The Flash ends its 9-season long run and from my point of view, it is doing this right on time!
The Flash TV show was part of the Arrowverse. The show Arrow was used as a backdoor pilot for the actual TV show. The show debuted in September 2014 starring Grant Gust as the Flash, Candice Patton as Iris West, Tom Cavanagh as the Reverse Flash, and many other roles on the show.
The Flash is the fastest man alive
The Flash intro touts him as being the fastest man alive. But in the first season, he was outrun by The Reverse Flash. Of course, you could argue that Barry Allen, The Flash’s real name, was not the Flash but The-Flash-in-training and thus never reached his full potential during that first season.
But I have to say that the first season is by far my favorite. Regardless of the other speedsters, none of them were as cunning as The Reverse Flash. The story build-up of the season was tense, it was an exciting first season filled with thriller and suspense. None of Team Flash could have suspected that their very own mentor was their worst enemy.
And then of course there was the love triangle between Eddie Thawne, Iris West, and Barry Allen. Eddie was in love with Iris but Iris was never really sure about him. Iris was actually in love with The Flash.
She didn’t know that Barry was The Flash until Barry accidentally ran past her and she felt the static electricity The Flash gave off. She felt that before when she touched Barry when he was hospitalized. Upon realizing that Barry and The Flash were one and the same, Eddie and Iris weren’t a sure thing anymore.
The Reverse-Flash was beaten by Eddie Thawne in the end. He sacrificed himself for the greater good by taking his own life. Since Eddie was the ancestor of The Reverse Flash, he was never born after Eddie passed away.
The other speedsters
Over the course of the following seasons, the show has had more speedsters. We had The Black Flash, Savitar, and Hunter Zolomon.
While they were scary enemies, for instance, Hunter Zolomon was a serial killer and Savitar was just a jealous time remnant of Barry, none of them lived up to the standard that was set by The Reverse Flash. Heck, not even The Reverse Flash could live up to the standard he set himself when he returned to the show in later seasons.
But Barry did learn from his foes. For example, Barry traveled to Earth-2 in the second season. He also learned that the Speed Force doesn’t mess around when you touch the timeline.
The Time Wraiths took Hunter Zolomon and imprisoned him in the Speed Force after he messed around with it too much. That is the job of the Time Wraiths, they maintain the timeline and act as emissaries of the Speed Force to act when it is in danger.
But after a few seasons of Barry fighting various speedsters and losing at first and winning in the season finales, the fans started to complain on various Facebook groups. They found the show’s formula too predictable. So the writers came up with another kind of Voe..eh…foe!
A different kind of foe in the 5th season of The Flash
The writers did listen to the fans and so they came up with a whole new story arc without a speedster but someone who can think at the speed of light rather than run at such speeds.
His name was Clifford Devoe and he was nicknamed The Thinker by Cisco Ramone. He could outthink anyone at high speeds.
He created a bus of meta’s and siphoned off their powers without them knowing what was happening. Since The Flash was stuck inside the Speed Force, he pretty much had carte blanche to do whatever he wanted in Central City. But The Flash was released in order to save the city and the world.
To be honest, the premise of that season was pretty good but the execution was poor. You would think that they would use CGI properly in order to see The Thinker think and use his meta powers. Instead what the showrunners gave us was poor CGI and an actor who really tried but just didn’t grasp the character from the comics very well.
My main complaint about that season was that not all comic book characters translate well to the screen. A foe like the Rainbow Raider was pretty well done. Or The Weather Wizard also came to life in the live-action version of the show.
The weird part of the 5th season was that the fans who complained so much about the speeders and formulaic writing of the show were the first ones to ask for another speedster in the 6th season. And we got Eobard Thawne again who manipulated Barry and Iris’s daughter Nora from the future into using the Negative Speed Force.
Crisis on Infinite Earths
Ever since the start of the show and a newspaper of the future that headlined the missing of The Flash, fans have asked for one of the biggest storylines in the history of comics: Crisis on Infinite Earth. Which back in the 1980s was a reset for the entire DC Universe.
At the time DC Comics had so many timelines and alternative universes that it became unworkable for the writers. So they created an event that merged all the universes into one and reset their major characters: Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. The Flash sacrificed himself by running into oblivion. The new Flash was Wally West since Barry Allen ceased to exist.
Back to the TV show, where the Arrowverse has expanded with new shows like Supergirl, DC Legends of Tomorrow, and Black Lightning, and even introduced Superman to the TV universe.
And all these shows were the backdrop for the biggest superhero event in television ever: Crisis on Infinite Earths. It featured all the DC TV shows, also the ones not on the CW like Titans and Doom Patrol. And it even featured Ezra Miller, who plays The Flash on the big screen.
Even Burt Ward who played Robin in the 1960s Batman & Robin television show has a cameo.
Although my hero, Michael Rosenbaum (Lex Luthor on Smallville), refused, I was happy to see the best Clark Kent (Tom Welling) and Lois Lane (Erica Durance) on the screen again. Even if it was only for a couple of scenes.
Crisis on Infinite Earths is where all the characters of the Arrowverse really shined and it is well worth the watch. It is one of the biggest events in TV history and definitely the biggest comic book live-action event in the history of television. Not even Marvel’s quality TV shows can match that.
The final season of The Flash
The CW announced the final season of The Flash, much to the surprise of pretty much everyone. The 8th season was written and executed as a series finale but apparently, the CW wanted to do a proper send-off for the last show of the Arrowverse.
The final season has so many cameos of actors who played a large role in the Arrowverse. Actors like John Wesley Shipp (The original Flash from the 1990s TV show), Stephen Amell (Arrow / Spectre), Rick Cosnett (Eddie Thawne), Matt Letsch (The Reverse Flash original) Tom Cavanagh (The Reverse Flash after body change), and many more.
The last episodes are part of a 4 parter in which Eddie Thawne comes back from the dead and is hit by the same lightning as Barry was in the first season of The Flash.
Over the course of the episodes, we see that slowly but surely Malcolm finds out that he never really existed but that his real name is Eddie Thawne and he passed away 9 years ago.
And every time Eddie finds out things about his past a certain blue crystal is near him. The blue crystal acts like a tool that can create illusions where your true desires come true in some sort of dream world.
So when Eddie finds out all of the events from past to present, he gets angry and blames Barry for stealing his life since Barry ended up with Iris and they are expecting a child together.
Angered by that Eddie falls for the call of the blue crystal and once inside the crystal, it turns out that the crystal is a gateway to the Negative Speed Force. Inside the crystal, all of the speedsters who once tried to neutralize the Flash are there.
Together they escape the Negative Speed Force and go after Barry. But Barry also brings his friends and a big fight follows all over Central City. The scenes are a breath to behold and you should really watch that because words wouldn’t really do the spectacle any justice. Of course, Team Flash wins and
With the enemies defeated and Iris in labor, Barry rushes to the hospital while the rest of the cast gets closure.
I loved the ending of the show, it was very fitting and the real ending of the Arrowverse. The only thing that was missing was Carlos Valdes who played in the first 7 seasons of the show as Vibe / Cisco Ramone. That would have made the final show complete. But as The Rolling Stones sang, “You can’t always have what you want…”
Personal thoughts about The Flash
I have watched every episode of this series, I supported it through spectacular highs and deep lows. In my opinion, the show should have ended with the 8th season but the 9th one was pretty good too. That was a real farewell season, especially since the wish of some fans was fulfilled with Cobalt Blue being the big bad.
Overall, I loved what The CW did with the show and it was pretty true to the comics. The comics, especially in the early days of the comics, were pretty camp. A lot of great lore was used in the TV show, for instance, Jay Garrick and the invention of the speed drug Velocity-9.
But also Gorilla Grodd, Mirror Master, Rainbow Raider, and more are all from the rich lore of the Scarlet Speedster.
I doubt that anyone can ever pull off another Arrowverse and I am not sad to see it go either. I had a lot of fun watching all of the Arrowverse shows but at some point, you have to call it. And with The Flash, finally gave the fans that closure we so craved after the cancellations of all the other Arrowverse shows.
