In The Flash season 2, episode 19, “Back to Normal,” Harry came up with a plan to get Barry’s speed back. But is it a good plan?
Harry’s idea to get Barry’s speed back is to recreate the particle accelerator explosion that gave Barry his speed in the first place. This is the brilliant idea that came after he was kidnapped by Griffin Grey, a young man who was affected by the first particle accelerator explosion; while he was gifted with super strength, it came at a high cost. With his exertions, his body’s aging accelerated.
The more metahumans we meet, the more it becomes obvious that Barry was lucky in terms of the powers he gained from the particle accelerator. Recreating it seems like playing with superpower Russian roulette. Barry was lucky once, but will he be again? Will he just get his powers back? Will he get his powers with side effects? Will he be killed? (Well, the last one seems unlikely since he’s the main character, but still.)
Moreover, what might happen to other people if there is another malfunction? As the saying goes, the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry, and we saw that with the first version of the particle accelerator — both on Earth-1 and Earth-2. Zoom was created by Harry’s particle accelerator on Earth-2, after all.
Executive producer Andrew Kreisberg tells EW, “The next episode is about the ethics of doing that. Harry thinks that between his particle accelerator explosion and what he learned from what the Thawne version of Wells did, he thinks he can contain it and just get Barry his powers back, but it’s complicated and dangerous.”
Harry believing he can contain something so dangerous seems to me a major display of hubris. And hubris is the downfall of many tragic heroes. Hubris also tends to take other people with the prideful person. In fact, excessive pride (and, you know, being evil) was the downfall of Eobard Thawne, and he ended up taking Eddie, an innocent, with him in his defeat.
With everything that has happened in mind, Kreisberg says, “Everyone, including Barry, has to decide if this is the right way to go, considering the craziness that ensued last time. They’re faced with a damned with you do, damned if you don’t [situation], because Zoom is about to unleash a rein of terror on the city.”
And it’s true that while heroes must worry about potential repercussions, they can’t be afraid to act when inaction will lead to real consequences, not just potential ones.
But is another particle accelerator explosion really the best course of action?
Feeling lost, Barry reaches out to his father in the next episode. “He needs his dad, he needs his advice, because Barry is at a crossroads of what he should do or what he shouldn’t do, because he’s being presented with a monumental decision that could not only affect him and possibly kill him, it could kill everybody in S.T.A.R. Labs, it could set off another chain reaction and affect everyone in the city,” Kreisberg explains.
“The last time they took matters into their own hands, they created this whole problem with blowing a hole in the universe and opening the breaches. They’re all a little bit gun-shy. Their faith in themselves and their faith in their decision making is a little bit lost… Barry reaches out to his dad for hope and advice.”
Creating the singularity that opened a gateway to Earth-2 was hardly a small side effect. And it cost Ronnie’s life to close. Oh, and it brought Zoom to Earth-1.
With that history in mind, Kreisberg also teases that viewers may be surprised by who is in favor of Harry’s plan. “There’s a great scene that’s between Barry’s three fathers, essentially — between Tom Cavanagh, John Wesley Shipp, and Jesse L. Martin — where all three of them are debating what their son should do. Not all of them have the take on it that you’d expect, and that’s what makes for such an interesting scene.
“Once Barry decides to do something, I don’t think Joe thinks he can be dissuaded from doing something; that’s the Barry that Joe has come to know, love, and respect. Given what they’re up against, Joe, who’s always been so protective of Barry, surprisingly is the one who says, ‘Maybe we should give this a shot.’”
Perhaps it’s not so surprising, though, since Joe didn’t try to stop Barry from reopening a breach to Earth-2 in order to confront Zoom despite Harry asking him to talk Barry down. We saw the Zoom plan backfire, leading to Barry losing his speed and Caitlin being kidnapped. Whether the new particle accelerator plot will also backfire remains to be seen.
I, for one, will be shocked if there are no major side effects or consequences to the plan if they do go through with it, though.