So, what does Eobard Thawne have to do with this episode? Timeline shenanigans, that’s what.
See, last week dropped the fact that he shows up despite being very dead on us. And, yes, he is still alive… technically. As it gets explained later in the episode, by Harry, no less, Thawne returning to this period of time on his way to killing Barry’s mom is something of a fixed point. Even though Eddie killing himself unmade Eobard, he’s still technically here because time travel fucks everything up every time and unmaking Eobard somehow doesn’t stop him from existing in what is technically his past so that he can still go back and kill Barry’s mom thus screwing the timeline in exactly the way it’s been screwed. Because bad guys are allowed to screw up the timeline but good guys can’t fix it without fucking things up further. Which I guess technically makes Rip Hunter a bad guy, maybe… I don’t know. But Nora Allen always dies and Marty McFly always has to fend off the sexual advances of his mother. Time travel fucking sucks ass, the end.
Anyway, Francine is dying from McGregor’s syndrome. Joe’s made his peace with this, and he wants Iris to do the same. When she goes to see Francine, she tells her that despite feeling abandoned for so long, she still sad that her mother is dying. She also mentions that it all just makes her wonder how different her life would’ve been with her mother and brother in it.
Wally, on the other hand is still being kind of a shit about things. He’s out racing to pay his mother’s hospital bills, yet still needs to be reminded that she’s on the brink of death. Ergo, that shit can wait since there’s something more time sensitive going down.Either way, Wally listens and goes to see his mom.
Also, Patty figures out that Barry is The Flash. It’s not really that much of a surprise, really. After all, she did make detective in practically record time.She managed to put two and two together from his reports, which were far more detailed than they should be, and even puts Joe on the hot seat. She confronts Barry about it, too, but he does his usual deflection; unconvincingly, and more so in this instance. She confirms it by tricking him into believing there’s some trouble on her train and he shows up in costume.
Also, we get a little bit with Caitlin trying to find Jay’s Earth-1 counterpart to possibly save his life. Se’s also quite sick of his defeatist attitude. He reveals that he’d already found his Earth-1 counterpart. It turns out that his parents died very early on, and he was adopted under the name Hunter Zolomon, which probably tips a hat or two to anyone in the know. Ultimately, simply replacing Jay’s cells won’t work; the only way to save him is to get his speed back.
In other news, they figure out Zoom is back because he has no fucking self control or tact. He almost immediately kidnaps Dr. McGee from Mercury Labs, and Cisco just happened to be trying to learn to use his powers at that time. Barry fails to stop him and they reach an impasse, as they have no leads as to where he is. Cisco decides that now is an excellent time to learn how to use his powers, and Harry decides to help him. By scaring the shit out of him. In the Reverse-Flash suit they have lying around.
See, Harry figured out that his powers are only triggered by fear. So Harry reworks the sleep goggles from way back to help tap into the part of his brain that controls his fear response and help him see his vibe at will. Unfortunately, he sees Eobard getting what he wants and killing Dr. McGee after she makes his time bridge thing work. But it turns out that Cisco was actually seeing the future, and they track them down, with Barry delivering a beatdown to the yellow bastard.
Unfortunately, since the series of events that are required for Cisco to have his powers involves Eobard’s return to his own time, Cisco starts to go out of phase as he is slowly wiped from existence. And since Barry destroyed the tachyon device that powered Eobard’s time hole there’s only one option left; Barry has to literally fling The Reverse-Flash back to the future.
Final Thoughts
– Eobard Thawne, in addition to having a name spell check hates, also seems to have a stupid reason to hate Barry.
– Time travel can suck it; it’s not worth this.
– This is, like, the first time they’ve accessed the time vault this season, and I have no clue exactly why it took this long.
– I almost forgot to mention that Turtle is straight up dead thanks to what Harry did last week, and no one was happy about that.
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