The Flash season 7 premiere gave Iris West one of her most intense episodes yet, as the Mirrorverse gives nods to Iris from past seasons. One of the big storylines in the last season was Iris getting trapped inside the Mirrorverse at the hands of Eva McCulloch. As the new Mirror Master became Team Flash's latest threat, she's still keeping Iris trapped in the other dimension. Originally, Iris was going to be out of the Mirrorverse ahead of The Flash season 7. But due to the global pandemic, season 6 never finished production, and thus its remaining three episodes are now factored into the ongoing season. That means that by the fourth episode (which airs in a few weeks), the Mirror-saga should be concluded.
The season premiere had a lot of focus on Iris, who was struggling to keep her mind together inside the Mirrorverse. The Flash season 6 finale, while not the original season conclusion, did tease that the Mirrorverse is starting to damage Iris greatly. The last thing viewers saw of Iris was when she started feeling the pain again before her body began glowing and shifting into a crystal-type-shape that caused her to disappear.
But season 7 took this trauma to a different level, with Patton playing multiple different versions of Iris from past seasons of The Flash as the Mirror Master played mind games with her unfortunate captive. Here is every version of Iris that appeared in the Mirrorverse.
The first Mirror-Iris that the real version meets inside the Mirror dimension in this episode goes all the way back to The Flash pilot. Before Iris became a reporter (and later on the founder of The Central City Citizen), she was a barista at Jitters. After Barry went into a coma from being struck by lightning, Iris would have to wait nine months before she would see him awake again. During this time, Iris was working for Jitters while also being a psychology student.
Even though this wasn't the real Iris, it's still a callback that will have filled many with pleasant nostalgia towards the show's beginnings. The Iris that the show has today has come so far since the pilot over the course of over 100 episodes. Despite Eva's painful mind games, this was still an opportunity to reflect how much Iris has grown in 7 seasons. But that was just one of the mirages that Mirror Master was posing as throughout the episode.
The next fake-Iris that showed up was especially unique, as she is pulled from an alternative timeline in The Flash season 3. One of the main arcs of that season became about saving Iris from being murdered by Savitar. When Barry went several months into the future and saw Iris be killed by the villainous speedster, the latter half of The Flash season 3 became all about changing the future. Despite the fact that Iris was saved after H.R. (disguised as her) took her place, there's still a timeline where Iris did die at the hands of Savitar, who was in fact a time remnant of Barry that had gone mad.
Her death is what caused the alternative 2024 timeline where Barry had given up being Central City's hero. While it was one of the darker storylines the show has ever done, it was also one of the more controversial ones too. Despite the fact that they did save Iris, it was unexpected to see The Flash revisit that arc, based on a future where Iris got murdered. But thankfully, the darker tone of The Flash season 3 arc is one that hasn't been repeated in later seasons - even if it's a pleasant surprise to see it referenced some four seasons later.
The last incarnation that Iris faces of herself in the Mirrorverse is one from the (now possibly erased) future. This Iris is based on the older version that was introduced as part of Nora West-Allen's storyline from the year 2049. The future-Iris was at that point a single mother after Barry had vanished in the original Crisis. Worried for her own daughter's well-being, Iris planted a power-dampening chip inside of Nora (who didn't discover it until much later) so she couldn't access her potential metahuman-speed. In the Earth-1 timeline, Iris gave birth to Nora somewhere between 2018-2024, before Barry disappeared.
But due to the fact that Nora got erased in The Flash season 5 finale, this particular Iris from 2049 likely doesn't exist anymore. Additionally, since Crisis on Infinite Earths rewrote Earth-Prime's history, Barry never vanishes as he was supposed to, meaning Iris was never without him. Wally West even alluded to having seen Nora in the future through the Speed Force, although it was very likely a different take on the character who appeared in the fifth season. This means that whoever Iris becomes in 2049, won't be the exact version that appeared in the season premiere. While it was all Eva's doing, it'd have been intriguing to see a few other past takes on Iris from the last few seasons.
It'd have been a big callback if the Earth-2 Iris had made an appearance as she was very different from Earth-Prime's Iris. Another option would have been the Iris from The Flash season 1 in the timeline where Weather Wizard flooded Central City after she learned Barry was the Scarlet Speedster. That is also an Iris that exists in an alternative timeline after Barry (accidentally) traveled back in time for the first time. Either way, "All's Wells That Ends Wells," must have been a fun episode for Patton to film by getting to play so many different takes on her character. But with only a few episodes left of this arc in The Flash season 7, Iris West will soon be out of the Mirrorverse as the Mirror Master story wraps up.
