The entire episode 2 of The Flash’ Season 3 (titled Paradox) can be summed up by how many times I rolled my eyes while watching.
Spoilers ahead

Barry Allen has to deal with the consequences of creating another timeline – and we know Barry is not great at dealing with stuff. Asides the fact that Iris isn't speaking with her dad, in the timeline Barry goes back to Cisco hates him for not going back in time to save his brother (Dante) from dying and there’s a new guy at work (Julian played by Harry Potter alum Tom Felton) who hates Barry very much.

These are really minor differences when you look at it but they’ve got Barry’s feelings in a bunch as he ran all the way to Starling City to whine to Felicity. Turns out Flashpoint also affected Felicity’s timeline as John Diggle no longer has a little girl but a little boy. Our mind is supposed to be blown by that little tidbit. Felicity compares Barry to pudding and tells him to go fix his mistake.

Barry’s idea of fixing things is going back in time. Seriously does this guy really not learn? Anyway he gets pulled into 1998 by Earth 3 Flash (Jay Garrick) only to be given the “o young time traveler" speech. The bottom line of the pep talk was that Barry should stop trying to play God.

CW

So Barry decides to fix things in one fell swoop by orchestrating a dinner with the gang. Well that dinner fails very badly but luckily gets interrupted by an alert from the Meta Human App. The meta human disrupting the peace is Edward Clariss who has now gotten his memories and powers from Flashpoint and is out to get Barry. They decide to go at it the speedster way which is basically “on your mark, get set, go”. Barry manages to lose Clariss in the race and goes back to the lab to regroup.

At the lab, Barry confesses that he went back in time and basically screwed up their lives. The gang is clearly mad at this and Barry leaves them to lick their wounds while he goes to deal with more important stuff. While Barry is getting his ass kicked by Clariss and Alchemy, Iris is giving the team a pep talk about family and forgiveness. They get an alert that Barry is in danger and Cisco (Vibe) goes to save him. In like fifty seconds, Rival has been defeated and Alchemy is gone.

While Barry was getting his behind handed to him, he was able to learn that Dr Alchemy’s plan is to restore powers to everyone who had it in Flashpoint (which includes Wally West). The new guy (Julian) is onto Barry and will most likely soon discover that he is The Flash. Barry is excited that everything is back to normal and tells Caitlyn she is the one who changed the least in the timeline he met. But Caitlyn is hiding something – her hand - which is clearly freezing. Looks like Killer Frost is about to be resurrected.



Meanwhile, Barry manages to kiss Iris at the end of the episode. The kiss isn't really something to be excited about seeing as any romance between these two has the tendency to be erased.

It’s a bit annoying how the show drags Barry’s personal life all over the place but will round up a fight in seconds. The only time we see a build up, its usually exaggerated and dragged for the entire season – case in point – Barry’s fight with Reverse Flash and Zoom. Are all worthy supervillains going to be speedster or is Dr Alchemy going to be the first non-speedster supervillain?


At the rate the show is going, it should be christened “The Flash: 2000 Mistakes of a Time Traveler”. The makers of the show are using the fact that there are no rules to time travel to just repeat story lines and reuse the same cast members over and over again. 1 + 1 = 5269 and their justification will be “duh time travel”. 

Did you see Paradox? What did you think of it?