I rewatched the first two episodes of Flash season 3 with ellenmillion today, over fish tacos from a local takeout place, and that was super fun. Looking forward to doing more episodes next week. :D

Meanwhile, I'm having Thoughts about where the season is going. It's fun to be up to date on a currently-running show with lots of plot threads to speculate about! Under the cut is some plot speculation, with spoilers for Flash up to 3x06.

... although I'm not getting my hopes up TOO much that it's all going to make sense in the end, since this is Flash, after all. I'm pretty sure they just make up the time travel rules as they go along, and I still don't think that having Jay turn out to be Zoom made any sense whatsoever -- it all felt terribly shoehorned into the earlier parts of the season.

But it's still fun to guess!

The main question marks right now are:

#1: Who is Alchemy?

I think the show is setting up Julian a little too obviously. On the other hand, if Alchemy is going to turn out to be someone we know, there aren't very many new suspects this season. It's basically gotta be Julian, HR, an alternate-Earth version of someone we've already met, or a suspect who hasn't been introduced yet. And I really don't think it's someone from another Earth (including HR) because of the way the timeline shenanigans work -- it is almost certainly someone who was caught up in the altered timeline instead of someone from an Earth that wasn't affected by it.

But I still don't think it's Julian.

My #1 completely crazypants theory is that it's Eobard Thawne, who's still around because of going through the Flashpoint reality with Barry. However, that doesn't explain why his powers are completely wrong for Eobard, or why he doesn't really seem to have it in for Barry in the specific way that Eobard does.

#2 crazypants theory is that the demon ... speed ... thing? that's seen at the end of 3x06 is a rogue version (or possibly an enforcer version) of the Speed Force entities Barry met near the end of the previous season, and what's going on is something like the time wraiths -- it's a timeline self-correcting measure, personified. And it's working together with Alchemy to unify the two timelines. That doesn't explain what's under the Alchemy mask, though it still could be Eobard even if this is true.

(Side note: If Barry forgot his old timeline in Flashpoint, why does he remember the original events after changing the timeline a second time?)

I'm also halfway convinced that Julian is going to turn out to be either one of the people who had powers in the other timeline (therefore becoming a victim of Alchemy later on), or if I'm right about the enemies in this season being Speed Force related, he's their opposite number - some kind of Speed Force investigator. If that's the case, though, then everything he's told Barry about his life is made up, and he just doesn't seem duplicitous enough. Though again ... Jay.

(Maybe there WAS a Julian, but now the real Julian is dead and he's been replaced by a Speed Force construct that's trying to figure out what Barry is up to and fix the damage to the timeline somehow?)

And it's also entirely possible that Julian is just what he appears to be, a regular guy who ended up in Barry's life by total accident because of timeline shenanigans. Still, I think there's something weird about him ... just not the weird that the show's red herrings are pointing us towards.

#2: What is HR up to?

Because he's darn well up to something. His backstory is a little too tidy to be believable - I'm guessing that it's either considerably shadier or more tragic, or both, than what he told the team. And I don't think we've heard the last of his mysterious business partner by a long shot.

Crazypants Alchemy theory #3: Alchemy is Randolf Morgan, and HR came to Earth-1 to find him.

HR contacted THEM, after all, and they only have his highly dubious word for how and why. He could easily be here on a mission of his own, nothing to do with redeeming himself but actually trying to find someone (his partner?), collect an important piece of science to take back to his world for Reasons, or something along those lines. Right now that's my leading theory on HR - even if it has nothing to do with Alchemy, I think he's here on a personal mission, possibly something to do with dire happenings on his earth and/or with a personal failure that he's trying to fix by finding something/someone here. I don't think he's outright evil, but I do think he's much shadier than he's pretending to be.

So yeah, that's the state of my Flash theories so far. Story developing, check back after more episodes. :D