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"You will have a father - your real father. Wells has messed with our lives long enough. This is why you became The Flash, Barry. To put things right. You saved a lot of people's lives this past year. Now it's time to save yours."
—Joe West encouraging Barry Allen to save his mother

"Fast Enough" is the twenty-third and final episode of the first season of The Flash, and the twenty-third episode overall. It aired on May 19, 2015.

Synopsis

Wells presents Barry with a life-changing choice. Dr. Martin Stein and Ronnie Raymond return to help the S.T.A.R. Labs team with this final fight.[src]

Cast

Starring

Special guest stars

Guest starring

Special appearance by

Co-starring

Uncredited

Plot

A bitter Barry questioned Eobard on his origins and motivations. Eobard told Barry he hated the future Barry for reasons undisclosed even though he had grown to care about the present Barry to a degree.

In the year 2024, he learned The Flash's true identity as Barry Allen and traveled back in time to kill the younger Barry. However, he was followed by the Future Barry and they fought in his house. In order to protect him, the Future Barry grabbed his younger self and retreated twenty blocks away. An enraged Eobard then killed Nora in hopes the trauma would prevent the younger Barry from pursuing his destiny and becoming the Flash. However, since Eobard lost his powers shortly after and was stranded centuries before his own time, he was forced to create, ironically, the very enemy he sought to destroy. Eobard offered to let Barry prevent Nora's death if he created a wormhole for both him and Barry to return home to the future. Meanwhile, Eddie is torn about learning about Iris' fate to marry Barry. However, Professor Stein told Eddie that he, being Eobard's ancestor worked in the same city as his descendant, ultimately made him an anomaly to Eobard's plan known as coincidence. Because of this, despite Eobard's self-centered personality, he had to keep Eddie alive above all else until he had a child to carry on the Thawne name, which centuries later would lead to Eobard being born. Inspired by Stein's words, Eddie decides to forget about the supposed future and date Iris once again. Iris happily agrees. Still torn over whether to save his mother and risk everything he already has, Barry visits his father in prison but gets told that he shouldn't go back to save Nora due to the changes it would make to the future. Furthering Barry's doubt,

Once the preparations were set for Barry to travel back in time, he traveled back to the night Nora died. However, despite this, Barry's alternative future self saw Barry and signaled him not to interfere and proceeded to take his younger self 20 blocks away. Barry, in tears, obeyed. He spoke to Nora once last time, revealing his identity to her, and assured her that he and Henry are okay in the future.

In the present, Eobard gets into the time machine Cisco made, remarking that Rip Hunter first designed it. Cisco warns him never to return. Suddenly, a helmet with wings on top comes out of the wormhole, which Eobard takes as his signal to leave. However, Barry returns, destroying the time machine with a supersonic punch. This enrages Eobard, who realizes that Barry didn't save Nora and demands to know why not, when he could've had the life he wanted. Barry retorts that he already has the life, friends, and family he wants. Barry's unannounced return causes Professor Stein to order Caitlin and Ronnie to manually shut down the generators. Caitlin succeeds in shutting down the generators and the wormhole is closed just before the 1:52 time runs out.

With his Time Sphere destroyed, unstable speed and motives revealed, Eobard has no way to return 'home'. Enraged beyond belief, he charges at Barry and they proceed to fight, which ends in Eobard beating Barry, pinning him to the wall and announcing "Just so we're clear, after I kill you, I'm going to kill them (Team Flash) and then I'm going to kill your father! I always win, Flash!". However, Eddie shoots himself in the heart. As Eddie Thawne is a direct ancestor of Eobard Thawne, his death causes Eobard to be erased from existence. This creates a paradox: since Eddie did not leave behind any children to continue the Thawne name, Eobard is never born and therefore the entire timeline that he created by killing Nora Allen could have never been created.

As he is erased from existence, Eobard reminds Barry that he might not be able to get along without him after years of controlling his life. As Iris and Joe mourn Eddie, the power source causes the wormhole to reopen and start expanding, pulling Eddie's body into it. The Singularity rises up out of S.T.A.R. Labs, feeding and growing in size and strength. Despite a warning from Stein that "it cannot be stopped!" and will continue to consume even after the Earth is gone, Barry runs up to the it in a bid to neutralize it by running around the debris floating into it in the opposite direction with equal rotation, just like he unraveled the tornado in Episode 1 "Pilot".

Production

Preparation began March 19, 2015 and ran until March 27, 2015. Filming began March 30, 2015 and ran until April 10, 2015.[1]

Trivia

Goofs

Gallery

Videos

References

  1. ↑ Andrew Kresiberg (@AJKreisberg) - Twitter