[TV] The Flash!

[Jotaux]

You guys are really starting to hurt my head with this timeline stuff, do you really need to make it this difficult?

If you are going to do time travel set some rules down and follow them, even if the rules are anything could change. That's why I actually liked Jay's explanation about putting it back together. Even though hes kind of a dick to break that diner's cup...

[apepi]

It felt nice to have Wells back, I like him.

[Svifnymr]

I think that the speed force insulates him. In the flashpoint timeline he never got those powers and only had residual speed force in him.

This is what I think, yeah. When he has Flash powers he remembers timelines other than the current. When in that timeline he was not the Flash, he only had residual energy to insulate him and his memories were being replaced as he wore out the "insulation".

[Svifnymr]

The longer he stayed in that reality the more it became set. If he had stayed too long there would have been no going back. He "fixed" it before it could get that far though. I'm not sure he was wearing out any insulation.

He didn't lose memories or "set" reality based on time there, but on amount of time spent using speedforce. In that reality, he had not actually become the Flash or gained any powers, hence the "using up".

[CR77]

Flashpoint was a huge change, thus a completely different life would end up replacing the one that Barry knew. This is just a few subtle changes here and there, like last season when Hartley became a good guy, Barry may eventually have these memories flood back to him but it wouldn't be in a debilitating way.

[Svifnymr]

Flashpoint was a huge change, thus a completely different life would end up replacing the one that Barry knew. This is just a few subtle changes here and there, like last season when Hartley became a good guy, Barry may eventually have these memories flood back to him but it wouldn't be in a debilitating way.

truthfully I doubt there's specific recorded rules for the shows time travel, so we're probably all just making things up to fill in the gaps.

But even in that example, we never see Barry's memory adjusting to encompass the changes during the year that resulted in Hartley being a good guy. While we're confronted with changes that Flashpoint wrought, we've yet to see him remember any of the changes. The initial 1 day-back jump he did, he never lost memories of the alternate timeline, but of course he lived the days over, so who knows.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

truthfully I doubt there's specific recorded rules for the shows time travel, so we're probably all just making things up to fill in the gaps.

But even in that example, we never see Barry's memory adjusting to encompass the changes during the year that resulted in Hartley being a good guy. While we're confronted with changes that Flashpoint wrought, we've yet to see him remember any of the changes. The initial 1 day-back jump he did, he never lost memories of the alternate timeline, but of course he lived the days over, so who knows.

Probably because the Hartley change wasn't so significant.

[SavoirFaire]

On the broader subject of the jumps, for someone who got stalled on season 1, what was the out of show purpose to messing with the timeline? Was it just to add some strife to Barry's life? Did he just have it too good at the end of S2 so there had to be a change, or had all the s1/s2 plot threads played out so they had to make new ones with the existing cast (ala when a show does a 5 year jump and you wonder "what happened to everyone")?

I do enjoy the time travel discussions, but my bigger question is "why did the writers do it?".

[Aeluron Lightsong]

He had just lost his father to Zoom and he couldn't handle the grief and felt lost of sorts. He decided to prevent the killing of his mother so he could see her and his dad back. It's not so much he had it so good, he felt screwed over. Which is not false but he has to realize, everyone else has to deal with reality and they can't just decide to fix things.

If the writers wanted anything, it was they wanted to do Flashpoint(I remember Grant saying he wanted to do that storyline also).

[Khime]

On the broader subject of the jumps, for someone who got stalled on season 1, what was the out of show purpose to messing with the timeline? Was it just to add some strife to Barry's life? Did he just have it too good at the end of S2 so there had to be a change, or had all the s1/s2 plot threads played out so they had to make new ones with the existing cast (ala when a show does a 5 year jump and you wonder "what happened to everyone")?

I do enjoy the time travel discussions, but my bigger question is "why did the writers do it?".

It's this season's plot device to get new metas. Season 1 had the particle accelerator, and Season 2 had the breachers from Earth-2. By Season 3, the particle accelerator accident is years in the past, so it's hard to justify why new metas resulting from that would a) still be showing up, but b) somehow not have shown up before now. While they can still find some reasons to fit them in (like Tar Pit in S2, and apparently Mirror Master in S3), they still needed a new general-purpose McGuffin to allow for a villain-of-the-week.

Hence the new episode intro: "After defeating Zoom and saving the multiverse, I ran back in time and created the alternate timeline, Flashpoint. I restored the timeline to how it was, only to find things weren't as I left them. I brought new threats to our world, and I'm the only one fast enough to stop them."

[RobertoCarlos]

It's this season's plot device to get new metas

This.

The flashpoint time change is in no way different from the end of season 1 and the Earth 2 portals. Instead of zoom sending metas to make Barry faster, its Alchemy creating metas who were in the alternate time line. As for what his motives are who knows.

Was another weak episode imo, nice to have Wells back but between Jessie/Wally/Barry there was waaaaay to much "Let me use my powers daddy, im not a little girl anymore" drama. Still waiting for a decent episode this season.

[Svifnymr]

Really I could tolerate Wells/ Kaitlin parts though it wasn't "needed" so much. For me, it was the Wally stuff that was just tedious. I mean, I can see they're setting it up for Wally and the alt timeline/ Alchemy, but Whiny Wally was irritating, trying to jumpstart powers by stepping in front of a car was bleh.

Magenta was decent enough I think, it was nice to see a villain that simply didn't appear and get killed off. I assume her name is just a spoof of Magneto...

[Kalcheus]

It's weird that they needed another excuse to bring new metas when last season Barry was explicitly told that there are probably more metas that are just hiding from you for now.

[Khime]

It's weird that they needed another excuse to bring new metas when last season Barry was explicitly told that there are probably more metas that are just hiding from you for now.

Well, that would preclude them from having certain mentalities of metas show up. For example, while I could imagine Frankie getting powers and not going public with them, I can't see someone with a personality like The Rival just deciding to 'hide' from Barry for two years. I think with Mirror Master/The Top, while they are particle accelerator metas, it'll turn out that they were more hiding from Captain Cold than Barry, and now feel safe to return now that he's apparently out of the picture.

Plus, except for the Eobard Thawne connection, the particle accelerator explosion wasn't Barry's fault. Since this whole season seems to be "reminding Barry of how badly he fucked up," we needed a new meta McGuffin that was also explicitly Barry's fault, so he could blame himself for every single new enemy.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Well, that would preclude them from having certain mentalities of metas show up. For example, while I could imagine Frankie getting powers and not going public with them, I can't see someone with a personality like The Rival just deciding to 'hide' from Barry for two years. I think with Mirror Master/The Top, while they are particle accelerator metas, it'll turn out that they were more hiding from Captain Cold than Barry, and now feel safe to return now that he's apparently out of the picture.

Plus, except for the Eobard Thawne connection, the particle accelerator explosion wasn't Barry's fault. Since this whole season seems to be "reminding Barry of how badly he fucked up," we needed a new meta McGuffin that was also explicitly Barry's fault, so he could blame himself for every single new enemy.

True but even then, Central City is pretty big, it's not crazy to think there are other meta humans out there affected and causing damage. I did like the magneta episode or rather how she handled killing her father at the end. That was kinda cool in my opinion.

[ravenmoon]

Flash is one of the nicest series this season.

[Svifnymr]

Plus, except for the Eobard Thawne connection, the particle accelerator explosion wasn't Barry's fault. Since this whole season seems to be "reminding Barry of how badly he fucked up," we needed a new meta McGuffin that was also explicitly Barry's fault, so he could blame himself for every single new enemy.

While I agree with you, I really don't like mopey Barry, so the idea of "make sure it's Barry's fault" is just meh to me. Flash would still be dashing around fighting them, and some psycho-killer should still give Barry plenty of motivation without it having to be personal.

[Immitis]

That's the thing, though - Barry changing the timeline for Earth-1, and then changing it again, had zero zip nada impact on Earth-2. How do we know this? Because Harry and and Jesse still remember the timeline as it was back in season 2! They didn't recognize the same changes Barry didn't recognize, like the speed track. They probably don't know who Julian is, because when they visited Earth-1 he wasn't Barry's lab roommate.

Speaking of Barry being surprised by changes, why isn't his memory of the Season 1/2 timeline being replaced with memories of the 'altered' timeline yet, or at least causing him to forget the 'original' version of events? Or is it only a Flashpoint event that makes you forget your past, and otherwise Barry can remember everything from before he changes the timeline and nothing from after?

Wonderfully inconsistent.

i assumed it was because while this timeline was different the differences werent big enough to rewrite barrys memories of the past timeline just like how barry remembers everyone dying from savage or the tsunami. big changes = big consequences that shift the whole universe around little changes = little consequences that slightly shift things but overall keep the picture the same

- - - Updated - - -

On the broader subject of the jumps, for someone who got stalled on season 1, what was the out of show purpose to messing with the timeline? Was it just to add some strife to Barry's life? Did he just have it too good at the end of S2 so there had to be a change, or had all the s1/s2 plot threads played out so they had to make new ones with the existing cast (ala when a show does a 5 year jump and you wonder "what happened to everyone")?

I do enjoy the time travel discussions, but my bigger question is "why did the writers do it?".

the reason barry changes time is because as soon as he defeats zoom he sees a man who has the exact same face as his father who zoom just killed. seeing jay, so soon after his dad died fucked barry up and he said fuck it and went back in time.

had jay garrick not looked like his dad he wouldnt have changed time. it was like the universe was slapping him in the face right after he saved it.

[Svifnymr]

i assumed it was because while this timeline was different the differences werent big enough to rewrite barrys memories of the past timeline just like how barry remembers everyone dying from savage or the tsunami. big changes = big consequences that shift the whole universe around little changes = little consequences that slightly shift things but overall keep the picture the same

Some of the changes also didn't involve Barry returning to the original timeline. Like the tsunami, he jumped back 1 day and replaced himself, but he did not then time travel back to 1 day later. He lived that 1 day.

Vs Flashpoint, he changed the past, then time traveled back to a future which had been changed.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Some of the changes also didn't involve Barry returning to the original timeline. Like the tsunami, he jumped back 1 day and replaced himself, but he did not then time travel back to 1 day later. He lived that 1 day.

Vs Flashpoint, he changed the past, then time traveled back to a future which had been changed.

Like he said, going back one day is probably irrelevent in the big scheme of things. Flashpoint affects his entire life and affects Joe West, Iris West etc etc and well every person Barry interacts with.