This season of The Flash has been - to be generous - up and down so far. It was a bit of a risk to open the year with a five-part mini-series but it appears that the CW was hell-bent on doing a crossover-thon by basically bringing characters fromall over the Arrowverseinto these first five episodes. On the one hand, the number of crossovers they’ve done can be fun for those who really do love all the superhero shows that are on the network. On the other hand, other than Jefferson fromBlack Lightningit feels as if the crossovers were mostly incredibly forced. Forcing the characters into the story didn’t help the plot or the script all that much. That was especially the case with Episode 4.
What also appears to be the case in Episode 4, is that the writers didn’t have enough content to actually stretch “Armageddon” into five episodes. Instead,The Flashspent entirely too much time in an alternate future, where - for reasons passing understanding - the writers decided they needed to move romantic plotlines forward that, when Barry Allen succeeded in fixing the timelines, no longer existed. Setting aside that those romantic bits didn’t need to be in there in the first place, they were also forced, hurried and at one point so sappily carried out that it might have been a situation where the writers were actually trying to troll one part of the fanbase that desperately want to see Allegra and Chester get together.
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The Flash Starts Strong Enough
The FlashEpisode 3’s end and Episode 4’s beginning was strong enough. It’s certainly interesting to see Eobard Thon’s master plan come to fruition so spectacularly. He’d actually managed to go back in time and change things so completely that Barry’s old friends had all turned on him. If things didn’t feel so hurried, it would be interesting to see more of a world where Thon is the flash and Allen is Reverse-Flash. As Thon says to Barry, he finally beat The Flash. He finally made himself what he calls a “perfect” world. There’s even a bit of intrigue when he makes it clear that he’s not the one who triggers Armageddon because he’d have no reason to destroy the world he made. It could have been interesting to spend most of the episode trying to figure out how the end of the world comes about. Instead, they rush through it and come up with an explanation that doesn’t make a ton of sense, based on the fact that what actually caused it has never caused it before.
Off The Rails In A Flash
Whilethis episode ofThe Flashstarted off strong enough, it went off the rails quickly. Especially when Thon tells “Team Flash” to suit up at what I assume was a wedding rehearsal dinner and two characters who were in evening wear appear in their costumes two seconds later. That makes sense for both Flash and Reverse-Flash. They have super speed. How Batwoman went from civilian clothes to her batsuit in the blink of an eye makes quite a bit less sense. It’s also something that could be ignored if the episode, in general, was better, but the writing was bad enough overall that this scene stuck out as a “are they even trying to make sense” kind of moment.
There was also the barely explained reasoning as to why the entire team thought The Flash was a bad guy. At various points during the episode, the show acted as though the group had never actually been friends with Barry, especiallywhen Iris West actedas though some distant memory from another life had been stirred by Barry calling her his “lightning rod.” However, during Thon’s explanation of how he’d changed the timeline, he clearly said he was the one who went back 10 years and attacked the city, dressed as The Flash. So if the timeline shifting was done so recently, then Iris would remember that they were husband and wife once upon a time. Of course, the evil speedster also claimed he’d gone back and killed Barry when he was a baby, so perhaps he made other changes after the first ones. Why he wouldn’t just make those changes in one fell swoop isn’t entirely clear.
Romance Not A Strong Suit For The Flash
While Thon going back in time and changing everything was ham-handed, the waythis episode ofThe Flashhandled Allegra and Chester was positively laughable. The episode tells the audience that the pair hooked up in 2021 for a one-night stand that went bad. It then has a lot of long conversations about the power of love and how they really should have been together this whole time. There was also the character who was basically a one-shot “player” who turns out to be a romantic at heart. Since the audience had never seen this character hanging out with Team Flash before this episode, his character arc was both pointless and weird.
The entire romance arc was weirder still considering Barry wasn’t involved in it and when Allegra and Chester eventually profess their love for one another, it’s all for naught as the timeline was eventually fixed. Since Barry wasn’t the one trying to get the characters together, he’s not going to be going back in time and telling them how much they love each other in the future. That romantic story has been quite literally deleted. That it took up about a quarter of the episode demonstrates that it was mostly filler in order to stretch the eventover five episodes ofThe Flash.
The Flashhas always had a sappy sideto it. After all, there’s quite a bit of romance mixed in with most of the Arrowverse shows. However, the way the writers are trying to slam Allegra and Chester together feels more forced than anything else. Partly because there’s no real chemistry between the two actors. While that forced romance is not the worst part of what was an incredibly bad episode, it’s something that helps underline where else the writing is lacking. On the bright side, it’s possible this episode was the low point of the season and it’s only going to get better from here, because it would almost certainly have to get better.
The Flashairs on Tuesdays at 8 p.m on The CW.
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