Let's make this simple: Do you want to know if there’s a post-credits scene in The Flash? We’ll tell you right here: The film has one post-credits scene and no mid-credits scene.
Don't read any further if you want to avoid spoilers!
Here's where to watch The Flash with streaming info if you're not catching it in theaters.
Does every problem have a solution? The Flash movie does its best to find out, as Ezra Miller’s Barry Allen zooms all over the multiverse, meets several surprising faces, faces some harsh realities, and ushers in what’s next for DC’s cinematic universe.
Directed by Andy Muschietti, the thirteenth and penultimate film of what we know as the DCEU (not including Zack Snyder’s cut of Justice League!) re-writes reality for all of your favorite DC characters. We’re going to break all of that down and what it means for the future of DC, as well as what the deal is with The Flash’s after-the-credits scene. Grab whatever super-suit materials you can find and run with us here!
The Flash Trailer Images
The Flash’s Ending Explained
The Flash culminates in a battle we’ve seen before, if not quite like this. Because Barry has traveled back to a distorted version of 2013, he and his new allies find themselves fighting to save the world from General Zod and his Kryptonian army. Just like in Man of Steel, Zod (Michael Shannon) wants to terraform Earth and make it into a new Krypton. And shockingly, Michael Keaton’s Batman and Sasha Calle’s Supergirl both die defending the planet.
The Flash deals a lot with the concept of fixed points – critical moments in the timeline that can’t easily be undone. Here, the Barry and the younger version of himself from 2013 hit a major roadblock when they discover that Batman and Supergirl’s deaths are another fixed point in time. No matter how fast he runs, Future Barry can’t stop his friends from being brutally killed during Zod’s attack. Unfortunately, Kara and Bruce seem destined to die here no matter what. And as Barry races through the Speed Force, he glimpses other worlds in the DC multiverse, leading to cameos of iconic DC heroes like Christopher Reeve’s Superman, Adam West’s Batman and Helen Slater’s Supergirl. And Nic Cage’s Superman is there, too.
That truth about fixed points is what ultimately drives Past Barry insane, as he breaks away and winds up spending decades in the Speed Force trying to prevent the inevitable. That ordeal warps him into the Dark Flash, as he becomes aged and covered in pieces of shrapnel picked up from various attempts to right the battle. The Dark Flash decides that Future Barry has to die so that their mother can live. But Past Barry sacrifices himself to save Future Barry, wiping the Dark Flash out of existence in the process.
This is what prompts Future Barry to finally accept that some things can’t be changed and that he needs to undo his time meddling. He restores the DCEU to how it previously existed (give or take one Bruce Wayne), but we never actually see Sasha Calle’s Supergirl or Keaton’s Batman after that point. The film doesn’t definitively reveal what happened to these characters after the timeline was fixed.
Now let’s get to the emotional final moments of the movie, and what the last scene actually means for everything going forward.
Barry comes to understand that his mother’s death is a fixed point in time, and by changing it, he creates the Past Barry who would go on to become Dark Flash. To undo his own paradox, he must allow his mother to die. He goes back to the past again, just after he originally slipped the tomato can into her cart, and pulls it back out, but not before sharing one final emotional moment with his mother, knowing he is sending her to her sudden and painful doom. He does change one thing, though. He moves all the tomato cans to a shelf where, when his father goes to grab one, his face will be seen by the security camera, thus exonerating him of the murder in the current timeline.
To undo his own paradox, he must allow his mother to die.
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Back in the present, Barry walks out of his father’s successful retrial and talks on the phone to Bruce, who’s congratulating him, and just happens to be pulling up in his very fancy car. And then we see Bruce – now played by Batman & Robin’s George Clooney instead of Ben Affleck. Oh no. Barry Butterfly Effected his world again and now he’s stuck with the hands-down worst Batman. But hey, at least no one is trying to terraform the planet anymore…
The Flash’s Post-Credits Scene Explained
So where is Barry now? What else is different? The post-credits scene isn’t super helpful in unraveling this further.
The post-credits scene shows that at least Jason Momoa’s Aquaman/Arthur Curry is more or less the same in this new timeline. We see the two heroes leaving a bar in the middle of the night, where Barry has presumably explained the multiverse to him and Arthur has presumably gotten stinking drunk to make his technobabble palatable.
Barry tries to get drunk Aquaman up to sleep in his apartment in Central City, but Aquaman is much happier in a filthy puddle in the street. This scene serves as a reminder: Changing points in time can shift some things wildly and some things not at all. Aquaman doesn't change. Which adds further fuel to rumors that Jason Momoa is still playing the character in James Gunn’s DCU.
George Clooney’s Batman and How The Flash Resets the DC Movie Timeline
And that’s… it. There’s nothing after the final credits. But let’s get back to what’s most interesting here: The ending perfectly carves an opening for Gunn’s creative reboot of the DC Cinematic Universe
As we leave the last moments of the film proper, George Clooney is Bruce Wayne, not Ben Affleck. This means that Barry is not actually in the same exact point where he started this movie; he’s in a slightly divergent timeline. Does this imply the Batman & Robin movie timeline is essentially where he landed? With Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Mr. Freeze?
What about Alicia Silverstone’s Batgirl… is she maybe Oracle now? Chris O’Donnell is Robin but probably in the Nightwing stage of his life? Could Bat Skates, Bat Credit Cards, Bat Nips, and Uma Thurman’s over-the-top acting still exist here???
Getting over all that, the bigger implication here is that Gunn now absolutely has the space to either shift or redefine the main DC Cinematic timeline thanks to Flash’s Flashpoint-esque meddling.
The movie universe reset will make perfect sense, moving away from what is essentially the Snyderverse over to Gunn’s new vision and explaining it all through the various timeline meddling points in this movie. We could easily still be in the same universe as before, but with this Barry’s meddling, now we see a different Superman, Wonder Woman and Batman. Everyone, at any point in their lives, can be different because of what Barry shifted with the whole tomato can debacle.
DC Universe: Every Upcoming Movie and TV Show
The Barry we’ve been following is essentially not where he started, also leaving room to even recast Ezra Miller. If many different actors playing Batman and Superman can all exist and make sense in one context, why not Flash too? It would require another timeline divergence, but that bell has certainly been rung now. At the same time, we know some actors will remain the same, like Viola Davis’ Amanda Waller and the Suicide Squad/Peacemaker crew. As Barry tells Arthur, some people look the same in every timeline or universe.
The Flash movie literally makes any version possible going forward. They can easily recast everyone, leave one or two actors in place, adjust the relative ages of different heroes or shift the circumstances of the world. The door is wide open for anything to make sense in the upcoming Superman: Legacy.
The door is wide open for anything to make sense in the upcoming Superman: Legacy. Â
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But what did you think of The Flash? Will Ezra Miller’s Barry return? Is there a chance Michael Keaton’s Batman and Kara Zor-el could pop up again, and what will they remember? Also, are you interested in some leftover pasta? Let us know down in the comments.
For more, check out every cameo in The Flash, learn exactly how The Flash time travel works and see how Keaton's Batman went from flop to phenomenon.
Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter.