The following contains MAJOR spoilers for The Flash.
After years of waiting, many different screenwriters, and more directors than we can count, The Flash has finally made it to the screen. Originally, there were expectations that The Flash would act as a sort of reboot for the existing DCEU, but now that we know that the new DCU under James Gunn and Peter Safran will be largely starting things over, The Flash instead will be one of the last movies in the current franchise to be released, but it certainly tired to go out on a high note.
To say that a lot happens at the end of The Flash is understating things quite a bit. Something closer to the truth would be that everything happens during The Flash ending. The film packs a lot into its finale, and makes at least one significant change to Barry Allen’s world, though at this point we’ll have to wait and see how much it all means, assuming it means anything at all.
How The Flash Ends
The finale of The Flash begins as the two versions of Barry Allen, the one that we know and the alternate version from a timeline where Barry’s mother survives, try to find a way to defeat Zod, and they continually fail. They go back in time again and again. Yet failure continues. Our Barry understands quickly that success is simply not possible, but the alternate version continues to try. We’re then introduced once again to the same creature inside the Speed Force that initially knocked Barry out at the wrong time, and we discover that it’s another version of alternate Barry who has spent his entire life continuing to try and find a solution.
The three versions of Barry are in a stand-off inside the Speed Force where they can see the various alternate realities that exist begin to be destroyed. We see the previous versions of DC characters from the big and small screen, including Superman as portrayed by both George Reeves and Christopher Reeve. We see the old movie serial version of Batman and hear the voice of Adam West.
Ultimately, the speed force version of Barry tries to kill our main character, but the alternate Barry sacrifices himself, effectively killing the villain, as well, since they are technically the same person from different times. Barry then returns to undo his actions from the beginning that saved his mother’s life, in order to put everything back the way it was.
Barry does change one thing, however. He moves all the cans of tomatoes at the supermarket to a higher shelf, allowing for the security cameras at the grocery store to capture his father’s face. The act allows Barry's dad to successfully earn parole from his prison sentence. Everything else in Barry’s world appears to be just as it was, at least until Bruce Wayne arrives to see Barry.
The Flash’s Hilarious Surprise Cameo
In the final moments of The Flash, we discover that at least one thing has changed in Barry Allen’s world because he doesn’t recognize the guy that everybody else is calling Bruce Wayne. This is because the character is no longer being played by Ben Affleck as he was at the beginning of the film. It’s not even Michael Keaton, who became Batman in the alternate timeline. It’s George Clooney.
Needless to say, this is a hilarious cameo, and Clooney is the perfect candidate for it. Keaton had already appeared in the movie. Val Kilmer is unfortunately not available for this sort of appearance, and Christian Bale just wouldn’t have been as funny. Clooney, as a guy who has spent years poking fun at how terrible he thinks his Batman movie was, is just right.
His appearance poses so many different questions. Did everything that happened in the DCEU between Man of Steel and The Flash still happen, just with Clooney’s Bruce Wayne instead of Affleck? Does this mean that Batman & Robin is canonical to the DCEU now? Did Jared Leto’s Joker murder Chris O’Donnell’s Robin?
How Much Will It All Matter For The New DCU?
In any other situation, this would be a potentially epic game-changer for a franchise and fans would be looking forward to future entries to see what happens in the next movie. But in this case, there is no next movie.
While the Clooney cameo is fun, it’s all but certain that it’s only meant as that. As things stand now we are only expecting one more DC movie in the current continuity, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, before all the upcoming DC movies become part of James Gunn’s new DCU. This is expected to be a completely new continuity and nothing from the current series has been confirmed to be coming over to the new one.
The Clooney cameo would, in its own way, seemingly confirm that. They could have cast literally anybody as the “new” Bruce Wayne at the end of The Flash. The opportunity could have been used to reveal who the new Batman will be in The Brave and the Bold, the movie that has already been announced that will be the DCU-connected Batman’s first major film, not to be confused with Robert Pattinson’s Batman, which is also moving forward with at least one announced sequel.
A move like that would have been tough; The Brave and the Bold is years away, and handling that casting in time to insert a cameo would have been quite the undertaking, so it’s not exactly shocking that it didn’t happen. However, it all simply reinforces the idea that the end of this story is very near, and none of it will be important when the new story begins.
Still, who knows? While we know the new DCU will include a new Superman and a new Batman, nothing has been said about the rest of the Justice League yet. We don’t know when we’ll even see the first DCU appearances of Wonder Woman, Aquaman, or yes, The Flash, so maybe this isn’t quite the end for the speedster. We could still see Ezra Miller play The Flash again, even if technically he’s not playing the same version of Barry Allen that he played here. Time will tell.
