#but uhhhhh.. Wally had the Titans over. he had JL members over. and their kids. there's no way Wally was able to protect them

[givemewallywestorgivemedeath]

This is the event I have been waiting months for.

Guys, Gals and Nonbinary Pals... Welcome to One Minute War. An event that forces the Flash family to fight against the highly trained and heavily armed forces of The Fraction. The Fraction is just as fast as them, so their powers are useless and the war will be too fast for any meaningful help from backup. The Flash family has no weapons, no powers, no backup and no plan. They are the only thing standing between the Fraction and total annihilation of the world.

These are the first casualties of the war:

Right away I have to compliment this event's set up and storytelling. The stakes are real and meaningful. These aliens just wiped out half of Central City and Keystone. The speedsters couldn't do anything about it. Their loved ones are in danger, their city is being demolished, an alien force is invading and they couldn't do a single thing to stop it. They couldn't react in time.

This entire war will be fought in Flash Time, the state of advanced speed in which the rest of the world seems to be suspended in time and the speedsters move 'normally'. The series isn't skirting around the implications of this at all. Jesse couldn't save the civilians directly in front of her, Barry couldn't run Iris out of the blast zone, Wally couldn't get to his kid fast enough to shield them, ect. I've talked a lot about speedsters and their 'nobody dies' mentality but you don't need to be familiar with that to know this: What just happened is a tragedy and it will be devastating to them.

The tone has been set for the rest of the series.