allen out of the speed force and confronts him about using time travel to undue things too much. It takes that option off the table. Which is good, because I think fans were starting to get alternate reality fatigue. Hopefully this is the universe going forward.

Plus you have to wonder just what other little tweaks we have yet to see.

Outside of the changes, we gained two new characters: Doctor Alchemy and Julian Albert. Alchemy is aware of who had powers in the other reality… which might be how this Wally West gets sped up… but we really didn't see that many other people have powers in the other reality, so who the three other husks belong to could be interesting. And with the animosity already there between Albert and Allen, he's going to be a lot of people's favorite candidate for being Alchemy.

Overall, I liked this episode a lot better than the season premiere. It still had some darker moments and tones, but it wasn't as campy as Flashpoint and it wasn't as oppressive as season two. I'm looking forward to the next episode…

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