…may save Barry Allen
(‘Cause we know the show is really always about Barry Allen)
I know we’ve been talking about saving Iris West since the mid-season finale but the person who’s been losing his way since then is Barry Allen. He has been slowly losing who he is because he doesn’t want to lose the person he loves the most.
He loves being a CSI, but he thinks about compromising it.
He contemplates letting a criminal go free, an action that violates the oath he took as a CSI/Law Enforcement agent. Iris tells him he can’t and he finds another way.
He thinks about compromising his values.
He contemplates killing Grodd which goes against his moral fiber/his humanity. (I guess we just forget about Atom Smasher and Sand Demon in S2). Iris tells him her life isn’t worth losing his humanity and he finds another way.
He ignores a West tradition
He has such tunnel vision that he doesn’t ask Joe for permission/his blessing. This is a red flag because there is no reason for him not to. He knows Joe has this expectation since Joe told him many times how he asked Francine’s dad. It’s also apparent that Iris supports this expectation. He knows that Eddie asked. Iris doesn’t supposedly die until May so he has time. He had to go get the ring. It’s not like Joe was away on a business trip or something. So what happened? If Barry Allen wasn’t spiraling down a slope of desperation he would have taken the time to ask for Joe’s blessing as a sign of respect. Iris knows this.
He proposed out of fear and hid important info
What’s interesting to me is that when Iris finds out about the ring she says: “we weren’t engaged yet.” She says “yet” which means either they have talked about marriage or, at the very least, SHE was fully expecting that an engagement was the next step in their relationship. We all know HE wants this next step. A proposal was in the near future. And so he could have handled this differently. He could have been honest with her. But he chose to hide the fact that she didn’t have a ring on that night. By the way Barry reacts to Wally outing him, we know that Barry knew this wasn’t the way to propose. And this was the last straw for Iris.
So Iris did the right thing. She’s not just looking at the proposal, but a pattern of behaviors that clearly indicate that Barry is willing to do ANYTHING to save her. He is willing to compromise the oath he took as a CSI, his humanity and what it means to be The Flash, and his close relationships - all the things that make him who he is.
He is so desperate to save her that he’s losing himself.
Her words - telling him he can’t let criminals go free and that he can’t kill - didn’t stop the downward spiral. And so taking off the ring is (hopefully) a wake up call to Barry. Iris lets him know that she doesn’t want a future built on fear and desperation no matter how much they love each other. He loses her, in a way, and this may be the very thing that saves him.
00jinx
