It’s hard not to like just about everything about The Flash, and “Rupture†certainly solidifies my stance on that idea. This episode has a perfect blend of action sequences, humor and really everything that has ever drawn me into the show up until this point.  I went into this episode assuming they were going to draw out Barry being helpless because he doesn’t have his powers anymore. Then he will get that at the end of the episode, and everything will be all good. That assumption couldn’t have been more wrong.
At the beginning of the episode,Cisco, Barry and Caitlin came up with an interesting way to make everyone around Central City believe The Flash was alive and well. They created a device to project a holographic-like image and have it chase after the villains of Central City. It works quite well, and is a unique take on still seemingly having a speedster to help curtail crime. The reasoning behind the influx in crime comes up quite often in this episode and allows the characters to delve into a variety of interesting topics.
Since they decide that the only way for them to be able for Barry to get his speed back is to recreate the particle accelerator blast, various characters have their say in what Barry should do. The collision of differing ideas reinforces the importance of Barry making his own decisions when it comes to what’s best for himself and the city. On one hand, you have Henry Allen strongly against his son being subjected to the very thing that forced him into a coma for nearly a year. Joe is undecided and is willing to let Barry make his own decisions, and Wells is 100{3a19833c997fa52158a43c449fe089ff048ac0506a335cac10721cfa396ff282} on board with blasting him with the particle accelerator to stop the unmatched power of Zoom. The idea that the main reason that there is so much crime to begin with could be because how powerful Barry is and that the other metas are drawn toward him. The tipping point, however, is of course Zoom.
Zoom still has Caitlin, and there is a zero percent chance that he will simply let her go. Adding to that, Zoom has employed the services of Rupture. He just so happens to be Cisco’s brother, Dante, from Earth-2. The scenes with Dante/Rupture and Cisco are exceedingly important because they finally allow the two of them to come together and actually be brother-like toward one another.
The entire episode goes sideways once the CCPD is tipped off by Caitlin that Rupture is going to attack Jitters. CCPD plans a sting, and they get their man. Sadly, the new stations are reporting everything, and Zoom finds out that Caitlin was the one that tipped them off. Zoom speeds to Jitters and proceeds to break the necks of all of the police SWAT team. It was so, so brutal and certainly Zoom like. This really forces Barry’s hand, and in that moment he decides that he is going to go through with it.
The whole way they have to create the lightning storm is quite hilarious as Cisco has to use Weather Wizard’s wand to create the lightning strike and… well you could say it worked. It first appears that they obliterated Barry. Nothing but pieces of his suit are left. As Zoom saw the lightning in the sky, he knew what they were attempting to do and was, at first, pissed. Once he realizes that they appear to have killed him, he gloats and says that he is going to kill everyone. Barry dying, or as we saw later getting trapped in an alter dimension/Speedforce is only one take away from the particle accelerator blast.
As can be seen a mile away, to be fair this will be obvious to comic readers mostly, Jesse and Wally are caught in the blast. It’s safe to say that they will become speedsters in the coming episodes, but that honestly provides more questions than answers. Is CW able to handle three speedsters in one show? It will certainly be interesting going forward how they deal with these various storylines.
