The Flash season 3, episode 9, “The Present,” answered some burning questions about Julian but raised more about Savitar and the future.
In “The Present,” the mid-season finale of The Flash season 3, Barry travels to Earth-3 to recruit Jay Garrick’s help with Savitar — after Barry captures Earth-3’s Trickster (a humorous cameo by Mark Hamill). Jay knows of Savitar, but only by rumor and story. He believes that Barry is a threat to Savitar, and that is why the god of speed is targeting him.
I never tire of seeing John Wesley Shipp on The Flash, and it was a delightful Easter egg finally getting to see Shipp as the Flash facing off against Hamill’s Trickster, a callback to the 1990 Flash series.
Barry traveling to Earth-3 for Jay’s help also tells us that he’s gotten past his discomfort at Jay being Henry Allen’s doppelganger. He could barely look at the other man at the end of season 2, and now he’s seeking the other Flash out. Nice job using your resources, Barry.
Anyway, Team Flash decides that their best bet at taking Savitar down is to find the stone that Alchemy uses to grant abilities. Their first step is research, and Cisco quickly finds out that Julian wrote a dissertation at Oxford on the philosopher’s stone. Barry confronts him about it, and Julian reveals that he led an expedition to find the stone but didn’t succeed.
This turns out to be a lie when the two Flashes confront Alchemy and Savitar. While Jay distracts Savitar, getting the snot beaten out of him in the process, Barry knocks Alchemy unconscious and boxes up the stone, which sucks Savitar in just as he was about to kill Jay. Barry then unmasks Alchemy, and it’s Julian.
I found it interesting that Savitar knew Jay’s name. I wonder if he knows about all the speedsters across the multiverse with their shared connection to the Speed Force.
Anyway, Julian wakes up trapped in the pipeline and thinks the Flash is framing him. Barry realizes, however, that Julian is blacking out and losing time; while he’s blacked out, he acts as Alchemy. To get Julian to believe him, Barry reveals himself as the Flash. Everything clicks into place for Julian and he admits to blacking out.
He tells Barry about how his sister died when he was 20 and it destroyed his family. But then his sister appeared to him, seeming very real, and told him about the philosopher’s stone. She said if he finds it they can be together again. A grief-stricken Julian would do anything to bring his sister back so went on a search for the stone. He found it and that’s when the blackouts started.
Julian opening up to Barry after learning he is the Flash seems to be the start of a friendlier relationship with Barry and the S.T.A.R. Labs team. And that’s a nice change when it seemed like Julian might be on the bad guy’s side. But him being an unwilling accomplice of Savitar is very Draco Malfoy (plus, you know, philosopher’s stone).
As Julian tells this story, Dante appears to Cisco and tells him to use the stone to reunite them. Dealing with his first Christmas without his brother, Cisco is the perfect person for Savitar to take advantage of and Cisco opens the box, letting Savitar loose. Barry gets the crap beaten out of him, and since Jay is too injured to help, Wally runs in. Both are about to die when Caitlin talks Cisco into closing the box again, and that sucks Savitar back in.
Wally, of course, thought the whole thing was awesome.
The team realizes that Julian is only a medium for Savitar; when Julian blacks out, Savitar is controlling him. So Team Flash syncs Julian’s brainwaves with the stone in order to communicate with Savitar. The god reveals that he knows who all the members of the team are and that he is targeting Barry because future Barry trapped him in eternity (which sounds like the Speed Force).
It’s like Eobard Thawne targeting Barry because future Barry is his great enemy. Ah, time travel.
Savitar also reveals that one member of Team Flash will betray the others, one of them will die and one will face a fate worse than death.
Anyway, Jay suggests they throw the box containing the stone into the Speed Force; the combined speeds of both Flashes should make it possible. Together, they open a rift to the Speed Force and Barry throws it in but is then pulled into the future. Five months in the future (just in time for the season finale), Barry watches Savitar kill Iris.
Jay pulls Barry back to the present time and tells Barry that while he was in the future, it was only one of many possible futures; Barry needs to live his life in the present because there’s nothing he can do — especially going back to the past. Big no-no.
With Savitar defeated for now, the team heads to the West house to celebrate Christmas Eve. Even Julian comes to the party, and his present for Barry is that he wants Barry to come back to CCPD and work at the lab with him again. Oh, and Team Flash joined forces to get Wally a Kid Flash suit for Christmas. Best gift!
Finally, Barry surprises Iris with her gift: he rented an apartment he has no business affording (unless there’s a ghost a la Cordelia’s apartment on Angel) and he put both his and Iris’ names on the lease. So they’re going to move in together. It’s a sweet gesture, though Iris’ potential death will be in the back of Barry’s mind.