The Flash - 'The Once and Future Flash'

The Flash of 2024 is hella emo.

Uh-oh; Barry Allen is having a plan.

This time out, the plan is to run into the future – 2024 – when he's already beaten Savitar for the first time, and find out who is inside the suit. Then he can run back and use that to knobble the 'god of speed' in the present, before he kills Iris in the more immediate future. Simples.

Unfortunately, it all goes a little awry when he immediately runs into Top and Mirror Master and gets schooled. Apparently they run the shithole that Central City has become, and once he runs away and finds his future self, he realises that he has become an embittered recluse who never found out who Savitar was. Cisco comes to find him, older and infinitely sadder, and tries to persuade him to help. After meeting up with Julian – who now works at Iron Heights as, essentially, Caitlin's personal jailer – and learning from Killer Frost that she teamed up with Savitar when he offered to 'cure' her of Caitlin Snow, he realises that there is nothing for him here.

"So my future suit has a sort of high, bald-cap forehead?"

He tries to go home, but can't. Cisco suggests that this is due to something Top and Mirror Master did, but after discovering that he and Joe became estranged after Iris died and a vengeful Wally became completely catatonic following a run-in with Savitar, Barry realises that Cisco – who lost his hands and thus his powers in the fight with Killer Frost – did something to stop him. Cisco switches off his resonance jammer, but Barry opts to stay and get the band back together. The team – including trash novelist HR – come up with a modified jammer to neutralise Top's power and let Barry chase him through the mirrors, but since Barry once more failed to not look Top in the eye it falls to old Barry to race the device out, so that the two Flashes can save the day.

Barry returns to the present, more determined than ever, with no more idea who Savitar is, but with the knowledge that he will try to contact Killer Frost and the design for Cisco's jammer. No, wait; he doesn't bring the jammer that prevents certain Speed Force powers working, because why would that be useful? Instead, he brings the name of the physicist who created the Speed Trap which eventually caught Savitar, but not for another four years.

Time relicts were mentioned again, which makes me wonder maybe if they're going to try to trick Savitar into killing a relict of Iris, although that would be some Zoom-level cold shit. Also, however, Killer Frost was instantly won over from snark to devotee on sight of Savitar without the armour. Presumably the same recognition was what shocked Wally into a complete mental shutdown, although I can't think who would affect them both that deeply. They probably have the least shared background of any two characters in the series.