How #TeamFlash Can Defeat Savitar
...without deleting Barry’s brain.
Y’all. It is a little wrong how much I enjoyed happy, goofy “Bart” in this week’s episode “Cause and Effect.” Like Iris, part of me wanted to just keep this cheerful puppy version around as long as possible.
Also, I am fully here for Julian putting emojis in self-aggrandizing teleprompter scripts. Even if it did lead to releasing a violent arsonist. Without the release of said arsonist, our team would have lacked the necessary motivation to reboot Barry’s tragedy-drenched brain. See? Cause and effect all over the place.
ANYWAY... After last week’s Big Reveal that I WAS TOTALLY RIGHT, I’ve been thinking about how Team Flash can save Iris and defeat Savitar. As with my “Savitar is Barry” theory, I’m grounding this in (what I think are) clues the writer’s have already laid out for us.
Note that I didn’t say how Barry can save Iris and defeat Savitar. Because I think we’ve established there’s no way Barry can save her. Anything he cooks up, or even is aware of, Savitar will know about and build a contingency plan.
Which is why Team Flash will have to plan it without telling him. In fact, it’s critical that he not only not know about the plan in advance, but (for at least a time), believe Iris has died.
To save Iris West, the team will have to kill her. Or at least, a reasonable facsimile. And Barry will have to believe he’s watching the love of his life die in front of him, so Savitar remembers it that way, to preserve the chain of cause and effect and close the loop.
The easiest way to pull this off is for Wally or Jessie to carry Iris fast enough to create a time remnant. We’d also end up with a bonus Wally or Jessie, but that’s not too terrible, assuming they learned from what happened with Evil Remnant Barry. If they give Bonus Speedster some support and love, I’m sure there’s an Earth out there who could use a bonus Kid Flash or Jessie Quick.
The real Iris goes into hiding. Savitar kills the time remnant while Barry watches in horror, closing the loop of cause and effect. HR shoots Savitar with Tracy’s Speed Force bazooka, which if you’ll remember, we already saw him holding on a nearby building.
BOOM. Our season is wrapped up, folks. It sucks for remnant Iris, but it’s also a way for Iris to literally save herself, and the rest of the world from Savitar. By making an extra self to sacrifice. Which, yes, is weird.
Admittedly, there are some problems, but creating a fake Iris a different way could avoid those. I mean, we have a team of geniuses who can access the multiverse. Maybe Fake Iris is a shape-shifting meta who isn’t even injured by Savitar, because s/he can just wrap her molecules around the hole in her chest like Play-Doh. Splatter pack in her clothes = Problem solved.
But I think the general theory of “the way to defeat Savitar is to let him and Barry believe he killed Iris” is solid. This not only ties up the whole Savitar story nicely, it fits the season’s theme: that it’s Barry’s relationships, not his powers, which make him a hero. He’s not a god, and he can’t fix everything all by himself. Teamwork makes the dream work, and all that.
Which, assuming we haven’t reclaimed Killer Frost by season’s end, sets us up nicely for a “Rogues Gallery versus Team Flash” season 4. Which would rock.
My one niggling doubt about this theory is that I don’t know what that second thing Savitar needs to become “God of Speed” might be. If it’s something that he gets after killing Iris, that’s ... a problem.
But maybe he needs the alien battery pack Flash is teaming up with Snart to steal next week? (Aside: How happy am I to see him back? Almost as happy as I was seeing Smilin' Barry back).
If so, I think we’re good here. Savitar will just steal it from the heroes immediately after they steal it, and they’ll all be like, “Damn. This is literally exactly what happened with the Philosopher’s Stone,” and then things can proceed as I’ve described, with a brief side mission to steal the battery for Tracy’s bazooka back.
I have less confidence in this theory than my “Savitar is Future Barry” theory, because HOLY COW, people, did they ever foreshadow the sweet bejeezus out of that. It does play nicely off the pieces they’ve set up, but it’s not a total lock. I would say I’m about 60-70% confident in this theory.