- For the Black Lightning episode, see "The Book of War: Chapter Three: Liberation".
- "Across dimensions. Across time. Through the end of the world and back. And if I know you, I know you aren't just fighting to find your way home."
"And I'm going to find Kamilla, and I'm going to find Singh, but most of all-" - "I'm gonna get you back."
"I'm going to get back to you." - —Barry Allen and Iris West-Allen between two worlds
"Liberation" is the seventeenth episode of the sixth season of The Flash, and the one-hundred-thirty-first episode overall. It aired on April 28, 2020.
Synopsis
| After recent events, Barry takes a closer look at his life with Iris. Eva makes a bold move.[src] |
Plot
Cisco Ramon and Ralph Dibny ask if it is time to activate the artificial Speed Force machine. Barry Allen looks at the Speed gauge to see the amount of Speed Force he has left and agrees. The machine changes gravity around it, only to fail, as nothing else happens.
Cecile Horton asks Barry to stop working so hard and see his wife since he was evicted over a week ago, but Barry dismisses her politely. Cecile goes to The Central City Citizen office and just misses a conversation between Eva McCulloch and the mirror duplicates. Mirror Iris is becoming distant with Eva and Mirror Kamilla taking notice. Mirror Iris asks Cecile to tell her emotions. Cecile just knows that the woman feels sad.
Cecile goes home to find the entrance blocked with all of the research Barry is doing as he tries to find proof that he was evicted by an imposter. Cecile listens as Barry rambles about different shape-changers that could be pretending to be Iris, including Everyman and White Martians. He even reveals that he tracked her phone and knows that she changed after she went to McCulloch Technologies just before Valentine's Day. Cecile smiles as Barry tells her that he needs his powers to save the woman he loves.
In the Mirrorverse, Iris West-Allen is slowly losing hope and gaining neural dissonance. She makes a video in case the worst should happen. She wants to destroy the giant mirror that transported Eva to the dimension but Eva is adamantly against it. When Eva leaves, Iris finds Eva's hidden room behind the mirror, and though looking at a reflective surface hurts her, Iris learns that Eva pulled her into that dimension. Eva watches as Iris collapses from the strain.
Meanwhile, Cisco and Ralph visit Caitlin Snow; she has dropped the temperature of her apartment drastically, as Frost is trying to save their body from death by creating a cold-induced coma. The engineer and the detective combine their resources and "jump-start" Caitlin like a dying battery. When Caitlin awakes, she tells them that only one person can save her, her mother.
Mirror David Singh and his sisters place mirrors throughout Barry and Iris's apartment while they plan to get the last puzzle piece they need to free Eva, but Mirror Iris is summoned to S.T.A.R. Labs by Cecile and Barry, who found the picture which proves that she is a mirror duplicate. Nash arrives and holds Mirror Iris at gunpoint until she can prove her identity. Incredibly, she does; when Barry used a prismatic filter on her, Mirror Iris switched it with a "Mirror prismatic filter", causing anything from the Mirrorverse to be viewed positively. Barry tests the device on himself and he fails the test, causing Nash and Cecile to view him as an imposter and lock Barry in the pipeline.
Eva McCulloch's team goes to A.R.G.U.S. headquarters to see Ramsey Rosso, because his blood is the last piece Eva needs to be free. Mirror Kamilla commits suicide to free Ramsey from the containment module, but Ramsey knocks unconscious and wants to know what Mirror Iris truly wants. Mirror Iris admits that she is sad because she wants to be human. Ramsey likes her honesty and gives her a blood sample, but stays at A.R.G.U.S., returning to his cell instead of escaping, because he has other plans.
Cecile frees Barry from the pipeline when he emotionally proves to her that he is genuine.
Just as Mirror Iris places Ramsey's blood on a mirror, Barry goes home to confront her. Simultaneously, Eva has activated her R-CEM on her side of the dimensional gap that burns organic matter. Barry wants his wife back and a battle begins, with Mirror Iris demonstrating that she can stab him with sword-like arms using the mirrors in the apartment as portals to get to him. Iris, in the Mirrorverse, argues with Eva about how Barry is working hard to free his wife while Joseph Carver did little to free Eva over the years. This causes Mirror Iris to falter as Eva falters.. Barry "feels" Iris' presence and stops fighting. He asks the duplicate to be her own person, to which she agrees.
Eva emerges from a mirror and her first act on Earth-Prime is to destroy Mirror Iris for insubordination. Mirror fragments lay across the floor. Eva tells Barry that she does not desire a battle, so she has left Iris in the mirrorverse as insurance for his compliance. She uses mirrors to teleport away, saying that she has other things to do and that the Flash is not much of a threat without his speed or healing powers. Barry passes out.
Later, Barry awakens, having healed from his cuts. At the same time, Iris has freed herself from the chair where Eva tied her. They both approach a mirror and, on two different sides, in two different dimensions, without knowing what the other is saying, they promise each other that they will be reunited.
Cast
Starring
- Grant Gustin as Barry Allen
- Candice Patton as Iris West-Allen and Iris West-Allen
- Danielle Panabaker as Dr. Caitlin Snow
- Carlos Valdes as Cisco Ramon
- Hartley Sawyer as Ralph Dibny
- Danielle Nicolet as Defense Attorney Cecile Horton
- Efrat Dor as Eva McCulloch
- Tom Cavanagh as Dr. Nash Wells
- Jesse L. Martin (credit only)
Guest starring
- Patrick Sabongui as David Singh
- Victoria Park as Kamilla Hwang
- Sendhil Ramamurthy as Dr. Ramsey Rosso/Bloodwork
Co-starring
- Wren Walker as Guard
Uncredited
- William MacDonald as Gene Huskk (archive footage)
- Eric Nenninger as Joseph Carver (archive footage)
Gallery
Videos
Trivia
- The title of the episode is a reference to what Eva McCulloch said in "The Exorcism of Nash Wells".
- It is also a reference to her "liberation" from the Mirrorverse.
- Also this episode's name shares the same as Black Lightning Season 3 finale "The Book of War: Chapter Three: Liberation".
- When Barry mentioned Plastoids, it became unclear if they exist on Earth-Prime or are simply another known Multiverse Refugee.
- This episode confirms the fate of Hannibal Bates post-crisis as he is mentioned when Barry is telling Cecile that he thinks "Iris West-Allen" is a shapeshifter.
- When Caitlin wakes up, Ralph says "Thank Elsa," a reference to the Disney character who has ice powers, similar to Frost.
- Mirror Iris morphs her arms into blades similar looking in appearance to the T-1000 from Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991).
- Ramsey tells Mirror Iris: "Run, Iris, Run", which was the name of the 16th episode of season 4.
- This marks the return of Sendhil Ramamurthy as Ramsey Rosso since "The Last Temptation of Barry Allen, Pt. 2" and since the end of Season 6A "Blood and Truth".
- As mentioned by Cecile, this episode takes place a week after "So Long and Goodnight".
- The song used at the end of the episode is "Still Have You" by Freya Ridings.
- This episode's mirror scene epilogue between Barry and Iris demonstrates the differences in their relationships when compared to the mirror scene epilogue of Joseph and Eva in "So Long and Goodnight".