One of the things Arrowverse fans were most looking forward to during the CW’s off season was the arrival of Flashpoint. At the end of The Flash Season 2, Barry Allen (Grant Gustin) did something fairly rare — he was selfish. But who could blame him? In the wake of losing both of his parents, he found a way to restore a time where they were both alive. However, that choice also caused major problems for others in this new timeline, making him realize he needed to let the events unfold as they originally did in order to restore his original timeline.

We had been told ahead of time that Flashpoint wouldn’t last the entire season, but that it would have repercussions that would reverberated throughout this series and others in the Arrowverse. What we actually got was only one single episode of the Flashpoint timeline, and some fairly arbitrary decisions about how it affected things since then. The most important thing Flashpoint established, though, was that Barry cannot go back and try and change time yet again, which creates higher stakes in his current world. At EW’s PopFest, Flash EP Greg Berlanti confirmed that we won’t be seeing that OG timeline from Seasons 1 and 2 again:

“I’m not sure that we can [go back], given what we’ve established. If we’re not challenging ourselves and creating new territory and new obstacles for the characters, it’s less rewarding to watch and probably less rewarding [for the actors] to play.”

So far, the only interesting thing about the repercussions of Flashpoint have been Caitlin getting an actual storyline that’s not tied to a love interest with the “return” of Killer Frost. But the multiple Harrison Wells, Wally clearly being set up to want to engage with Alchemy over his Flashpoint speed, and (on Arrow) Diggle suddenly having a son instead of a daughter all feel like unnecessary tweaks. Flashpoint was an opportunity that became a disappointment (although I am loving the introduction of Tom Felton’s Julien and his interplay with Barry — though we didn’t have to change time to get that), but the show can recover. And while the series has done a good job of introducing villains of the week under the overarching arc of Alchemy, there’s still another Big Bad on the horizon: Savitar.

“He’s the god of motion, so Flash is up against his biggest foe yet,” Berlanti said. Gustin also confirmed that Savitar would be showing up “very, very soon.” And yet, if there’s one thing The Flash needs to consider doing, it’s slowing down.