‘The Flash’ Season 6 premiere recap: Barry’s impending death is revealed

The Flash‘s sixth season kicked off on Tuesday night and the premiere had some surprising and revealing moments that are sure to impact all of Team Flash as we move through the rest of the season. So without further ado, let’s jump straight into this recap.

Dealing with loss

The premiere begins literally seconds after the season five finale following Nora’s death/ materialization/whatever you want to call it. The S.T.A.R. Labs alarm sounds and Barry and Iris run into Cortex as a power surge is set to take over the building. From there, we time jump four months into the future. Cisco and his girlfriend Camila are overseeing Barry chasing a (fake) Godspeed, the fourth one this summer.

From there, the team takes a much needed break and go to Joe and Cecile’s house for a barbecue. This was actually one of my favorite scenes from the premiere because it was so much fun to see the entire team unwinding together, drinking, and laughing. Despite them having fun, you could sense Barry and Iris had other things on their minds.

We see evidence of this throughout the episode. Iris is nearly brought to tears just looking at a picture of Nora and Barry is way too confident that Team Flash can solve a new threat to the city. Later on in the episode, Barry and Iris admit they are struggling with the loss of their daughter, but that the best way to deal with it is by doing it together.

A big black hole

After Joe throws out a box in the attic, Iris goes to a junkyard to search for Nora’s purple jacket in order to hold onto a part of her daughter. Once she gets it, a black hole appears and sucks the box containing the jacket inside it. Later, Iris does some investigating into black holes and comes across a blogger named Chester P. Runk, who had a black hole in his garage. He touched it and is now in a catatonic state at Central City Hospital.

While visiting Chester in the hospital, Iris realizes that Chester didn’t just create the black hole – his consciousness is the black hole. Back at S.T.A.R. Labs, Caitlin figures out that Chester’s brain is split into two, with the hole making up the other half. Barry and the team come up with the idea that Barry will run into the black hole, pull Chester’s consciousness out, and return it to his body.

Barry completes two missions here. Not only does he return Chester’s consciousness and save the city, but he also gets Nora’s jacket back. So all in all, it was a big win for Barry but something tells me that he’ll have a tough time getting some wins this season.

A bloody discovery

One of the reasons Barry will have a tough time this season? Dr. Ramsey Rosso, aka this season’s big bad. Russo is Caitlin’s friend from medical school who was diagnosed with terminal cancer. He meets Caitlin for coffee and asks her to help him by getting him some dark matter to cure his cancer.

Caitlin refuses to help him, so he gets the dark matter from some shady dude in a cemetery. At the end of the episode, he injects himself with it. The cancer seems to be cured but the dark matter turns him into something much worse: Bloodwork. And it seems like he just might be the toughest villain for Team Flash yet.

Barry learns his fate

The biggest moment of the premiere came in the final two minutes. Barry and Iris are in the Time Vault and suddenly The Monitor appears. He reveals that he was the one who destroyed Nora’s message because he can’t allow them to have hope. He goes on to inform Barry that he will die on December 10, 2019 (the actual date of this year’s big crossover event).

The Monitor failed to mention what Oliver Queen is up to, but I am very interested to see how Barry and the team will handle this news as the season goes on.

Episode Notes

• The third storyline focused on Caitlin and Killer Frost having some more internal issues to work out. With Ralph’s help, Caitlin agreed to have Frost take the wheel more often, in order for her alter ego can build her own life. The first thing Frost wants to do is take the “Killer” part of her name out.
• One of the best moments in The Flash history occurred when Cisco hits play on Queen’s “Flash’s Theme” from the 90s TV show Flash Gordon as Barry was speeding into the black hole. It had me dying with laughter.
• There was a ton of foreshadowing what’s to come this season in the premiere, such as the MAC, the growth of the Citizen, and the big “Crisis” event. I can’t wait to see it all play out!
• We will be seeing more of Chester for sure as Cecile revealed he will be spending four to six weeks in the MAC so that his molecules can readjust.

What did you think of the episode? Let me know in the comments below!

The Flash airs Tuesday’s at 8/7c on The CW.