The Flash - 'Paradox'

Time travel? Do you want Draco Malfoy? Because that's how you get Draco
Malfoy!

Welcome to The Flash season 3; soon to have its own TV Tropes subpage, because nice job breaking it, Hero!

Having reset the timeline twice, Barry discovers that things may still be a teensy bit wonky. Joe and Iris don't talk, Cisco is mired in a funk and instead of being Cental City's invaluable only CSI, Barry is sharing lab space with grumpy, waistcoated British metahuman forensic specialist Dr Julian Albert, who hates him. Baffled, he confides in Arrow's Felicity Smoake, who is supportive, but doesn't have much experience with time travel. In truth, the main point of the visit is to establish that Sara Diggle is now a boy(1).

So, Barry returns to Central City and a Team Flash who grump at each other, keep secrets and oh my God, he's turned The Flash into Arrow.

Seriously; if hunter Zolomon can sound like Tony Todd, there is not trust.

Things get even weirder when Edward Clariss, aka the Rival, is drawn to Central City by a mysterious, masked figure calling himself (or herself; I'm not trusting a masked voice after Zoom turned out to be white) Alchemy. Given visions of his Flashpoint self, Clariss is persuaded to take on the Flash in return for the speed he possessed in that reality. This transformation apparently involves shedding the outer layer of his skin, leaving a husk which Albert is called on to examine; the fourth such found in recent days.

Learning that Cisco is as he is because he is mourning his brother, who was killed by a hit and run driver, and because Barry refused to go back and save him, Barry decides that he needs to try to fix this new Flashpoint as well. As an incredibly forced and awkward dinner party fails to cure all ills, plan B is time travel. Again. He gets dragged out of the Speed Force, however, and has a heart to heart with Jay Garrick in the early 90s.

"No metaphor. Just if you keep making this show more Arrow, I will smash
this cup on your head."

Jay finally convinces him that messing with time is a mug's game, and a chastened Barry fesses up to his friends. Clariss and Barry clash, with Clariss seeking vengeance for his Flashpoint version and Alchemy making a brief cameo. Cisco makes an appearance as Vibe to help tip the balance and the Rival goes to Iron Heights metahuman containment facility. Yes, that's right; metahuman criminals are being held by representatives of legitimate authority. What a twist!

Barry settles into the new world, with a sadder Cisco - although he rallies enough to add a gratuitous 'Doctor' to Alchemy's chosen moniker - and Joe and Iris just beginning to fix their relationship, and a colleague who hates him because he doesn't trust him. Oh, and Caitlin turning into Killer Frost, although no-one else knows that yet.

So, by the end of 'Paradox' - and let me tell you, it is a bugger trying to sort out images for episodes called 'Flashpoint' and 'Paradox' around the more plentiful entries for Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox - we've seen plenty of changes, although the ones outside of Central City are largely cosmetic; not that this means I am willing to forgive the vanishing of Sara Diggle. Thankfully, the team dynamic seems to be repairing, but The Flash is my happy place and I never like it when they make it more grimdark and Arrowy. On the upside, the season villain isn't another bloody speedster, which makes a change.

(1) Which is, incidentally, perhaps the thing I find it hardest to forgive Barry for. I mean... I have nothing against John Diggle Jr, but unexisting someone's daughter is not on.