By now most of us have seen the season one finale of CW's "The Flash". The one where Harrison Wells/Eobard Thawne convinces Barry to travel back in time to save Nora Allen and send him back to his own time, only to be double-crossed by Barry doing the right thing. No? Then stop reading if you don't want any SPOILERS. Also.. I'm ranting here..

While I thought this was a great episode and a hell of a cliff-hanger... leaving us at the end of the episode with The Flash in the midst of battling a black hole forming over the city (the major downside apparently to the Flash colliding with a hydrogen atom), I was left scratching my head. I kept thinking "Did the writers not think of the theories of time travel when they wrote this? What about "The Butterfly Effect"?

Sure, Barry didn't stop The Reverse Flash from killing Nora Allen, mainly because the "past" Flash gave "present" Flash the hand gesture that said "No. Don't. The results will be bad", and instead got a brief moment with his mother before she dies, then charges back through the wormhole he created (after Jay Garrick's helmet comes through f.y.i. Doctor Who did it first.. Fezzes are COOL) to destroy Eobard's Time Sphere. BUT things still should have changed.

During a fight between Reverse Flash and Flash, Eobard gets the upperhand and is about to do the ol' "my hand is a vibrating dagger of heart crushing death" on Barry when..who saves the day? Eddie Thawne. Dude shoots himself in the chest, giving the ultimate sacrifice in hopes of saving Barry, Iris, the STAR Labs team, Joe, and the rest of the city by.........ERASING Eobard from existence.


Now here's where I get confused. By Eobard (a future decendant of Eddie Thawne) being erased from existence shouldn't A WHOLE LOT OF CRAP HAVE CHANGED? Wouldn't the below events have been different?

-Nora Allen's death (wouldn't have been murdered by Reverse Flash) and Henry Allen wouldn't have been convicted of it.

-Barry wouldn't have had to live with Joe and Iris.

-Barry wouldn't have had the driving force to solve his mother's murder.

-Barry likely would not have met Oliver Queen, Ray Palmer, Felicity Smoak nor any of the Arrow's other associates.

- The REAL Harrison Wells and wife would've NOT been in that fatal wreck and would have went on to establish STAR Labs together.

-There would NOT be a psychic gorilla wandering around the sewers of Central City.

- So many Metahumans INCLUDING The Flash and Firestorm, would not have come into existence due to the Particle Accelerator explosion.

BASICALLY, in a nutshell NOTHING Eobard Thawne had done within the timeline that includes him killing Nora Allen would have happened, because with one self-sacrifice Eobard never existed. ALL BECAUSE OF EDDIE.

So how is it at the end of the episode, Eobard is gone, Barry is STILL the Flash and EVERYBODY still knows each other?

Okay, you do make some interesting points DI however there are many theories about how time travel works. One of them is that while changing the present can alter the future, changing past events doesn't necessarily change the present but rather fractures the timeline, creating another separate parallel reality. I would say that is likely the case here. The Jay Garrick Flash's helmet is a clear indicator that Earth-2 is coming.

I took the black hole that opened up to mean that the world was resetting itself due to Zoom never existing. That was the physical representation of all of the events getting undone. Or maybe I'm just reading way too much into it.

I too was confused about the ending of Flash and also posed the argument of present events being changed when Eddie shot himself. The only conclusion I came up with that made any sense was that Eddie Thawne not dead, Eobard is not dead or rather they were dead. Obviously Eddie died but whose to say what happened to his body once he was sucked into the time wormhole? Possibly he was thrust somewhere where he was brought back to life and then eventually set back in motion the events that lead us back to where we are. I'm sure the writers considered all of this especially when the main theme of the story deals with time travel and the chain of events that follows. I mean if Eobard is dead then the Flash's biggest adversary is dead and as you said nothing would be the same. So it's only logical to assume that Eddie will survive. As for the helmet...this one threw me off for a moment itself. I frankly don't think it's Jay Garrick's helmet. I mean what connection does he and Thawne have? Have they even met? For all we know it very well could be the Kingdom Come Wally West which would make much more sense to me.