John Diggle’s daughter, Sara, from the original timeline, is now his son, John. While it appears Diggle’s change in offspring is the only noticeable change to the Star City crew, the changes over in Central City are much more abundant.
Familial and romantic differences:
- Iris and Joe are estranged. Joe decided not to tell Iris that her mother was still alive. In the original timeline, it was Barry who helped smooth out relations between Joe and Iris and convinced Joe that he needed to tell his daughter that her mother was still alive.
- Barry and Iris’ relationship is in a state of flux. Of course, it seems as if it is always in that state. At the end of season 2, Iris told Barry to do what he needed to do to get himself mentally ready to move on with their relationship. Upon hearing those words from her, Barry proceeded to rewind time. But, in the current timeline, that never happened, and Iris and Barry never kissed.
Trust me, Barry, West/Allen fans are no happier about that than you are.
Workplace differences:
- Cisco is no longer the king of nicknames. In the original timeline, Cisco took great pride in the fact that he could drum up names for metas in the blink of an eye. He no longer holds that title. In fact, he couldn’t care less about what Barry calls the bad guys. What changed? Dante, Cisco’s brother, died in a car accident by a drunk driver. To make matters worse, Cisco had repeatedly asked Barry to rewind time to save Dante, but he refused, telling Cisco that he “doesn’t do that.” It’s easy to see why Cisco looked betrayed when Barry revealed to the team what he had done. It’s going to take awhile to mend that friendship.
- Julian Albert dominates the CSI lab that Barry used to occupy solely. (Julian Albert not Julian Dorn — apparently the difference between the comics and the show) His nameplate reads “Meta-Human CSI specialist”. That has to irritate the hell out of Barry since his just reads “Crime Scene Investigator”. I love the irony in that. To make the situation even more uncomfortable for Barry, Albert does not like Barry at all.
If Caitlin is right, and everyone has secrets, I wonder what Julian Albert is hiding.
- Caitlin’s cold side is showing. This timeline could lead to the emergence of Killer Frost. The shift in the original timeline seems to have ignited Caitlin’s alter ego. If so, we could see sweet and innocent Caitlin Snow coming into her own as something a lot more lethal.
“In my mind, wherever you go, you’ll always be Barry, and I’ll always be Iris. And we’ll always find each other.” — Iris West
On a side note, as far as bad dude metas go, Alchemy is super creepy cool. And creepy is cool