The "Armageddon" event continued this week on The Flash with the team trying to prove to Despero (Tony Curran) that Barry (Grant Gustin) wasn't the cause of the future end of the world. Despero remained unconvinced, however, telling the hero that Barry would eventually lose his mind after dealing with too many tragedies – and that would start very soon. Given everything that Barry has been through over the years, the idea that Barry would just go mad and become a villain seemed like a stretch, at least until the end of the episode when there was a surprising revelation about a major death and in the wake of that revelation, the fans have a lot to say about things.
Warning: spoilers for this week's episode of The Flash below.
In the episode, it's revealed that Joe West (Jesse L. Martin) has been dead for six months and that despite giving the eulogy at his funeral, Barry doesn't seem to remember this. It's devastating news, but fans are just as upset as Barry is. Many fans took to social media to share their thoughts on this unexpected development. Many fans were upset about Joe's apparent death while others simply don't believe it. Many fans cited that the behavior of other characters did not seem consistent with how they would react in the case of Joe's death.
Of course, showrunner Eric Wallace has opened up a little bit about the development, and while he didn't give a direct answer about Joe's actual fate, he did suggest that there is more to come.
"Let's just say that Joe is going to get an incredibly different perspective on life, and it's going to lead him to, I think, a really big choice," Wallace said. "Everybody seems to think the big choice he made was last year, to put down his badge, but there is a much bigger choice coming his way in Season 8 that takes the character down a path that he didn't know he was on, but that will feel like it's the place he always needed to go."
You can read on for how fans have been reacting to Joe's death and be sure to let us know your thoughts in the comment section.
I don't remember him dying...