The Flash Season 3 episode 10 sent the Flash subreddit crazy. After The Flash and the Golden Age scarlet speedster, Jay Garrick, used each other’s speed to send the Philosopher's Stone into the speed force, Barry ended up in a future timeline where he sees Savitar kill Iris West right in front of his future self’s eyes.
That moment alone is solid evidence debunking one of the strongest Savitar fan theories yet this season, which claims Savitar is actually Future Flash. But the prospect of any version of Barry Allen killing Iris is hard to believe, no matter what timeline he’s in. After all, there is no Flash without Iris West. Barry has said it himself. And while Savitar appears to be anything but human on the outside, we do know there is a man controlling him. We saw the back of him in episode 10, and it didn’t look like Barry Allen.
Even more, if Savitar is really Future Flash, how did he get trapped in the present? Savitar says future Barry trapped him in the speed force, so how could Savitar actually be future Barry? If future Barry did actually trap Savitar in the speed force, that means Barry is capable of becoming fast enough to defeat Savitar. We’ll likely see that develop over the course of Season 3, especially since he’ll have the added pressure of Wally’s speed potentially becoming faster than his. Who knows, it may even take both of them to defeat Savitar.
While the Future Flash theory is most certainly a compelling one (read more about it here), I’m really hoping The Flash Season 3 Savitar doesn’t have some crazy hidden identity like being future Barry Allen. Altering Savitar’s godly origins from the comics even more than they were already would be a missed opportunity. While the Future Flash arc is an cool concept, there’s a lot of moving parts that it would need that don’t exist on the show. The pieces for how Barry took Savitar down in the comics is an arc that’s already halfway set up in the series.
Barry defeated Savitar by becoming Black Flash. Barry disintegrated him with a single touch because Professor Zoom had altered the speed force to turn him into the Black Flash. I think that alone would be a cool tie-in to what happened in the Season 2 finale. No matter which direction the series chooses to go, Season 3 will see Barry learning a lot more about the speed force, and this newfound knowledge could mean we see Barry actually going back inside the speed force to defeat Savitar. Zoom, who Barry trapped inside the speed force in the Season 2 finale, would be a perfect way to tie it all together.
As of right now, Team Flash believes Savitar is trapped in the speed force. We know he appears in episode 10. In fact, a fan who stumbled upon the set in Vancouver heard Savitar saying, “I challenge you Grodd.” So it’s quite possible another one of his minions help him escape. What’s interesting is that the average person can’t just help a speedster escape from the speed force. He needs someone connected to help him. In the comics, that person was Lady Flash. However another speedster was spotted on that same set who could fit the bill: Accelerated Man, The Flash from Earth-19.
Looking at the way they handled the huge comic Flashpoint arc, I can’t imagine they’d bring in another complicated arc into the season. It’s more likely Savitar is Savitar, and just kind of a dark symbolic reflection of Barry’s guilt and bad choices when it comes to time traveling, which in itself is the whole essence of the Future Flash arc -- Barry’s future self wanting to kill his younger self to fix the speed force. That’s exactly like Savitar’'s mission, and probably why there are a lot of similarities between Savitar and the prospect of Future Flash.
Do you think Savitar could actually be Future Flash? Let us know in the comments below.
