The CWWell it's safe to say a world without Iris West is a world we don't want to live in.
It's also a world we're not particularly interested in ever seeing again, despite how interesting and informative tonight's episode of The Flash ended up being. The future's fascinating, but it's not pretty.
In 2024, Team Flash is no more. Barry pretty much shut down, stopped being the Flash, gave up haircuts, and moved into the abandoned S.T.A.R. Labs to be alone. Caitlin, who's now full-on Killer Frost and trapped in a sort of prison overseen by Julian, destroyed Cisco's hands, robbing him of his powers.
Joe, who's been ignored by Barry for years, visits Iris' grave on the regular, and HR has become a romance novelist who writes about superheroes in love on mountain tops, obviously. Wally is in a hospital, unresponsive.
And none of them know who Savitar is, except for his BFF Killer Frost, who will not tell.
When Barry tried to leave 2024 after realizing no one could help him there, he discovered that Cisco was using tech to keep him there, hoping 2017 Barry could help reunite the team, or at least that he wouldn't abandon him again. So Barry stayed and got everyone back together to take down Top and Mirror Master, who were still up to their old tricks.
Even 2024 Barry came out of his hole to suit up and help, which sure was nice of him. He also explained that he was only able to trap Savitar with the help of a physicist who came up with the tech in 2020, years after Iris' death.
2017 Barry eventually returned to the exact moment he left, hugged Joe, and declared that Caitlin needed to be found. Meanwhile, Caitlin was in the forest, facing down Savitar, who promised her he wanted to help her stay as Killer Frost.
"Why should I trust you?" she asked, and then Savitar knelt down, his armor opened up, and someone stepped out into the snow. He revealed only his leg to us, but whatever face he showed to Killer Frost was one she was happy to trust. What does it mean?! Who is it?? How do we save Iris? How do we stop Emo Barry from happening?!
We got a lotta questions, and those answers had better come soon.
The Flash airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. on the CW.