The Flash experiences a high-speed reversal of fortune as “Armageddon” continues
Eobard Thawne, Damien Darhk, and Batwoman all drop in on “Armageddon, Part 4”
TV Reviews The Flash
After three episodes of throat-clearing, “Armageddon” finally achieves the giddy velocity of the best crossover episodes, at least in spurts. It’s enough to make one wonder why season eight and this five-part event didn’t start here: with Barry learning the timeline has been altered, resulting in Eobard Thawne taking his place as both the Flash and the love of Iris’s life. All of the preamble with Despero these past few weeks feels like a waste of time that could have been used to better effect. And given what’s revealed tonight, it doesn’t seem to make much sense.
Why would Despero come back to 2021 looking for the Flash when, from the point of view of everyone in 2031, it’s the Reverse-Flash bringing about Armageddon? Despero’s whole story about the Flash going mad doesn’t fit in with what we find in this altered timeline, where the Eobard Flash is still known as a hero. I know, I know, it’s pointless to try to find logic in multiple-timeline scenarios like this, but all the time manipulation stuff feels off here. Thawne killed Barry as a child, but it doesn’t really count until midnight when the timeline solidifies? That’s convenient!
If you’re able to put all that out of mind, there’s fun to be had here. We pick up at the 2031 celebration of the impending Thawne/West nuptials. (There’s no mention of it here, but Iris was once romantically involved with Eobard’s distant ancestor Eddie, so it’s not entirely improbable that she’d be attracted to a Thawne…even if it is unsettling to witness.) An expanded version of Team Flash is in attendance, including Ryan Wilder/Batwoman (Javica Leslie), Alex Danvers/Sentinel (Chyler Leigh), and Ryan Choi (Osric Chau), revealed tonight as the new Atom (with a costume much closer to its comic book origins than the Ray Palmer super-suit). When Barry crashes the party, they recognize him as the Reverse-Flash, and a battle ensues.
Barry learns that he wasn’t going crazy after all. It was Thawne who attacked City Hall in his Flash guise. He was also responsible for Joe’s accident, removing him from this revised timeline. And he went all the way back to the 2013 birth of the Flash to ensure he would be the one struck by lightning (which raises the question of who was Harrison Wells in this version of reality, and how the particle accelerator exploded if it wasn’t Thawne, and…I said I wasn’t going to do this).
Barry’s only hope is to enlist Damien Darhk to his cause, which he does by at first playing along with being the Reverse-Flash and then revealing the truth about the timeline disruption, which resulted in the death of Darhk’s daughter Nora. Darkh has his time stone and a gizmo called the PED, the combined forces of which will erase the anachronisms if Barry can get up enough speed to break the time barrier. Doing so will cause earthquakes, tidal waves, volcanoes…you know, Armageddon. But if he succeeds, that won’t matter because this future won’t ever have happened.
The biggest problem with this altered timeline is that we don’t get to spend enough time in it. There’s a scene at STAR Labs where Thawne is struggling to play the good guy, but it’s also clear that his leadership style is far more decisive than Barry’s. It might have been fun to play this out a little more and get into the dynamics of this version of Team Flash, but instead many precious minutes are devoted to pushing Chester and Allegra toward the romance the regular timeline has been hinting at since last season. Why should we care if this soon-to-be-nonexistent version of them gets together? And was anyone dying to hear Ryan Choi’s real thoughts on love? We barely know this guy.
As we know (and the show won’t let us forget), Barry Allen is the real Paragon of Love, and he proves it again by convincing future alt-Iris that she loves him, not Thawne. Back in 2021, almost all of Team Flash is dead and Despero is about to finish off Cecile when Barry arrives with the timeline-healing energy. The story doesn’t end here, however, as Thawne pursues Barry through time and is determined to mess it up again with Gideon’s help. “Armageddon” has one chapter to go, but this installment gives us a pretty good idea of what it should have looked like all along.
Stray observations
- Did I mention that Chillblaine is Frost’s boyfriend in this reality, and also part of Team Flash? I think Darhk got it right when he called him Chill-lame.
- Joe is alive again and Barry talks to him on the phone, but Jesse L. Martin still doesn’t make an appearance. He must have negotiated quite a contract for this season.
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I absolutely adore that it was Legends most, well, legendary storyline that turned the tide for Barry. Beebo bless Damian Dahrk. Honestly it justifies the entire exercise. It would’ve been fun to have spent a little more time with the altered future, but I suppose actor availability played a role there.And I’m just going to chalk up Ryan Choi’s whole deal to Thawne’s time shenanigans. Dude had a wife and kid during Crisis!
I was also wondering for a second why Alex was lecturing Ryan of all people, but then came around to this being another effect of Thawne’s whammy.
– God, that opening scene was so freaking perfect. Loved every second of it. – During the initial fight, they made this big deal of Batwoman leaping in the air and surprising Barry, but it was for an ordinary punch instead of some kind of shock punch or something, which felt anticlimactic. – Speaking of Ryan, I don’t understand why the Arrowverse is so hard up to pair her with Sophie. Also, was the “Lady in Red” a reference to Red Claw?- Fake Evil Barry was wonderful. Every scene he had with Darhk was great.- Good thing Damien didn’t see that Nora would spend the rest of her life as a Fairy Godmother or be married to Ray. Not sure he’d be so willing to help if he knew that. – I found it odd that nobody from Arrow was even referenced. I get not appearing in the episode, but not even a throwaway line about Diggle?- The biggest negative was Allegra/Chester. I imagine a scenario where Allegra wakes up alone in bed one day and declares her latest relationship over because the boyfriend was in the bathroom when she woke up.- Another negative is the writing of the time jump. The way everyone was written, it feels like it’s only 2 or 3 years in the future, not 10. You’re telling me Allegra and Chester spent an entire decade and didn’t even attempt to see other people after breaking up? – Not letting us see Jesse Martin was cruel.- “And was anyone dying to hear Ryan Choi’s real thoughts on love? We barely know this guy.” Actually, it was important because that was another future changed. IIRC in Crisis, the whole reason Choi didn’t want to join up was because he didn’t want to risk his wife and child or being separated from them. This episode implied that in the Bad Future, Ryan never got married or had a kid.
I prefer matching Ryan with Imani (https://arrow.fandom.com/wiki/Imani_(Gotham_City) to WildMoore.Batwoman’s “lady in red” is a speedster, so I’m thinking an evil Jesse Quick or a female Red Death.
“- During the initial fight, they made this big deal of Batwoman leaping in the air and surprising Barry, but it was for an ordinary punch instead of some kind of shock punch or something, which felt anticlimactic.”I was legit expecting a cock punch. I was so disappointed.
During the initial fight, they made this big deal of Batwoman leaping in the air and surprising Barry, but it was for an ordinary punch instead of some kind of shock punch or something, which felt anticlimactic.
And really Barry should’ve complained “THAT’S NOT EVEN KATE!” at somebody about this, too.
Yeah, I wanted at last a throwaway line of him saying “Wait, you’re not Batwoman, where’s Kate?”Did Barry even learn that Kate was Batwoman, or did on Kara learn that? The Kara/Kate friendship was one of the best things to come out of Crisis and one of the biggest losses that came out of Ruby Rose quitting the show.
One of the main things that The Flash is based on is Barry and Iris’ relationship. That’s great, but after six seasons they’ve done most of the mining that they can on it. Now they’re trying to replicate it to bring in new opportunities for storylines, and that’s not great. Chester and Allegra don’t have that spark that Barry and Iris do. You can’t lean into them and expect the audience to latch onto it. And Frost and Chillblaine is just terrible in a way that needs to be killed with fire. The only solace I can hopefully draw is that these occured in the darkest timeline.
PS – Choi looks good in that Atom suit.
Future Thawne-as-Barry put together a hell of a cool team. Well, except for Chillblaine. It would have been really gratifying if future Damian Darhk had murdered him I wonder if Iris knew Barry was telling the truth because her love transcends timelines, or just because Thawne is too much of a sadistic jerk to pull off being a hero convincingly
Cavanagh looks great in that Flash suit.Yeah, there’s multitude of ways to do this storyline waaay better without changing much of the show’s DNA, but that’s always the case with the Flash: Wasted potential.
“[Thawne’s] leadership style is far more decisive than Barry’s.”How interesting. Care to elaborate, Scott?I wonder what’s in store next? Thawne lying to Mia Queen about how Barry Allen “betrayed and murdered [her] father”? It’d make a lot of sense for her to fight alongside him in the beginning.
This show needs to stop with all of the scenes of characters lecturing other characters about love. First you have Ryan Choi, who is barely an established character in the Arrowverse yet talks as if we’ve known him for years. Then you have Dahrk who does the quickest about-face from villainy to encouraging pal ever.I do like Dahrk in any capacity though.
In Dahrk’s case it makes sense, though; his great vulnerability has always been his devotion to Nora. And unlike 90 percent of the characters in this universe, he’s always been self-aware of who and what he is.
-the whole Ryan/Sophie thing seems like a huge commitment/tease to make for Batwoman?-Was going to assume the Legends don’t crossover on-screen because they sent whoever is Very Occupy-ing the bathroom until we got to the “that was for Ray, and Nate, and for Sara.” Ouch.-DAMN Alex on Osric. Absolutely savage. many precious minutes are devoted to pushing Chester and Allegra toward the romance the regular timeline has been hinting at since last season. Why should we care if this soon-to-be-nonexistent version of them gets together?Felt this. Maybe if these two idiots can’t talk about their feelings and misunderstandings they shouldn’t be together?-I felt like it clicked when Darhk agreed to turn good to save Nora because I’d had a minor “wait, what?” earlier when they mentioned Darhk worked with the Flash to kill Ray Palmer, last seen at a detente with Darhk for Nora’s sake.
“-the whole Ryan/Sophie thing seems like a huge commitment/tease to make for Batwoman?”It does but technically its an alternate future that has already been erased so they don’t have to follow through on it if that pairing doesn’t work out. Alex was too invested in everyone finding love like she did. The opening fight with Barry, Alex and Ryan was fun. That was a better Alex action scene than anything in the final season of Supergirl.
sure, but how cheated are fans going to feel if they don’t end up there?she’s definitely over-invested, but Alex is all about processing your feelings, even at inappropriate times, so I was amused anyway.the fight scenes from the last season of Supergirl were not much competition, sadly.
Yes, that was a big improvement over Alex getting beaten up by garbage monsters and poorly rendered CGI magical cats. I am watching only for Alex, having never watched any non-crossover eps of The Flash, and finally we get some action and even get to see her deploying her (presumably future-enhanced) Hand of the Soldier. Didn’t think much of her scenes as a love therapist, though.
The Ryan/Sophie thing had me thinking that of course they’re going to adopt. And they’re going to find a kid whose parents were murdered and bingo! new Robin. I mean, what else would they do?
I’ve only watched Batwoman off and on, but has there been any mention at all of Dick Grayson or any of the other (more-or-less canonical) Robins? I can’t recall for sure but I don’t think there was in any of the episodes I did watch. But presumably they want to adopt, a, you know, baby? Thought Ryan was implying they want an infant but neither has time for a pregnancy.
There may have been a flash of a Robin suit in the cave, but I don’t recall. Ryan wasn’t adopted as an infant, and she said she wanted to help save a child like her, so I think they decided on an older child.
Oh, I missed that part; thanks!
I believe there was a reference to Barbara Gordon in Season 1 and Alfred was mentioned as retired, but that’s it. Stephanie Brown was introduced last season and was never Batgirl in any capacity yet.
I will say this for Chillblaine: He kickpunches, which is uncommon in men for cape stories. Women are almost exclusively trained to fight with their legs, but men, not so much. So I do appreciate that, as well as his time working out. He’s not even that bad of an actor. It’s just… the character feels like a bad magician than a real human.
Look, I’ll never complain about Tom Cavanagh showing up. S2 Harry is always and forever my fave character on this dumb show. But do the writers remember that that’s not actually what Eobard Thawne looks like? Eobard Thawne-who-looks-like-himself is Matt Letscher. There’s no reason for this Thawne to look like Harrison Wells, who looks like Tom Cavanagh.Darhk was great, though. Darhk’s always great.
I like Cavanagh as HW too, but also Letscher is a much more entertaining Thawne. Wish they’d bring him back in the role more often than Cavanagh.
Ditto. Letscher nails Thawne’s arrogance and pettiness in a way Cavanagh never has. Also he looks just like Thawne and doesn’t whisper talk all the time.
By and large it probably comes down to actor availability. Certainly when Cavanagh was still a part of the main cast it was both easier logistically and cheaper to have him play Thawne. The same is probably true for Armageddon. Plus, I think Cavanagh’s Thawne has more creepy menace than Letscher’s.
There’s a great reason why he looks like Harrison Wells in this timeline: because the Flash finds it creepy! He’s been wearing Wells’ face for twenty years just so that when Flash turned up, he’d be weirded out. Whereas using his own face wouldn’t have much emotional weight, since the Flash doesn’t have any associations with it, good or bad. If you just assume that messing with the Flash’s head is the whole point of everything Thawne does, it kind of makes sense……it’s just unfortunate that it completely messes up the plot as well. Because it means that there’s a ‘Thawne’ and a ‘Wells’ in this timeline who look identical for no reason. And Iris having been attracted to another Thawne would fit better if this Thawne looked like Letscher (theoretically the face of a man related to the man she was engaged to) than if he looked like Wells (an unrelated guy who is much, much, much older than her).
But since this entire episode MADE NO FUCKING SENSE anyway, I guess it doesn’t really matter…[while on the topic of RF’s appearance: wow, I know Cavanaugh is a few years older now, but it’s almost shocking how much pathetically goofier RF looks in his suit now compared to how he looked in S1. I have to think that’s more on the show than on Cavanaugh! In general, if you’re putting a middle-aged man in a neon leather catsuit and hoping they will look menacing, it’s best NOT to do it in HD in a well-lit room. There’s a reason the original RF was mostly shot at night or in shadowy rooms, with his face blurred…]
I don’t think Letscher’s face is Canon anymore. Didn’t they so something so that Wells’ face became Canon during the Exorsism of Eobard Thawn episode of the show? Also, if you had another face on for 15 years, longer in fact, wouldn’t you prefer using that one eventually? I miss Leitscher, I do, but there’s another thing they should have done that they never did: young Eobard’s origin story. I would have liked to have seen that
“Darhk was great, though. Darhk’s always great.”Darhk is always welcome to the table. Not enough time for McDonough to properly chew scenery, mind you, but the man knows how to make the most of his minutes.
The villain doesn’t always have to be blonde. This isn’t Lifetime.
LOVE!!!!
I appreciate the extra touch that they replaced Barry’s face with Thawne’s in the opening. I love when shows mix up their openings for special episodes.
I didn’t catch that on first watch, as I usually zone out during the titles. It was Chester having the dreadlocks during his segment that made me realize “Oh, maybe they changed the titles” and rewatch them. Nicely done, show.
I appreciate that they’re trying to do an event limited to only one show but these guest appearances have been so inconsequential I feel like the show could cut them out entirely and save a lot of time. In fact I feel like if you only did the main plot (which has been the only good part of this thing) of “Is Barry crazy? Will he destroy the earth?” with Barry, Iris, Despero, and maybe Cecile* you could cut the run time of this event in half at least.*Team Flash can still be there but only in a strictly support purpose, not in a “B-plots for Chester and Allegra” way.
Much like abridged “Flashpoint” & “Doomworld,” it’s more efficient that they didn’t devote multiple episodes to this Reverse-Flashpoint. Dragging it out would’ve opened up even more paradox plot holes. Just giving us the juicy highlights was more effective. It also avoids viewers once again deciding Eobard screwed things up for the better.
This crossover features twice the guest Ryans at no additional cost!
Why didn’t Sentinel & Batwoman bring their wives to the West-Thawne wedding? Why did Eobard wait so long to put a ring on Iris?
Why did Barry not have the same memory of Joe dying as everyone else did?
Why does Barry need to run around the whole world to time travel instead of doing laps inside STAR Labs?
Since they’ve mentioned Despero has quadruple lobes, are they going to replicate Connor Hawke & Ray Palmer vs. Darkseid from “Rock Of Ages” but with Mia Queen & Ryan Choi vs. Despero?
The show has multiple Noras, now including Damian’s daughter Nora being a key plot element in the show. Why not two Ryans too I guess
“Why does Barry need to run around the whole world to time travel instead of doing laps inside STAR Labs?”Considering this version of Team Flash is stationed at STAR Labs, probably not a good idea for Barry to do his running there.
But they have that track within the pipeline that he’d used for time travel running before.
CW Announcer: “The Flash is pressed to the wall as he struggles to find out who….”Every Flash fan in every universe everywhere: “It was Thawne.”CW Announcer: “Ah, well…..er……”
I thoroughly enjoyed this episode! The opening scene felt like a Silver Age comic cover come to life. The entire plot was nonsense, but it was the brand of nonsense I embrace, full of handwavium devices, dubious time-travel logic and hero/villain team-ups.- I grinned every time Iris talked about how much she loved “Eobard.” Here we are in 2021, and this is a real-life TV actor having a sincere, emotional scene about a guy with a goofy ‘60s “future” name. And really, that should have been Iris’ first clue that something was amiss: her fiancé is named Eobard.- Kept waiting for Alex to drop the name “Maggie” when talking about her wife in the altered timeline.
– God, I love Damien Darhk. Neil McDonough is a delight, and Darhk himself is right next to Thawne and Snart in the pantheon of Arrowverse villains.- What was up with that scene of Despero having killed Team Flash? That obviously wasn’t part of Thawne’s temporal alterations, so why was it undone when Flash returned to 2021?- Thawne did the one thing that Barry can’t or won’t: repaired S.T.A.R. Labs. That has been bugging the hell out of me for the past eight years. At least fix the holes in the roof, Allen.
“God, I love Damien Darhk. Neil McDonough is a delight, and Darhk himself is right next to Thawne and Snart in the pantheon of Arrowverse villains.”True. Someone should put the three of them together in some sort of villain super-group in a multi-episode arc.
“It might have been fun to play this out a little more and get into the dynamics of this version of Team Flash, but instead many precious minutes are devoted to pushing Chester and Allegra toward the romance the regular timeline has been hinting at since last season. Why should we care if this soon-to-be-nonexistent version of them gets together? And was anyone dying to hear Ryan Choi’s real thoughts on love? We barely know this guy.”Totally agree with this, this whole subplot was awful and I didn’t need to hear Ryan Choi’s feeling about it or even Alex’s annoying Love is love and we all need Love part. That all felt so force fed.And yes Barry and Iris went on to show the real “why love will help save them all” and that felt more in place with the show.
I liked this part way more than the other 3 as well and as always Thawne and Darhk make any episode they are in way cooler!
As someone whose DC Universe was back in the sixties, it was great to see Ryan Choi’s Atom suit. It really brought me back. And for the craziness of this episode, I was also reminded of the old “imaginary” stories from that time where crazy things happened like Superman and Lois are married and have kids. Certainly not an issue now. With that in mind, I overlooked most of the problems in this episode.
“Thawne killed Barry as a child, but it doesn’t really count until midnight when the timeline solidifies?”This needs to be stared at in disbelief a lot more. Barry was killed as a child, BUT ALSO has become the Reverse-Flash and is known to everyone as Barry Allen? This reads like an AI from 1990 wrote it; it’s syntactically correct but self-contradictory at the most obvious level.(By the way, is the JavaScript on this page broken? I can’t access the italic-selector, and there’s a “show more comments” button that is live but does nothing.)
I think it’s implied that Thawne went back multiple times and caused some sort of ripple effect, but as is usually the case with this show, they don’t bother to actually explain anything, leaving us to speculate. With that said “Barry disappearing at midnight” thing I think I get. Seemed like a Back To the Future homage – that got smushed in with about 5 other ideas.
The episode said that Thawne had gone back in time multiple times, causing multiple anachronisms. He caused himself to be hit by lightning, Iris fell in love with him, he became the Flash, Barry became the Reverse-Flash, etc.But the last (and most recent) change he made was to kill Barry as a child. It made it sound like Thawne had *just* made this change like 5 minutes before Barry showed up in 2031, which is why the timeline hadn’t been changed with Barry’s death yet.
Thawne may be evil, but I never thought he was a monster until he put Mark on the team.
B+? I am usually more generous, but the ridiculous and boring personal drama on this episode was a huge drag.
Especially because this was an alternate timeline, so none of it even mattered.
It’s still valid character development to know that Chester and Allegra do actually love each other. That’s a kind of dramatic irony – we, as watchers, know more about the characters than the characters themselves do, because we have the pseudo-omniscient point of view and aren’t constrained by what’s observable to them.
I was really hoping Damian would kill Chillblaine during that fight. Come on, guys, it’s an alternate timeline, you’re allowed to do whatever you want! Just throw us a bone!
Man Chillblaine is so lame and corny lmao
Things that happened/were different in this alternate timeline:
– Ryan marries Sophie, and they’re ready to adopt.
– Alex is still married to Kelly (not that surprising but I expected her to mention that she was a widower or divorced, just for shock value).
– Ray, Nate and Sara were all killed by the “Reverse Flash”.
– Ryan fought some sort of speedster in her Batwoman adventures (the Lady in Red).
– Cisco is dead.
– Frost and ChillBlaine (sorry, ChillLame) are an item.
– Constantine is still alive, as he gave some magic help to Frost/ChillLame.
– Ryan and Iris are BFFs, and I kind of like it. Makes me sad that this relationship wasn’t a thing in the normal timeline – this feels like it would replace the Kara/Kate friendship that Crisis did so well.
Barry was surprisingly good ag playing the evil Reverse Flash around Damian.