“The Mask of the Red Death Part 2,” the fifth episode of The Flash’s ninth and final season, has been teased by The CW. The program will premiere on Wednesday, March 8th. This week, the Red Death made her presence completely known to Team Flash, revealing herself to be Ryan Wilder from another timeline as well as revealing that her objective was to use Barry to power her Cosmic Treadmill so she could get back to that reality — with Iris in tow — and kill her world’s Flash. It didn’t go so well, so she hopes to take over this timeline instead next week.
As shown in the preview below, the villain is bringing in the Age of the Red Death to Central City, which is undoubtedly bad news for everyone involved. You can also continue reading for the episode summary.
THE ERA OF THE RED DEATH – While the Red Death wreaks havoc on Central City, Barry (Grant Gustin) and Iris (Candice Patton) devise a strategy and seek assistance from Cecile (Danielle Nicolet). Barry is confronted with his worst error, as well as the Red Death’s greatest achievement. Khione (Danielle Panabaker) wishes to assist Team Flash, but Barry cannot afford to lose her. Joe (Jesse L. Martin) gives Barry some much-needed motivation. Rachel Talalay directed the episode with a narrative by Jonathan Butler and a teleplay by Dan Fisk.
Who is the Red Death of DC?
Red Death, a relatively new addition to the DC universe, was first seen in Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo’s Dark Days: The Casting #1 in 2017. Red Death was revealed to be a dark mix of Batman and The Flash, a member of the Dark Knights – a group of parallel multiversal versions of Batman led by The Batman Who Laughs. In the alternate version of Earth -52, Bruce Wayne was horrified by the deaths of his numerous Robins and decided to step up his crimefighting efforts by utilizing the Speed Force. Bruce then chose to dress as the Red Death after absorbing his version of The Flash’s powers by combining his Batmobile and the Cosmic Treadmill.
Red Death has previously mentioned in a future-set Season 5 episode of The Flash, leading some to speculate on whether or not the figure could play a role in the Arrowverse. A phrase in 2021’s “Armageddon” crossover in which Ryan Wilder mentions fighting “the lady in red” fuels such beliefs even further.
“There are small Easter eggs and large Easter eggs. When we were in season three, Savitar mentioned DeVoe as one of his main adversaries “Todd Helbing, the former showrunner of The Flash previously told ComicBook.com. “We like to leave it up to the fans to guess which one it will be. Who will be a huge bad the following season, and who will be merely a name-drop? Godspeed managed to get the best of both worlds. We can do an episode with him, introduce him, and then bring him back later since he’s a major comics villain and we wouldn’t want to do a man like that in just one episode.”
