WARNING: The following contains spoilers for “Crisis on Infinite Earths, Part 1,” which aired Sunday on The CW.
Since learning in The Flash Season 6 premiere that the Crisis would occur sooner than expected, Barry Allen and the rest of Team Flash have been grappling with the seeming inevitability of his death. The Monitor has said repeatedly that “The Flash must die,” and Barry investigated potential futures himself, only to see that the only for everyone else to survive is for him to die.
But Barry isn’t supposed to die, at least according to what we know. Last year, during the "Elseworlds" crossover, Oliver Queen went to the Monitor to make a deal in exchanged for the lives of The Flash and Supergirl. They seemed to be on their way to recreating their deaths from DC's Crisis on Infinite Earths comic, only to be saved at the last minute. Oliver traded his life for theirs. So why does Barry have to die now?
Because, it seems, The Monitor is a ... pedantic, rules-lawyering jerk.
In “Crisis on Infinite Earths Part 1,” which premiered Sunday on The CW, Oliver finds out what Barry has been coming to terms with all season: The Flash has to die in the Crisis. After discovering that, Oliver immediately calls to the Monitor to demand an explanation. Following Barry’s confusion about who he’s yelling at, Oliver is pulled into the space where he made his deal with the Monitor.
Once there, an angry Oliver tries to comprehend what’s going on. After all, they made a deal: He dies so Barry and Kara live. “So why are you telling Barry that he’s gonna die?” Oliver asks.
The Monitor’s response? “I spared your friends' lives so they could save their world last year. This is a very different threat.”
That isn’t the agreement Oliver thought he was signing onto, making The Monitor that kind of overly literal genie who drives every fictional character insane. He gave Oliver exactly the deal that he asked for, just not the one he believed he was getting. Oliver traded his life for theirs, but only for the events of last year's cosmic catastrophe, not this year's.
That continues the roller coaster Oliver has been on this season of Arrow in regard to The Monitor. He trusted the cosmic entity, then wanted to kill him, then returned to trusting him, and now finds the deal he struck isn’t the one he thought he bargained for. Oliver seems to brush this off in the moment, but it makes a difference later.
At the end of the episode, as Earth-38 is doomed, The Monitor pulls all of the other heroes out of the battle to regroup. He tries to tell Oliver to retreat, and the hero takes that chance to fire an arrow at him. It takes out the Monitor long enough for Oliver to buy time for more people of Earth-38 to escape. However, it resulted in him being mortally wounded in the battle against the Anti-Monitor’s army before the Monitor can teleport him back to Earth-1.
As for where this leaves Barry, his death continues to be foretold by The Monitor, and Oliver’s deal isn’t there to protect him. His saving grace may be the revelation from The Monitor and Pariah that this isn’t the way events were supposed to unfold. The Monitor saw Oliver’s death happening, but not in this way. Was this included in the possible futures Barry saw earlier this season? If not, this may be a loophole he can exploit to save himself from his otherwise seemingly inevitable death.
"Crisis On Infinite Earths" continues tonight at 8 ET/PT on Batwoman and Tuesday at 8 p.m. ET/PT The Flash. After the winter hiatus, the crossover will conclude Tuesday, Jan. 14, at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Arrow and at 9 p.m. ET/PT on DC's Legends of Tomorrow.