(SPOILERS for Flash Season 1-3. Also, minor spoiler from Legends of Tomorrow Season 2 in the 1st paragraph below. Read at your own will.)
Season 2 went up a notch, introduced to us concepts like multi-verses, dopplegangers, a fearful villain Zoom, who became really menacing at some points, then was just a normal one. (i.e there were some ups and downs with what they did with him). Season 2 was also overall a very good season, with much better and improved VFX, better storylines, good heart-felt emotional moments such as with Barry and his mother when Barry goes to Earth-2, a dickish but one of the best Harrison Wells ever (all credits due to the actor Tom Cavanaugh) and many more, except for its few lows such as some super super dumb decisions by Barry somewhere in the last few episodes of Season 2 (not that the show has made Barry to be a calculative, smart guy who has never made dumb decisions, but the one thing where he gives away all his speed to Zoom was just a big "facepalm").
And then there is Season 3. Oh how much hopes I had that this season will be superb, with all the teases on Flashpoint (Yes I know the writers said it will be temporary), a non-speedster villain (Dr. Alchemy), I thought I was in for a ride. Boy was I so wrong.
First, let me get the good stuff out of the bag:
1. The Flash episode in the 4-way crossover was damn cool! Great character interactions, engaging episode. Awesome VFX! I had a blast with it!
2. In the one episode where Savitar really became menacing, that was pretty good (Episode 15 - "The Wrath of Savitar")
3. The 2-part Grodd episodes were decent. Not as good as probably the earlier seasons. But hey, it was still entertaining!
4. The penultimate episode to the finale, where Barry teams up with a certain someone (not willing to spoil as it is from another show) was really good. I thought they were finally reviving this already disappointing season. The way they showed the friendship between Barry and that character, the way they started the episode and continued with the overall slightly dark theme of "Iris to be dead within the next 24 hours", the song they chose, the way they managed to execute the Iris' death scene, despite repeating it numerous times throughout the season, Hmm. There was some hope here.... and then the Finale came (Ugh!)
And here's the not-so-good stuff :/
So we are in Episode 1, Barry is enjoying this alternate universe he created by travelling back in time and saving his mother from being killed that fateful night, and naturally things will go out of hand, and Barry has once again messed up the timeline. The good thing in Flashpoint was, that it finally made Barry realise by end of Season 3 why messing with the timeline is never good. It brought in the Dominators, which called for an amazing 4-way crossover across all CW DC TV shows. Another good was, it led an opportunity to provide one of the best villains in another show that revived that out of its atrocious Season 1. The bad is, it lasted only one episode. That was very disappointing. You show your entire trailer of Season 3 based on this Flashpoint, leading everyone to believe this alternate timeline stuff will at least last 3-4 episodes, but noooo! We have better things to show! Like Barry-Iris, Cecile-Joe and all other sorts of relationship. (Sigh!). What a bummer. Barry resolved the Flashpoint in the very first episode. You could have explored so much with the alternate universe, writers. Missed a big time opportunity.
Let's talk about why this season really became such a disappointment. Too much time focusing on Barry and Iris relationship (and others but let me get to that later). I really don't see what Barry sees in Iris. Also, what made the writers decide to focus soooo much time on that? You have so much cool stuff to cover like complex villains, new speedsters (how they butchered characters of Wally as Kid Flash and Jesse Quick is unbelievable), and you keep a relationship drama as your sole focus. Wow! Just wow.
Next some key things that they did with various characters, that "The Flash" still seems to be suffering from:
1. Barry - I was once a guy who said "Run, Barry, Run!" with full of excitement back in Season 1. He was a jolly, fun, likeable hero which uplifted the entire Season 1. Now, he just seems to be moping around and complaining about why he is not fast enough, never learns from his mistakes (Thankfully it seems to have resolved this season, with some serious consequences Barry realised he had to face due to Flashpoint)
2. Iris - Remember she is a news reporter? Yeah, me neither. Ok look, you don't need to keep showing us that shes working there. Have her DO SOMETHING! Something, man. Something other than being in all the romance scenes between Barry and her. She existed only to be shown multiple times for the Barris stuff, and getting supposedly killed by Savitar, which turned out to be a cop-out at the very end. What a waste of an actress, a character, and an entire season!
3. Caitlin - Phew! The good was, she was terrific as Killer Frost. Her dialogues, her costume was all great. The problem did not lie with her, or the actress Danielle, but the timing at which the writers decided to make her full-blown Killer Frost. It was almost at the very end, when they were building up Savitar. Another problem was, they spend almost no time in letting us know why Caitlin trusted evil Barry as Savitar and not the real Barry. Am I just supposed to assume things didn't go well between her and Barry and the team? What indication was even there? What nonsense!
At least they didn't cure her fully at the end, so that's a good thing that opens up opportunities for her as an anti-heroine for future seasons.
4. Cisco - OMG I could not handle the whiny, b**chy Cisco in the first 7-8 episodes. OMG what were the writers thinking? It was simply unbearable. Geez, ok it is Barry's fault. But the whining was just too much! Thank God, we got back our fun, geeky Cisco later on! :) Oh, and the only relationship that I genuinely cared about was the one with him and Gypsy.
5. Julian - LOL. He had nothing to do after he was revealed as Dr. Alchemy. Just a puppet for Savitar, through whom Savitar could speak to Barry. Another waste of an actor and a character.
6. Wally West (as Kid Flash) - Ah. Kid Flash. I heard the character is smart, intelligent, and plays a major role in the comics. You know what you get here? This annoying kid who doesn't listen to anyone, is so keen on getting his powers that he puts himself in front of a moving car, and the worst of all, he was almost completely ignored, after he was pulled out of the speed force somewhere towards Episode 16 or 17. What an underdeveloped character! At least his annoyance reduced after a while.
7. Jesse Quick - Much bigger of a waste this season compared to Wally. She seemed to be going good, with all the small scenes where Barry and Wally train Jesse, but then some stuff happened and they packed her and sent her off to Earth-3, randomly (Dude. Even though Earth-3 doesn't have a Flash, so didn't Earth-2!!! You could've at least stayed with your dad, right? Stupid decision..) Completely underdeveloped. Some strange thing I noticed this season. All female characters (Iris, Caitlin, Jesse etc.) weren't given much to do? Wonder why.
8. H.R - Let me get this straight out there. Tom Cavanaugh is a great actor. He has portrayed the 3 versions of Wells so good these 3 seasons, but this one got on my nerves at the beginning. Joke after joke after joke that never landed! He was like Curtis from Arrow. He has no useful skills, contributed nothing much to the team, and was so annoying at the beginning. Again, Thank God he became alright by the end, and I did kinda care when he died in the end! Wonder how they managed that.
Next let's come to the villains, and how the entire season-long story arc was built along them.
So there's this big bad Savitar, who claims himself to be the God of Speed, who seems much much faster than Barry (although to be honest everyone else is faster than Barry. LOL) who promises to wreak havoc in Barry's life. He uses Dr. Alchemy to re-create the events that happened in Flashpoint in real life. Everyone had guessed it would be Julian, the new character who works at CSI due to Barry changing events in Flashpoint, to be Dr. Alchemy. One of the many obvious twists this season, it being "the new character introduced turns out to be the villain" cliche, but Ok. It's fine. This is just the first.
Some of the villains of the week such as Mirror Master, Gypsy (she's kinda with the heroes now) and and a few others I am not able to recollect, were good.
The unacceptable thing was what they did with Savitar. People on the Internet already guessed it was evil time remnant Barry, the writers did do a good job of placing clues all across the season, but he was given NO TIME TO DEVELOP AS A CHARACTER!!!!! Until Episode 20, we never got to know who Savitar was. Just tease after tease after tease! This turned out to be a major flaw with this season. You gotta let us know in a much better way the motivations, the ideologies of the villains etc, folks! Look at what Arrow did. Look at how they fleshed out Prometheus' character, and how wonderfully it was done. I am pretty sure Grant Gustin would have loved to play evil Barry. Apart from a few lines of dialogue, we don't feel for Savitar. I just went "Oh it's evil time-remnant Barry. Um, ok". Savitar did instill some fear in the team, but in very few episodes. (I'm talking specifically about Episode 15 - "The Wrath of Savitar"). He occasionally did show some signs of becoming a really good villain for this season, despite so much time wasted on other stuff, but in the end, he ranks much below Reverse Flash and Zoom in my opinion. (On a side note, the way he jumped in and out of the suit was cool though.)
The finale was one of the worst ever that anyone could come up with. Almost the entirety of 2nd half was spent on Savitar killing Iris, and in the very end it turns out to be the obvious H.R from Earth-19 taking Iris' place.. (I wonder how that transmogrifier even worked on them). What a cop-out!
We then learn how they escaped from Savitar and KF. Savitar clearly notices them escaping, and instead of speeding up and stopping them, he sends KF. I mean, whaaaa?
KF can just like that stop the Black Flash it seems. OMG give me a break!
I was shaking my head all throughout this so called finale, that I at least thought would be some redeeming factor for this season, but nope! Dragged this season further down.
The worst thing that could happen to this season, was something that one reading this post so far (hopefully :P) would not believe it when they see it. Here's what happened -
So all this good but brief battle between Savitar against the 3 speedsters - Barry, Wally and Jay is going on. Suddenly Wally is thrown out of the picture, and we see Barry doing a really cool stuff with getting into Savitar's suit and breaking it, making him vulnerable. They fight a bit more, and guess what Barry does! He turns his back on him! What a stupid and a cliched thing that is used in so many movies and serials. Who even thought this was a good idea? So Savitar gets up, starts "speeding" toward Barry, and guess what, IRIS FREAKING SHOOTS THE GOD OF SPEED IN THE BACK WITH A GUN!!!!! I am so controlling myself trying not to swear here, but my God! This is where I lost it! I mean, how? You technically aren't even supposed to see him, when he moves that fast. But apparently you can just shoot him like that. "The God of Speed". How he went out like a wuss.
Oh and the very last scene, with Barry supposedly going into the speed force , very similar to Season 1 ending. The writers simply seem to be copying from Season 1, which is not a good sign, considering how many of the audiences have realised this. Even if they did not, still not good!
All in all, a season that had so much potential, was gone due to too much focus on relationship dramas, uneven pacing and a sense of emptiness in story-telling and some serious butchering of some of the characters, made this season thoroughly disappointing.
Not to say I won't watch Season 4 though. I do have to keep in mind, that every show has its ups and downs. Best example, Arrow Season 4 (Too damn low) and Arrow Season 5 (Too damn high)
Thanks for reading.
Have a good day!
And then there is Season 3. Oh how much hopes I had that this season will be superb, with all the teases on Flashpoint (Yes I know the writers said it will be temporary), a non-speedster villain (Dr. Alchemy), I thought I was in for a ride. Boy was I so wrong.
First, let me get the good stuff out of the bag:
1. The Flash episode in the 4-way crossover was damn cool! Great character interactions, engaging episode. Awesome VFX! I had a blast with it!
2. In the one episode where Savitar really became menacing, that was pretty good (Episode 15 - "The Wrath of Savitar")
3. The 2-part Grodd episodes were decent. Not as good as probably the earlier seasons. But hey, it was still entertaining!
4. The penultimate episode to the finale, where Barry teams up with a certain someone (not willing to spoil as it is from another show) was really good. I thought they were finally reviving this already disappointing season. The way they showed the friendship between Barry and that character, the way they started the episode and continued with the overall slightly dark theme of "Iris to be dead within the next 24 hours", the song they chose, the way they managed to execute the Iris' death scene, despite repeating it numerous times throughout the season, Hmm. There was some hope here.... and then the Finale came (Ugh!)
And here's the not-so-good stuff :/
So we are in Episode 1, Barry is enjoying this alternate universe he created by travelling back in time and saving his mother from being killed that fateful night, and naturally things will go out of hand, and Barry has once again messed up the timeline. The good thing in Flashpoint was, that it finally made Barry realise by end of Season 3 why messing with the timeline is never good. It brought in the Dominators, which called for an amazing 4-way crossover across all CW DC TV shows. Another good was, it led an opportunity to provide one of the best villains in another show that revived that out of its atrocious Season 1. The bad is, it lasted only one episode. That was very disappointing. You show your entire trailer of Season 3 based on this Flashpoint, leading everyone to believe this alternate timeline stuff will at least last 3-4 episodes, but noooo! We have better things to show! Like Barry-Iris, Cecile-Joe and all other sorts of relationship. (Sigh!). What a bummer. Barry resolved the Flashpoint in the very first episode. You could have explored so much with the alternate universe, writers. Missed a big time opportunity.
Let's talk about why this season really became such a disappointment. Too much time focusing on Barry and Iris relationship (and others but let me get to that later). I really don't see what Barry sees in Iris. Also, what made the writers decide to focus soooo much time on that? You have so much cool stuff to cover like complex villains, new speedsters (how they butchered characters of Wally as Kid Flash and Jesse Quick is unbelievable), and you keep a relationship drama as your sole focus. Wow! Just wow.
Next some key things that they did with various characters, that "The Flash" still seems to be suffering from:
1. Barry - I was once a guy who said "Run, Barry, Run!" with full of excitement back in Season 1. He was a jolly, fun, likeable hero which uplifted the entire Season 1. Now, he just seems to be moping around and complaining about why he is not fast enough, never learns from his mistakes (Thankfully it seems to have resolved this season, with some serious consequences Barry realised he had to face due to Flashpoint)
2. Iris - Remember she is a news reporter? Yeah, me neither. Ok look, you don't need to keep showing us that shes working there. Have her DO SOMETHING! Something, man. Something other than being in all the romance scenes between Barry and her. She existed only to be shown multiple times for the Barris stuff, and getting supposedly killed by Savitar, which turned out to be a cop-out at the very end. What a waste of an actress, a character, and an entire season!
3. Caitlin - Phew! The good was, she was terrific as Killer Frost. Her dialogues, her costume was all great. The problem did not lie with her, or the actress Danielle, but the timing at which the writers decided to make her full-blown Killer Frost. It was almost at the very end, when they were building up Savitar. Another problem was, they spend almost no time in letting us know why Caitlin trusted evil Barry as Savitar and not the real Barry. Am I just supposed to assume things didn't go well between her and Barry and the team? What indication was even there? What nonsense!
At least they didn't cure her fully at the end, so that's a good thing that opens up opportunities for her as an anti-heroine for future seasons.
4. Cisco - OMG I could not handle the whiny, b**chy Cisco in the first 7-8 episodes. OMG what were the writers thinking? It was simply unbearable. Geez, ok it is Barry's fault. But the whining was just too much! Thank God, we got back our fun, geeky Cisco later on! :) Oh, and the only relationship that I genuinely cared about was the one with him and Gypsy.
5. Julian - LOL. He had nothing to do after he was revealed as Dr. Alchemy. Just a puppet for Savitar, through whom Savitar could speak to Barry. Another waste of an actor and a character.
6. Wally West (as Kid Flash) - Ah. Kid Flash. I heard the character is smart, intelligent, and plays a major role in the comics. You know what you get here? This annoying kid who doesn't listen to anyone, is so keen on getting his powers that he puts himself in front of a moving car, and the worst of all, he was almost completely ignored, after he was pulled out of the speed force somewhere towards Episode 16 or 17. What an underdeveloped character! At least his annoyance reduced after a while.
7. Jesse Quick - Much bigger of a waste this season compared to Wally. She seemed to be going good, with all the small scenes where Barry and Wally train Jesse, but then some stuff happened and they packed her and sent her off to Earth-3, randomly (Dude. Even though Earth-3 doesn't have a Flash, so didn't Earth-2!!! You could've at least stayed with your dad, right? Stupid decision..) Completely underdeveloped. Some strange thing I noticed this season. All female characters (Iris, Caitlin, Jesse etc.) weren't given much to do? Wonder why.
8. H.R - Let me get this straight out there. Tom Cavanaugh is a great actor. He has portrayed the 3 versions of Wells so good these 3 seasons, but this one got on my nerves at the beginning. Joke after joke after joke that never landed! He was like Curtis from Arrow. He has no useful skills, contributed nothing much to the team, and was so annoying at the beginning. Again, Thank God he became alright by the end, and I did kinda care when he died in the end! Wonder how they managed that.
Next let's come to the villains, and how the entire season-long story arc was built along them.
So there's this big bad Savitar, who claims himself to be the God of Speed, who seems much much faster than Barry (although to be honest everyone else is faster than Barry. LOL) who promises to wreak havoc in Barry's life. He uses Dr. Alchemy to re-create the events that happened in Flashpoint in real life. Everyone had guessed it would be Julian, the new character who works at CSI due to Barry changing events in Flashpoint, to be Dr. Alchemy. One of the many obvious twists this season, it being "the new character introduced turns out to be the villain" cliche, but Ok. It's fine. This is just the first.
Some of the villains of the week such as Mirror Master, Gypsy (she's kinda with the heroes now) and and a few others I am not able to recollect, were good.
The unacceptable thing was what they did with Savitar. People on the Internet already guessed it was evil time remnant Barry, the writers did do a good job of placing clues all across the season, but he was given NO TIME TO DEVELOP AS A CHARACTER!!!!! Until Episode 20, we never got to know who Savitar was. Just tease after tease after tease! This turned out to be a major flaw with this season. You gotta let us know in a much better way the motivations, the ideologies of the villains etc, folks! Look at what Arrow did. Look at how they fleshed out Prometheus' character, and how wonderfully it was done. I am pretty sure Grant Gustin would have loved to play evil Barry. Apart from a few lines of dialogue, we don't feel for Savitar. I just went "Oh it's evil time-remnant Barry. Um, ok". Savitar did instill some fear in the team, but in very few episodes. (I'm talking specifically about Episode 15 - "The Wrath of Savitar"). He occasionally did show some signs of becoming a really good villain for this season, despite so much time wasted on other stuff, but in the end, he ranks much below Reverse Flash and Zoom in my opinion. (On a side note, the way he jumped in and out of the suit was cool though.)
The finale was one of the worst ever that anyone could come up with. Almost the entirety of 2nd half was spent on Savitar killing Iris, and in the very end it turns out to be the obvious H.R from Earth-19 taking Iris' place.. (I wonder how that transmogrifier even worked on them). What a cop-out!
We then learn how they escaped from Savitar and KF. Savitar clearly notices them escaping, and instead of speeding up and stopping them, he sends KF. I mean, whaaaa?
KF can just like that stop the Black Flash it seems. OMG give me a break!
I was shaking my head all throughout this so called finale, that I at least thought would be some redeeming factor for this season, but nope! Dragged this season further down.
The worst thing that could happen to this season, was something that one reading this post so far (hopefully :P) would not believe it when they see it. Here's what happened -
So all this good but brief battle between Savitar against the 3 speedsters - Barry, Wally and Jay is going on. Suddenly Wally is thrown out of the picture, and we see Barry doing a really cool stuff with getting into Savitar's suit and breaking it, making him vulnerable. They fight a bit more, and guess what Barry does! He turns his back on him! What a stupid and a cliched thing that is used in so many movies and serials. Who even thought this was a good idea? So Savitar gets up, starts "speeding" toward Barry, and guess what, IRIS FREAKING SHOOTS THE GOD OF SPEED IN THE BACK WITH A GUN!!!!! I am so controlling myself trying not to swear here, but my God! This is where I lost it! I mean, how? You technically aren't even supposed to see him, when he moves that fast. But apparently you can just shoot him like that. "The God of Speed". How he went out like a wuss.
Oh and the very last scene, with Barry supposedly going into the speed force , very similar to Season 1 ending. The writers simply seem to be copying from Season 1, which is not a good sign, considering how many of the audiences have realised this. Even if they did not, still not good!
All in all, a season that had so much potential, was gone due to too much focus on relationship dramas, uneven pacing and a sense of emptiness in story-telling and some serious butchering of some of the characters, made this season thoroughly disappointing.
Not to say I won't watch Season 4 though. I do have to keep in mind, that every show has its ups and downs. Best example, Arrow Season 4 (Too damn low) and Arrow Season 5 (Too damn high)
Thanks for reading.
Have a good day!
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