With Iris supposedly dead and the Cavanagh-Thawne revived, Barry and the rest of the Flash Family must find a way to set things right.
Tropes Featured in this Episode:
- Admiring the Abomination: Damien briefly admires Thawne's plan, being reminded of his own old villainous self.
- All Your Colors Combined: The Negative Forces consolidate all their power into Thawne, giving him a new costume as he rampages through Central City as a prelude to the world. To combat him, the Positive Forces, including the Speed Force, empower Barry at the climax.
- Anger Is Not Enough: After Thawne and the Negative Forces' latest machinations Barry is dead set on stopping Thawne for good, leading him to a stalemate that starts tearing apart the city. Iris has to convince Barry to tackle things another way to keep him from accidentally demolishing everything.
- Back for the Finale:
- Damien Darhk makes an appearance, or rather a remnant of his old consciousness, sealed in the Time Stone.
- Jay and Joan also arrive to help.
- Big Damn Heroes: Just when Thawne is about to kill Barry, the positive Forces arrive, saving him and then powering him up.
- Brought Down to Normal: At the end of the episode, Meena sacrifices her artificial Speed Force connection.
- Call-Back: Damien brings up Iris surviving Savitar and being inside the Mirror Dimensions, telling her that she is a survivor and will survive this as well.
- Captain Obvious: Cecile states that Meena and Barry, who have both just lost their loved ones, are hurting badly.
- Nora tells Thawne that he's outnumbered four to one after she, Barry, Bart, and Meena approach him.
- Chekhov's Gun: The time stone that Damien gave Joe is what saves Iris.
- Combat Tentacles: Thawne uses purple ones against Barry in their battle.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: After being powered up by the Negative Forces, Thawne easily deals with Meena, Bart, Nora and Barry, until the latter is powered up as well.
- Dark Is Evil: Thawne, after receiving the powers from the other Forces. Or as Bart puts it:Bart: Who's his new tailor? Satan?
- Destructive Saviour: While battling Thawne, Barry involuntarily helps cause more destruction. It's when he stops fighting that he actually triumphs.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: Except for Eobard still being dead and Meena being depowered, the episode ends on a very positive note, with Thawne being destroyed for good (hopefully), Iris's and Barry's bond being stronger than ever, all the future residents going home happily and even Tinya being reunited with her mom.
- He's Back!: The episode ends with a Frost revived, but it's completely unknown if it's the heroic Frost or the evil Killer Frost.
- If You Kill Him, You Will Be Just Like Him!: Bart and Nora stop Barry from frying Thawne with lightning, quoting the trope verbatim.
- Immediate Sequel: The episode starts right after Iris's apparent death.
- Irony: Thawne notes how fitting it is how himself killing Nora birthed the Flash and how Flash killing Iris brought Thawne himself back from the dead.
- It's All My Fault: Both Meena and Barry blame themselves for what happened at different points of the episode.
- Kick the Dog: In an episode starring Thawne, what did you expect?
- After mentioning the Irony noted above, he tells Barry that his mom and Iris at least were good for something.
- He also kills dozens of people via lightning after getting his power-up, for no apparent reason whatsoever.
- Living Memory: Damien is not Back from the Dead, rather a piece of his consciousness resides in the Time Stone.
- Mythology Gag: Bart calls the conclusion "all aster, no dis", which is a reference to Robin's disection of the word "disaster" in Young Justice, which caught on amongst the other characters.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: The Negative Forces confront Flash with the revelation that his stripping Thawne of his connection to the Negative Speed Force showed them that they could also shift the Balance of Power in their favor. It also makes Joe equally guilty of this trope, for if he didn't talk Barry out of letting Thawne fade from existence and try to save his life, none of the events with the Negative Forces would have happened.
- Not in This for Your Revolution: Queen and Top only help Cecile locating the positive Forces because they want their powers back, not because they want to help Team Flash.
- Not Quite Dead: Iris survives thanks to the Time Stone Damien gave Joe.
- Oh, Crap!: Rather than a complete breakdown, this is how Thawne goes out.Thawne: No… It's not supposed to end like this.
- One-Steve Limit: Letscher-Thawne gets referred to as "Eobard", and Cavanagh-Thawne as "Thawne" throughout the episode.
- Reset Button: All the death and destruction caused by Thawne gets undone when he is erased from the timestream.
- Ret-Gone: The Cavanagh-Thawne is erased from the timestream, seemingly for good.
- The Reveal: Bashir is the one responsible for Cecile adding Queen's and Top's powers to her own.
- Self-Disposing Villain: When Barry stops fighting, Thawne draws on too much energy to destroy his nemesis, eventually erasing himself from existence.
- Sequel Hook: Frost is apparently brought back (although Mark doesn't recognise her as such), and Iris and Barry talk about the potential next avatar of the Negative Speed Force, with a blue crystal glowing in the future, possible teasing Cobalt Blue.
- Series Fauxnale: Eric Wallace has stated "Negative" was conceived and written with the expectation that it would likely be the series finale (with them only getting the renewal late in the game).
- Sheathe Your Sword: How Barry ultimately defeats Thawne. After Iris convinces him that Anger Is Not Enough he switches tactics from fighting Thawne head on to being purely defensive, letting him No-Sell Thawne's attacks despite their equal power. Thawne impulsively unleashes a huge energy wave but Barry, who is able to focus the Positive Forces because he's not wasting time with fighting Thawne, calmly reverses the wave and it goes right back to its point of origin: Thawne himself, who can't keep the power under control and dies for his impatience.
- Strike Me Down with All of Your Hatred!: Thawne goads Barry into this at the beginning of the episode when he's just been revived but at this point hasn't received his power-up from the Negative Forces and is thus likely still considerably less powerful than Barry. Barry almost does it, but is stopped by Nora and Bart.
- Ironically, Barry later uses this tactic on Thawne, which ultimately leads to the latter's final defeat.
- This Cannot Be!: Thawne, when Barry gets powered up by the positive Forces.
- Took a Level in Badass: After initially thinking she lost her level-up, due to Top and Queen getting their powers back from her, Cecile discovers she now possesses telekinetic powers at the end of the episode.
- Tragic Keepsake: After Thawne is defeated, Barry and Iris give Meena Eobard's yellow tie so that she could remember him.
