- "You know, I don't understand you, Barry. You march towards death without fear, just like Mum. Where is it you get your strength?"
- "Probably the same place she did. People I love."
- —Ramsey Rosso inquiring on Barry Allen's strength to stay alive
"Dead Man Running" is the third episode of the sixth season of The Flash, and the one-hundred-seventeenth episode overall. It aired on October 22, 2019.
Synopsis
Knowing that Crisis is only weeks away, Barry prepares a member of Team Flash for life without him while hunting a terrifying meta-human with an unquenchable thirst. Meanwhile, Ralph uncovers a family secret.[1]
Trivia
- The title is a reference to the phrase "dead man walking".
- In the comics, Legion of Super-Heroes (Volume 4) #110 in 1998, Eternium is the name given to shards of matter cast off from the Rock of Eternity (which was the lair of Shazam) after its destruction. Being near it removes the Power of Shazam!, and physical contact leads to injuries. In the late 30th Century, Thunder hoped to find all fragments of Eternium and re-assemble them into the Rock of Eternity.
- Ralph refers to Novu as a "Asgardian cosplayer", possibly referring to Marvel Comics' Asgardians.
- Debbie previously had a romance with Marv Perez. This name is an allusion to comic book creators Marv Wolfman and George Perez, who created Crisis on Infinite Earths.
- The first sighting of the new Wells is outside of McCulloch Technologies, which Nora and the Rogues broke into in "Gone Rogue".
- In the comics, Evan McCulloch is a professional assassin, who ultimately takes on the mantle of Mirror Master after Sam Scudder.
- When Harrison Nash Wells confronts Cisco, he waves a sizeable ruby at him and tells him that the stone gives horrible nightmare hallucinations to all its victims. In the comics, Dream possessed a dream-manipulating ruby.
- Cisco refers to Harrison Nash Wells as "Indiana", referencing fictional archaeologist Indiana Jones. He further quips that "this ain't Temple of Doom", in reference to the second film in which the character appears.
- This is the second episode in a row after "A Flash of the Lightning", in which Caitlin doesn't appear, only Killer Frost.
- Barry throws Killer Frost a 30th birthday party at the end of the episode, though Caitlin actually turned 30 just before the events of "King Shark vs. Gorilla Grodd".
- Ramsey tells Barry that he got his dark matter from his "old friend" Ted Kord, who in the comics is also known as the Blue Beetle.
- While training with Frost, Barry tells her "Stop trying to hit me and hit me", which is the same thing Morpheus says while training Neo in The Matrix.