#gif-source analysis

I definitely think Mick’s been presented differently this season. But I would say that it’s not that he’s inherently more competent or smart, its that his teammates are acknowledging and noticing that more and putting him down less, and that changes how the viewer responds to him?

I think… realistically, Mick has often been incredibly belligerent with the team. I get the impression it was pretty bad for a while there. We see him twist Ray’s arm for poking him in the chest in S2, and no one wants to volunteer to go collect him for a mission. In fact he’s often sleeping during missions or flat out refuses to go and help. He insults the team pretty often honestly, and he’s at odds with Sarah (sometimes fairly, like saving Ray in the Camelot episode) and sometimes just because he’s angling for a fight.

So I think there was this huge tension between him and the team in S2, which contributed to them taking mean shots at his intellect and competence (some more than others) while in turn he was violent and uncooperative with them. And a lot of this comes from his grief, and their grief (losing Len, and also Rip?)? Which doesn’t excuse the straight-up ableism going on and how they insult his intellect instead of deal with the actual issues (his rage, his belligerence) but I think it informs what’s changed in S3.

In S3, the Mick that we know isn’t the one who betrayed the team and created Doomworld, it’s the one who chose the team. Who fought with them and aligned himself with them, fully and truly and authentically for… essentially for the first time since the Time Pirates in S1. He’d never had to face another similar choice since then, and until the end of S2, he never did fully choose them. And when he did, they noticed?

So now that he has chosen them? And that he volunteers to come back from his retirement/vacation in Aruba to help, and that the first thing he does when he sees an anachronism in 3x01 is to call up Sara? He’s treating the team like family and they’re responding to it in kind. Martin even invited Mick to stay at his home for the Westallen wedding??

So… Mick’s still making some speech issues. He can’t say anachronism or doppelganger. He still demonstrates the aphasia that the fandom has discussed. It’s less-so, I would agree, but that might also be because he’s less stressed and anxious around his team because they’re less likely to take digs at him for not knowing the words. And he’s still a little belligerent. And he definitely did rat out Zari and seems to take (private) glee in ratting out his teammates to each other (or their temporal-aberration children, y’know). 

But his dynamic with the team has definitely changed, and thus the lens with which we see Mick has changed. He’s also healthier, I think, and much further in his grief and coping process, though maybe not at the end yet (but is anyone truly ever at the end of mourning?). 

And I think it’s just a natural direction of writing. It might be partially in response to fan complaints but I think it’s also… you can’t keep up that type of friction between one member and the rest of a team, not permanently across seasons. Something’s gotta give? So they told the story they wanted to tell with it, and now they’re advancing the narrative? 

So now we get to see genuine, if still somewhat rocky, teamwork. A natural progression of people coming to understand and care about each other and communicate in their somewhat stilted ways.

I found it really interesting honestly. Like the meta-textual reason was clearly to remind the viewer of his death as a primer for the fact that we’d see a version of him again in the crossover. 

But the within-canon explanation? 

Iris met Len… twice. Once before he died when Len broke into the West house and she argued with him, and once after he died when past!Len helped Barry break into ARGUS. So for her to list this man she met twice, well over a year apart both times, once when he was already dead? And to list him amongst people that were close allies to the team…?

(Also, Laurel surprised me on this list too? At least coming from Iris).

I think it speaks to how important Len is to Barry, honestly. I can only imagine that after Len showed up on Christmas in 2x09, Barry would’ve talked to Iris and explained to her more about his dealings with Len. Would’ve explained why he was willing (eager) to invite Len to help and why he trusted the information Len gave him. 

“He just has a trustworthy face!” “No Barr, he really doesn’t.”

Iris would’ve known some, but maybe not all, and certainly not just how deep it went, how much Barry feels a sense of understanding for Len and a sense of honor and duty wrapped up in their weird connection. Joe gets it, we know he’s seen it develop, but Iris wasn’t around for pretty much any of that and seeing is different than being told.

And we never really saw how Barry felt about hearing Len died? 

(I still think this moment should’ve been between Barry and Mick...)

They were busy fighting aliens, he didn’t have much time to process. So I imagine that it means that he talked to Iris about it after, and again after he came back from his jaunt into the speed force and seeing Len’s speed force ghost? And maybe he didn’t open up about his own sense of guilt (”I set him on that path - it’s my fault he died”) or maybe he did? If he was gonna talk to anyone about it, it would be her or Joe, and I imagine he finds it easier to talk to her now that they’re together, even about this.

And then finally, Barry goes and picks up a past!Len for a mission. Iris has to be able to see through him, see through that motive, a little. They could’ve stolen the tech without time travel. They’re a very savvy team, it was doable, y’know? But Barry’s solution was to go and mess with the timeline even after he more or less promised to stop doing that. 

(The one time I wasn’t like “Barry no” when it came to deliberate time travel)

So I don’t think it’s a reach to surmise that he did it at least in part because he wanted his own chance to say goodbye to Leonard, to see for himself the man Len became before the end? Len is important to him - important enough that Barry wouldn’t leave him behind even though Iris’s life was in danger.

So Iris has seen and knows all this. And even though she’s not close with Snart, she knows that he was something to Barry - something special and unique. Not quite friends, allies only in a loose and dangerous sense of that term, but definitely not enemies, but something enough that Barry sees him in the speed force, and found his own way to say goodbye.