According to the showrunners, things aren't really back to normal. Barry is once again in an alternate timeline. Judging by their comments, too, this may be the new normal timeline for the series.

As for the episode, I have to wonder how long Barry's acceptance of his parents' death will last. The Speedforce episode from last season was undone almost immediately. I was really hoping the writers could move away from the "Barry needs a pep talk to defeat the villain". It grated especially badly coming from a version of Iris who didn't really know him, despite feeling he completed her or whatever. I was mostly entertained, but the big flaws from last season seem to still be there and I'm cautious. Especially considering how badly Arrow fell off the cliff last season.

I want to watch this but I don't have an American TV.

I liked the premier. If you expected this to be the huge world altering event that was in the comics, that is your own fault because we already knew this was going to be exactly what the story was originally meant to be had it not been for Didiot's interferrence. It was awesome seeing Wally in the costume and I hope this isn't the last of him in it. On the other hand, I have no idea who The Rival is. I've never heard of him at all. The only thing I can think of is if he is a New 52 villain since I stopped reading those comics after 12 or so issues. The ending with Mirror Master and Dr Alchemy was pretty cool (although, I was really hoping to see him be Mr Element first). Now that is not to say I didn't feel some disappointment because it seemed to be over too soon. This really should have been a much bigger event. Like maybe they should have done Flashpoint as a 5 parter, started the season in Sept, and then had Arrow and stuff premier after Flashpoint was over. So I liked it, I enjoyed it, I was entertained, but I wasn't rocked as much as I wanted to be.

Rival debuted in 1949

Oops, I forgot to fix that part. Yeah, I learned he was a Jay villain. Never even considered that one.

Yeah, he was the Zoom/Reverse Flash for Jay Garrick.

I didn't think Flashpoint would last too long--it'd get really complicated with the other shows really quickly. But I liked the episode.

Can't wait for Supergirl, though.

That's really the most frustrating part for me. I love how much this show is basically just a televised comic book, but its biggest problem is Barry doesn't really get to grow beyond what the status quo requires of him.

Yeah, at least it explained why Flashpoint didn't seem to change Arrow at all.

The Arrow premier kind of... sucked. There editing was choppy as hell and the camera motions were terrible. At first I thought they were done well, but then they started jittering and had really weird sudden angle changes that completely distracted me from the immersion of the episode. Not to mention the writers have clearly learned NOTHING from Season 4. Flash is the only reason I'm going to continue watching this show and continue buying the BDs (since WB doesn't care enough to put the crossovers together on each series' respective discs). The worst part was when Ollie started to talk about his whole killing speech. UGH!! We've already dealt with this, DO SOMETHING ELSE!!! I do hope things improve though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSW1HRYRPCs

So excited for this. The effects look much improved compared to last season anyway and Grandma Vixen looks like she's gonna be part of the team, interesting.