This Week’s ‘The Flash’ Was A Game Changer

Spoilers for The Flash Season 6, Episode 14 “The Death of the Speed Force” past this point.

The Flash has been on fire this season. From the emotional weight of the episodes airing before The CW’s massive “Crisis on Infinite Earths” crossover, which promised to pay off on the death of Barry Allen (Grant Gustin) that’s been teased since the very first episodes of the series; to the post-“Crisis” episodes that have relieved that weight once it was revealed Barry was going to survive, after all, The Flash is the best it’s been since easily Season 2, and maybe even Season 1 (one of my favorite seasons of television of all time). But even with that in mind, this week’s episode “The Death of the Speed Force” was a game changer, for multiple reasons.

Season 6 — or at least, the “third graphic novel,” which is how the staff has been referring to post-“Crisis” — has been packed with plots. Iris West (Candice Patton) has been trapped in a mirror dimension, while her doppelgänger runs free in Central City. Cisco Ramon (Carlos Valdes) has been criss-crossing the planet, documenting the post-“Crisis” changes to Earth Prime. Barry has been dealing with the regular run of villains with a renewed sense of humor and purpose, while hiding some speed related issues in the background. And Nash Wells (Tom Cavanagh) has been seeing the impossible, other versions of Wells from other Earths that shouldn’t exist anymore — including The Flash’s arch-enemy, Eobard Thawne, a.k.a. The Reverse Flash.

That all builds to multiple cliffhangers and climactic events in this episode, all precipitated on the return of Cisco, and more importantly, Wally West (Keiynan Lonsdale). Wally has been off meditating and finding new, exciting ways to use the special effects of the show — er, I mean the Speed Force — leading to several stand-out action sequences as he pulls apart a crashing helicopter, and later battles a villain able to shoot time bubbles from her hands. But other than showing off, Wally has returned because the Speed Force is dying. And not metaphorically dying, literally dying.

Turns out that when Barry took part of the Spectre’s (Stephen Amell) power back in “Crisis,” he infected the Speed Force. Saved the universe, sure; but ultimately led to the destruction and death of the very thing that gives him and Wally (and every other speedster) their powers. And no, they don’t save the Speed Force, it actually dies, leaving Wally and Barry with a limited supply of speed to pull on.

So what to do? Luckily/unluckily for them, Nash is somehow infected with the spirit of Thawne, who knows Barry is losing his speed and promises to kill him, his friends, and family. It’s more than likely not the final twist in that storyline (Nash was seeing other versions of Wells, before Thawne), but he does drop the info that “he” created an artificial negative Speed Force, which inspires Barry to create his own.

Oh, and Kamilla Hwang (Victoria Park) discovers that Iris isn’t who she says she is, and gets blasted with a mirror gun — potentially dead, maybe just sent to a mirror dimension.

There are still plenty of episodes left in the season, but what makes this episode work is that it harkens back to the go-for-broke nature of Season 1, which made every episode feel like the episode before a season finale. It’s been a while since the show has gone there; and very rarely can any show in Season 6 break the toys so spectacularly. But if The Flash can keep up the pace, this’ll be one for the ages.

The Flash airs Tuesdays at 8/7c on The CW.

Where to watch The Flash