The Flash Season 1 finale (episodes 19-23) review

With Gotham, Arrow and Agents of SHIELD finishing their respective runs, it's only the Flash left to reach its conclusion

Who is Harrison Wells?

My god, Quintin Lance was so much more tolerable in this episode… He smiled!

This episode is loaded with plotholes, but it’s premise is goofily entertaining, I can’t help but love it regardless.

We have a villain, but he’s played by everyone. He’s a shapeshifter that can morph into whatever he touches (It’d actually be quite tragic if he could only morph into the next person he touches, losing himself entirely as he could never touch himself after he started, sadly that wasn’t the case, but having him not able to remember what he looked like was also decent) But how do you catch a guy who could look like anyone (and somehow morph their weaponry as seen with the pepper spray and the side-arm, go figure)

So when Eddie’s arrested when Every-man shoots 2 cops, Barry takes it personally, which is why, despite being told in the previous scene that Eddie wanted to stay behind bars he didn’t immediately suspect the shape-shifter when he turns up at the house 5 minutes later.

With the help of Iris, they manage to capture him. Iris wants him taken to the police but naturally she’s an idiot and puts him in the back seat where he can transform into a teenaged girl and moan until they’re forced to stop

Anyway, we have Caitlin, who’s struggling with the idea that, after everything he’s done to help her (particularly with Ronnie) Harrison Wells could even be involved with the reverse Flash. It’s an excellent character journey that continues through the episode until she sees the proof

So, I suppose I have to get to it… But before I do I want to rant about Iris some more, she’s still really, really irritating. The show-runners seem to have a problem writing women who aren’t superheroes (Laurel before she became Black Canary suffered this trope, Thea you can barely consider a woman given her age but she’s the most tolerable of the 3, not that that’s saying much) but she becomes a bit closer to the truth when Eddie reveals that he’s been working with the Flash.

So yeah, the bit in Star City, Cisco and Joe’s detour for the week (this is how you do sub-plots Gotham) Quintin and Laurel star and it’s the smiley-est I’ve ever seen either of them. Laurel secretly asks Cisco to work on her sonic devices and he comes back with the canary collar. I’m looking forward to this outing (but as for the “I know Oliver is the Arrow” bit, wasn’t that public knowledge by this point, or are they running a bit behind Arrow?)

Anyway, they’re really there to investigate what happened when Tess Morgan died in a car crash in Starling City 15 years ago. Of course they find the buried body of the real Harrison Wells. There’s an interesting relationship between Joe and Quintin, as Joe has been on the receiving end of “I lied to keep you safe” of late.

And in the final closing moments, the team, rather too easily really access Harrison’s secret room and see the newspaper clipping from a decade away. Can’t wait to see what happens next

Rating 8.5/10

The Trap

Of course time travel makes no sense; it’s a comic-book universe

I still question why Cisco has memories from the previous timeline when no-one else does (except Barry who lived through it) but it’s pretty lucky (for plot purposes anyway) that he did, as his dreams become the driving force of their plan to trap Harrison Wells

So, with everyone in the know of Harrison Wells’ true identity as the Reverse Flash it comes to them to try and force his hand and find a way to trap him, without letting them know that they’re on to him. Of course there’s also a matter of all those spoiler alerts in the time vault.

With Barry seeing that the article was written by Iris West-Allen, he sees the possibility of he and Iris being married (seriously, aside from maybe a few bits in the flashbacks, she is entirely uninteresting as a character, hampered mostly by the fact that everyone else was in on the secret, everyone) hampered by Eddie’s syndrome of having the worst timing in the universe in wanting to propose to Iris. Awkward scenes ensue, including Joe being disapproving and not giving his blessing, knowing that she really loves Barry.

But back to the main plot. Thanks to the power of science they manage to find a way for Cisco to be conscious within his dream (I know, comic books, go with it) and they see the alternate timeline and how he ultimately died.

They use this in an attempt to replicate the circumstances behind the dream, forcing Harrison to confess to the killing of Barry Allen’s mother. To say it doesn’t go to plan is a bit of an understatement. Turns out Harrison had surveillance on them all the entire time (again, its comic books, go with it; he’s fighting a giant gorilla the next episode)

Harrison foils the trap using the everyman from last week, poor guy.

It’s another solid episode from a series which has been very consistent the last few weeks, I’m looking forward to its finale.

Rating 8/10

Grodd Lives

In this episode: Iris points out the stupidity of the whole ‘lying to keep you safe’ bullsh*t that’s she’s been plagued with.

Also, a man dressed in red spandex that can run at the speed of light faces off against a telepathic gorilla and this is why I love comic books.

This episode was about everyone getting back on the same page, it was Iris finally coming in on the secret and confronting everyone about how they really needn’t have kept this secret from her and how she could’ve been useful and even safer in the knowledge of Barry’s alter-ego.

Meanwhile we see what happened to General Eiling after being given to Grodd by Wells a few weeks back. He dressed up in a stupid mask and started robbing gold (seriously, couldn’t they delay a gold transfer so it wouldn’t be an easy target when there’s been several gold robberies recently) they find him, and find someone’s been messing with his mind (Grodd of course) Iris tells them that there’s been rumours of him being the sewers (lovely)

When you have as limited a CGI budget as a TV show would have, a big CGI gorilla is not usually where you want to end up. They benefited from shooting most of these scenes in the dark, because when the CGI really gets to shine, it looks terrible

So, Joe gets kidnapped, Iris makes an inspiring speech, Barry’s sonic punch does nothing, Barry runs Grodd over with a train and erm…. Oh yeah, the whole Eddie/Eobard discussion bit.

So, Eddie’s tied up below Star Labs (why not have your super-secret layer right beneath your enemy’s) and he and Eobard talk a little. Eobard says Eddie’s life is boring, uninteresting, uneventful and he doesn’t get the girl, even showing the Iris West-Allen by-line.

I think we’ll see whether this comes into play at the end. Is the future completely set in stone? Hard for me to say

Rating 7.5/10

Rogue Air

I guess ARGUS is rather understaffed these days

Seriously, I don’t mind the turn to your enemies for help scheme but the situation has to be desperate. This situation was not desperate enough at all. Perhaps Barry felt desperate after his inability to stop Wells. But seriously, couldn’t ARGUS provide a squad to guard that truck rather than relying on the one guy who’s allegiances are to himself and himself alone?

Naturally, it goes tits up! Captain Cold and Golden Glider sabotage the truck, releasing out meta-humans and Barry and co are defeated to their combined onslaught.

There are a few issues involved with having a metahuman prison inside a particle accelerator. The fate of prisoners and how they’re fed, kept clean, go to the bathroom etc are all questions that have and still are danced around (OK, there’s a deleted scene where Caitlin gets everyone takeout but that doesn’t count!)

Wells’ plan to turn on the particle accelerator clearly puts the prisoners in danger and they want to transfer them to ARGUS super-max on Lian Yu. Because that prison is absolutely going to be super- effective with Supervillains, I mean they have defences like metal bars and a manhole.

With the accelerator charged up it’s time for our friend Eobard Thawne to retake centre stage… for about 5 minutes before he’s defeated by OLIVER f*cking QUEEN and his magic bullsh*t arrows. No, nanites that stop speed temporarily aren’t developed by eccentric billionaires who actually like the Flash (I’m referring to Ray Palmer) anyway, that partnership means Wells is defeated. I hope there’s a proper final battle between the two, because this would not be satisfactory for me.

But Eobard has managed to damage the relationship between Iris and Eddie, if either of them were interesting characters I’d care, but they’re not so this subplot was uninteresting

But it was goofy, silly, fun, and I can’t say I didn’t enjoy this episode, I liked it, I just hope the finale is a little more satisfying

Rating 7.5/10

Fast Enough

That was one hell of a finale.

Thank you, Flash writers for finding something other than ‘the city’s in danger, need to find a way to stop it’ cliché from Arrow. This story packed a surprising amount of emotional weight. But it comes at the cost that the story makes absolutely no sense whatsoever

So the Reverse Flash, locked exactly in the place he wanted to be (because, that’s not stupid at all) tells Barry exactly how to open a wormhole so he can go back to the future, and Barry can save his mother. He talks to a few people about this and some encourage him (Joe, Iris) and others don’t (Barry’s dad, Cisco) but it’s all mute because we all knew he was going to try.

Cisco has his moments creating the prototype for a Legion of Super Heroes time bubble. Whilst Caitlin and Ronnie bond some more and eventually have a wedding outside star labs (which is totally legit)

But of course, consequences are around the corner. Not only the potential of losing the relationships he’s built over the years, but the far more physical concept of creating a black hole if he isn’t back fast enough.

But he will be, so time to go. He creates a time portal and goes back, only for his future self to stop him so the entire event was pointless. So they let Wells out of his cell to return him to the future, for some reason and the Flash returns to put the kibosh on his plan. (And you wonder why they hate each other) the fight between them ends when Eddie shoots himself.

OK, here’s the big issue with this scene. If Eddie wanted to prevent Eobard from existing, surely there are other ways. Redouble efforts to stay with Iris, vow never to have children, have a vasectomy, there are ways around killing yourself that would have the same effect.

Speaking of, that effect is… is erm… a black-hole sucking in all of existence. And we end on Barry trying to stop it by running. This episode packs a punch emotionally, and it’s a fun ride, but it’s a ride that’ll leave you scratching your head a bit. If Eobard was essentially never born, is Barry’s mother now alive, did the particle accelerator explode, why hasn’t anything changed? Or are we still to see that coming?

It’s been a fun ride, looking forward to season 2 – oh and there’s a Jay Garrick Helmet, yay!

Rating 7/10

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Images used in this review are from The Flash and belong to their respective owners. All images in this review are subject to fair use.