Spoilers for the season finale of The Flash follow.
The first season of the CW's Arrow spin-off series The Flash came to a whirlwind and impressive conclusion last night, all while staying mostly confined to a few rooms at Star Labs. Faced with a decision to risk creating a dangerous wormhole to go back in time and save his mother, Barry says a tearful goodbye to his surrogate father Joe West, then succeeds in running through to the past. The scene with his mother is an emotional lynchpin, as Barry decides not to intervene, but to comfort her in her dying moments and say the goodbye he never had the chance to as a child. He then returns to his present to deny Harrison Wells/Eobard Thawne any kind of victory. That does come at a cost, as Eddie sacrifices himself so that Eobard will never exist. (Though the CW says Tom Cavanagh will still be a series regular, so get ready for some paradoxical explanations.) All told, the finale brought the kind of all-out excitement that Arrow has lacked in its dark and tumultuous third season, so here's hoping The Flash can be the more ebullient counterweight to that increasingly dour series going into next season.
