Warning: This post contains spoilers for the latest episode of The Flash! Proceed with caution, speedsters. For reals, if you haven’t yet watched this week’s episode, “Attack on Central City,” we highly suggest you do so before proceeding. Okay? We good? Let’s go.

Things move fast on The Flash, as befits a show about speedsters. But rarely do they move as fast as they do in “Attack on Central City,” in which Barry, Wally, and Cisco bring their relationships with their significant others to new levels. The question is, are things moving too fast?

I’ve had an itching suspicion that something was up with Barry and Iris for a little while now. I just haven’t been able to put my finger on what it was. But since “Attack on Central City” ends with him proposing marriage, after they’ve only been living together for, what, a few months?, and since he seems to have stopped worrying she’ll die at the hands of Savitar, I’m now reasonably sure that she will die. Maybe not because of Savitar. But there’s no way a show this driven by its hero’s angst is going to let these two lovebirds continue to shower each other with flowers and pancakes. Sure, Harry can pay lip service to the series’ party line, that Barry is a figure of hope and optimism. But we all know he’s spent most of the last three seasons weeping, worrying, and doing as much hand-wringing as Peter Parker has on his worst days. I hate to say it, but it seems like the only way this series can get Barry back to the state in which it seems to favor him is by killing Iris. Even though that would be as egregious a case of fridging as anything we’ve seen in the DC TV Universe.

But hey, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe they really are destined to be together, always; with her permanently replacing Joe as the prime source of pep talks in his life. It’s a better role for her than most any she’s had so far on the show. (If her gig with Picture News doesn’t work out, she has a bright future as a motivational speaker.) I have to wonder, though, if her good sense might cause her to reject Barry’s proposal, at least for the time being. Surely she must see it as either 1.) a form of denial in which Barry’s trying to reject the future he saw for her, or 2.) on a subconscious level, representing his acceptance of that future and his determination to be as close as possible to her in the time they have left.

In either case, it’s an understandable move. More understandable, anyway, than Jesse’s decision to immediately move in with Wally upon moving to Earth-One. Wasn’t it just last episode that she thought he liked her because she represented his speed fantasies in human form? Methinks she still has some self-improvement to do. As crabby as Harry might be when she breaks the news to him (and it is pretty slimy of him to tell Wally he’s dying in order to get her to stay on Earth-Two), his wariness at his daughter’s impulsiveness makes sense. But then I’m not, nor have I ever been, a teenage girl. So maybe this is just one instance in which I fall outside the age range The Flash targets.

Cisco doesn’t make anything official the way Barry and Wally do this week, but he does get to enjoy his first deep, lingering kiss with Gypsy. The two exhibit a great deal more heat than either of this episode’s other couples, though maybe that’s because their relationship has always been more lighthearted and unassuming. Even her initial refusal to help Team Flash battle Grodd’s invading gorilla army feels a bit like another instance of foreplay between the two, as does his eventually successful recruitment of her.

Julian sits out this week’s episode, having apparently had his fill of Planet of the Apes in “Attack on Gorilla City,” the first half of this two-parter. But Caitlin updates us on their status: They are–in her mind, at least–just friends. Ouch. Poor Julian. Yet given a little time, and another chance or two to prove his dedication to helping her overcome Killer Frost, things could change.

The most disappointing thing about “Attack on Central City” is that we don’t get to see all that much of the attackers, save for a climactic bout between Solovar and Grodd that ends with the latter being turned over to A.R.G.U.S. Could the great ape one day become a member of Suicide Squad? (Provided Warner Bros. allows the team to reappear on television following its big screen breakthrough last summer.)

Next week marks the first time in a good long while that Savitar gets a complete episode to himself. I just wish he’d also get some kind of personality instead of remaining the cypher he’s been thus far this season. He’ll never match Revere-Flash in terms of character (as least so long as he’s not played by Tom Cavanagh), but he’s got to have more dimensions than Zoom for us to invest in Barry’s eventual victory, whatever it might cost him.

Accelerated Particles:

— “You know what I always say–a fellow who can’t tell the difference between balls and lanterns is in trouble when the lights go out.” At this point, I imagine everyone in the cast hates Tom Cavanagh for getting lines this good.

— I wonder if Earth-Nineteen’s Hallmark makes as much money off of Friends Day as ours does off of Valentine’s Day.

— “Are you trying to Luke Starkiller me?” Cisco’s the only regular character on this show who would know the origin of that last name, as he reveals in his smile upon hearing it.

— “Then I remembered a quote from a renowned poet on my Earth, Alfred Yankovic…”

What did you think of this week’s episode? Let me know in the comments below or on Twitter (@JMaCabre).

Images: The CW