There has been a lot of speculation on the internet about who Harrison Wells on The Flash really is, but Tuesday night's episode brings up an even more pressing question: was Harrison the one who made Barry Allen "The Flash" in the first place? The last few seconds of the episode show Harrison in that mysterious hidden away room in S.T.A.R. labs, watching a very eerie video of the last few moments before Barry gets struck by the same lightning that turns him into the spandex-clad (sorry, tri-polymer-clad) superhero that he is today. If Harrison really was the one who engineered what happened to Barry, I guess that clears up the mystery of how he just happened to know what was going on when Barry was in the hospital well enough to take him back to their medical facilities. But it doesn't clear up the more important question: What exactly is his end goal?
A part of me wants to believe that Harrison is a good guy. He actually seems to give a damn about what happens to Barry, even if he acts rather nefarious at times (for example, the fairly brutal murder of Simon Stagg last week). But the good guy persona is starting to look a little less likely when you consider all 17 people who died at the time of the particle accelerator explosion, and all the metahumans it created who are now terrorizing the city. Unless, being from the future (which is still a possible theory, based on that 2024 newspaper headline from the premiere), Harrison already knows that whatever good that comes out of creating the Flash will outweigh the bad that the accident created. Until we get some answers, the verdict on him is still out.
But whatever his motivations here are, it seems that Harrison is trying to play God in Central City, and is always a step ahead of just about everybody. I suppose he is just one more mystery on The Flash that we're going to have to wait out — but I have a feeling that whatever it is, it's going to be one hell of a surprise.
Image: Cate Cameron/The CW
