After Flash screwed up his own timeline by saving his mother's life in the past, he had to make changes in order to make things right. However, after saving his own reality, he learned that not everything was exactly like he remembered it. Now, Barry Allen has to deal with the world he lives in, as he can no longer change the past.

　　Barry is slowly adjusting to his new life in his alternate timeline. He has a new partner at CCPD, and he's helping mend the wounds in his group of friends. To make things a bit more chaotic, Harrison and Jesse Wells make their return from Earth-2, and a new villain who can control metal named Magenta is terrorizing Central City.

　　Warning: Spoilers for the October 18 episode below.

　　

Harrison Wells and Jesse Quick Are Back

During the opening moments of the episode, both Harrison Wells and his daughter Jesse come through the portal into STAR Labs. The two need the help and expertise of the group to help Jesse with her newly developed speedster powers. There's no real indication of how long the two will be around, but one thing is for sure, Harrison is really into "not" jokes.

　　Their addition to the season is a welcome one since they were both such a fun part of Season 2. On top of that, with Jesse being a speedster, it seems like Barry will have some more help when dealing with metahumans, like in the final moments of this episode.

　　

Earth-2 Wasn't Affected By Flashpoint

Time and time travel in the CW/DC Universe moves in mysterious ways. It's hard to really know how Barry's actions will affect this world, as well as the other ones. We learn quickly that while Earth-1 has changed a bit, "Flashpoint" did not affect Earth-2 at all. That seems like common sense, but this show has thrown a few curveballs at its fans in the past.

　　Harrison realizes that things have changed on Earth-1, and Barry lets him in on what happened. Once again, Barry gets a lecture about traveling through time, which feels like the same sentiment the audience has been voicing for quite some time. It is a big sigh of relief to know that Earth-2 didn't somehow get screwed up as well.

　　

Wally West Really Wants Powers

Both Wally and Jesse were hit with the same dark matter wave when Barry was disintegrated in Season 2. This wave gave Jesse her speedster powers, and Wally seems a bit bummed out that he didn't get abilities too. Harrison made the point that the dark matter affects people differently. Later on, Wally puts himself in danger thinking it will "awaken" his powers.

　　Seeing Wally West as Kid Flash in the opening episode was awesome, and it's something fans are clamoring for, but it's nice to see the show play the long game with this character. We already have quite a few speedsters, and seeing Wally become a hero, without powers, is more fulfilling in the long run.

　　

Magenta Got Her Powers from Doctor Alchemy

Doctor Alchemy is the main villain of the season, so of course, it makes sense that this week's villain, Magenta, got her powers from the him. That means there was a Magenta during Flashpoint even though we never saw her. We don't learn much more about Alchemy as a whole, except for the fact that he seems to have a knack for killing failures, minus Magenta.

　　There was very little of Alchemy in the episode. Magenta got the ability to move metal from him, and that's about it. The connection and conversation between the characters was weak, and since Magenta is still around, we're hoping she and Alchemy pop up later on in the season.

　　All-in-all, this was a weaker episode of the series. It spent a lot of time focusing on relationships between characters and less on being a hero. Relationships are a large part of this series, but it seems The Flash took a big backseat to it. While the CW series lean heavily towards this brand of storytelling, this episode fell a bit flat as the balance between "hero" and "personal life" was completely off. That element of fun that The Flash is known for wasn't there either, aside from Harrison's occasional "not" joke. Overall, it felt like this episode was trying to balance a few too many subplots.

　　There also wasn't a lot of development with Doctor Alchemy. It made this episode feel like filler, which is rough since it's only the third episode of the season. How does what happened here play into the bigger picture? Obviously, the answer to that deals more with Wally West over Docor Alchemy. We got a ton of great character development, as Wally wants to be a hero but is frustrated with his lack of power to do so. Aside from the mildly cheesy dad-cop talk from Joe West, this story was one of the highlights of the episode, next to the preview for next week's episode, where Mirror Master will be the villain.

　　Mat Elfring on Google+