‘The Flash’ Season 2 Finale Ending Meaning: Barry Allen changes [spoiler], meets the real Jay Garrick (Review)
Original air date: May 24 on The CW
“The Flash” Season 2, Episode 23 (“Race of His Life”) aired May 24 on The CW, ending the show’s sophomore year with a shocking twist. Barry Allen (Grant Gustin) changes everything, leaving the audience shocked by possible scenarios in Season 3. Meanwhile, the real Jay Garrick is revealed to be from Earth-3, and he has not met his Earth-1 doppelganger.
Spoiler alert: This review contains “The Flash” Season 2 finale spoilers. The Flash 2x23 ends on a big twist. See Grant Gustin’s reaction below.
In the “The Flash” Season 2 finale, Hunter Zolomon a.k.a. Zoom (Teddy Sears) challenges Barry to a big race. Earth-2 Harry Wells (Tom Cavanagh) explains Zoom wants to power Mercury Labs’ Magnetar with the energies of both Barry and Zoom. It would then weaponise the machine like a pulsar that can destroy countless worlds in the multiverse.
What are the dementors doing in “The Flash” Season 2?
Joe (Jesse L. Martin) tries to help stop Barry, but he gets abducted by Zoom, raising the stakes for Barry, who has just buried his father Henry (John Wesley Shipp). Barry eventually gets into the race with Zoom, creating a time remnant or clone, who then saved Joe and died offsetting the pulsar’s power while “the original” Barry beats Zoom to a pulp.
Barry stops moments before actually killing Zoom, who mocks him for being unable to kill. “I don’t have to,” says Barry. Then the Speed Force dementors swoop in to take Zoom. (Time Wraiths, or dementors as far as Cisco is concerned, suck the life out of speedsters who mess up through time travel.)
R.I.P. Dr Henry Allen, welcome to S.T.A.R. Labs, real Jay Garrick!
Soon after dealing with Zoom, Barry makes good with his promise to save the man in the iron mask in Zoom’s Earth-2 prison. The team takes him to S.T.A.R. Labs, removes his helmet and finds out that Henry Allen’s doppelganger is the masked man, who is apparently from Earth-3. He says he is the real Jay Garrick, who happens to be another Flash in the DC Comics Universe.
Jay Garrick, Harry Wells and daughter Jesse (Violet Beane) travel to Earth-2 with the help of Cisco’s (Carlos Valdes) Vibe. They exchange farewells, but the ending suggests they could all interact again in “The Flash” Season 3.
Barry Allen saves mom, changes everything in the first two seasons of the show!
In “The Flash” Season 2 finale ending, Barry decides to travel back in time to stop Eobard Thawne a.k.a. Reverse Flash from killing his mother. He succeeds this time but quickly sees another version of him literally erased in the same house. He may have just changed altered everything that happened in the series from pilot episode. (This probably means Barry ‘erased’ his friendships with Green Arrow, Supergirl and many others.)
DC fans are wondering whether “The Flash” Season 3 would be the TV version of “Flashpoint” the five-issue miniseries written by Geoff Johns, with art work by Andy Kubert. Comicbook.com has the highlights here.
In a lot of ways, "The Flash" Season 2 in its entirety delivered a lot of amazing things to its audience - DC Comics readers, casual TV viewers, and others. However, its ending suggests everything will change and the narrative will be more complex than ever. There is a lot of good in using time travel as a story element, but at some point too much of it could be bad. This finale is more disturbing than sad or exciting.
‘The Flash’ Season 3: What happens next?
There are no spoilers at the moment, but “The Flash” Season 3 could have the real Harrison Wells, still played by Tom Cavanagh. Barry West (Keiynan Lonsdale) could still be in the show but under different circumstances. Ronnie (Robbie Amell) and Caitlin (Danielle Panabaker) could be married. Cisco could still be exactly the same nice guy, without his Vibe powers. In the next few weeks, more clues are expected to form as casting and filming for the third season rolls out.
‘The Flash’ Season 2 Finale: Grant Gustin tweets Barry Allen reaction (shakin’ my head) Barry, man.. Smh.
“The Flash” Season 2 finale is the 46th episode of The CW series with characters from the DC Comics Universe.
