Flash Finale: The 5 Jaw-Dropping, Tear-Spilling Moments That Sealed the Season

Jaws dropped, souls broke, and heads spun. Yes, The Flash‘s first-season finale was 100 percent IT with a capital O, M and G.

Faced with the chance to undo his mother’s murder, Barry (Grant Gustin) agreed to go Mach 2 to punch a hole through reality and trigger a wormhole that would allow baddie Eobard Thawne-slash-Harrison Wells (Tom Cavanagh) return to his future timeline. After tearful goodbyes with Team Flash at S.T.A.R. Labs and more science talk than should be allowed on The CW, there was a twist, more tears, one shockingly fatal sacrifice (how did we not figure that one out?!), and a cliffhanger that left our hearts beating faster than Barry has ever run. Along the way, there were also these realizations…

Wells/Thawne wasn’t 100 percent evil. Yes he killed Barry’s mother and let his dad sit in Iron Heights. But the guy did give Barry the chance to change the past. And he was kind of caring about Caitlin and Cisco. Even executive producer Andrew Kreisberg agrees. “He spent 15 years here,” he says. “Thawne has developed relationships with these people.” Still, they probably won’t be missing him much now that he’s evaporated.

Ronnie and Caitlin’s marriage is most likely doomed, given that we saw her as Killer Frost during Barry’s run. Blonde looks good on ya, hon.

Cisco is a meta-human! Turns out his flashbacks to Wells speed-crushing his heart were actually because he can see through the vibrations of the universe and retain traces of alternate timelines! Bring on Vibe!

Eddie actually did matter. Even though Wells told him he didn’t add up to anything in the future, the hot cop proved to be the only wild card capable of killing his wicked ancestor…by killing himself. Now let’s just hope Barry can bring him back from that crazy singularity black hole that sucked up his body before trying to eat Central City. Because we suddenly love Rick Cosnett more than ever.

The only person who man-cries better than Jesse L. Martin—whose “goodbye, son” to Barry before his last run killed us dead—is Grant Gustin. Lord alive, the Barry-Nora scene after he chose his current life over saving hers? We’re still wiping ’em away. Don’t judge.

Extra nuggets:

• Someone read Douglas Adams! Cisco’s “So long, and thanks for all the fish” line is actually the title of the fourth book in Adams’ Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series.
• “Screw the Future” will be a T-shirt at Comic-Con this summer.
• Crowded House will never go out of style, no matter what timeline. Hence their musical cameo at the Snow-Raymond wedding. (Or should we call them Cronnie?)
• Rip Hunter, the guy who built the first time machine Wells mentioned, is the star of Legends of Tomorrow next season.
• The winged hat that flew through the wormhole? That belongs to the original Golden Age Flash, Jay Garrick, who first messed with the Speed Force in 1940.

So what did you learn from the finale? Aside from the fact that Grant Gustin is a total boss of a superhero, and that Iris West is the perfect woman, that is?