The Flash - Final Season Discussion

It’s a…look.

 

Month old news but I just read it. Grant caught COVID 6 days before they wrapped the series, so some scenes he was in they had to rework without him.
There are some minor spoilers in the article

Spoiler

https://tvline.com/2023/03/28/the-flash-final-season-zoom-return-teddy-sears-grant-gustin/

 

That felt like a prime Arrowverse (Arrow Seasons 1-2 and Flash Seasons 1-3) story. I actually cheered when Oliver said "You Have Failed This City", and the scoring for this episode was incredible. They brought out all the hits, the Arrow theme, the Arrow style, the Flash style, and it made for one hell of an Arrowverse story. They even tried to remedy Caitlin and Frost dying and the show not reflecting on that. I still think how it was handled was bad, but to have this episode actually talk about it in a dignified way actually helped me understand it better. It also also awesome seeing Bloodwork again, who might be the best villain since Zoom (Savitar was decent, but not Reverse Flash or Zoom).

After all that filler the last few weeks, to have a few week hiatus and then come back to that felt really really good.

 

This was a pretty good one. It was nice to see the returning faces, and Amell was quite good. In his scene with Barry on "Lian Yu," I was reminded strongly of my belief that Amell would've made a very good James T. Kirk. He's only a year older than Paul Wesley, who's playing the part in Strange New Worlds (even though Kirk should be in his late twenties at that time, not 40), and I think he'd be better in the role.

I'm glad they finally wrapped up the dangling thread of revealing the survival of the Multiverse to the Earth-Prime characters, who have really been lagging behind in that regard, since we've gotten multiverse stories on Superman & Lois and just last week on Titans. In fact, this almost worked as a stealth crossover with Titans.

Spoiler: Titans: "Dude, Where's My Gar?"

I was wondering how Gar could've seen the Flash in his current costume in his glimpses of the multiverse, with Barry even seeming to look at him. It seemed inconsistent with Barry-Prime's unawareness of the multiverse. But maybe Gar was looking through the rift that Wally created. Although that doesn't quite work, since Gar saw the Flash speeding by around him. I was hoping we'd see Barry actually go into the rift and get a glimpse of Gar, but no such luck.

Anyway, I suppose revealing the multiverse to Barry here may have been meant to set up the Gustin cameo in the Flash movie, though apparently that's been cut. But it's a bit ironic to have that happen just weeks before the Earth-Prime continuity comes to an end on TV.

What annoyed me, though, was the treatment of parallel Earths and alternate timelines as separate things. How are they not the same thing? Although I guess in the context of the DC multiverse, they have to be different things, as little sense as that makes. After all, alternate timelines of the same universe would have the same laws of physics, but DC shows sometimes have different physics -- for instance, in Supergirl, Kryptonians couldn't breathe or fly in the vacuum of space, but in Superman and Lois, they can. I guess since the multiverse is essentially an artificial creation of a conscious mind (Oliver/Spectre), that could account for any weirdnesses.

One side detail that bugged me was Chester giving Allegra that high-tech "facial transmogrifier" amulet to conceal her identity in the field. Uhh, guys, there's this thing called a "mask?" Also, why set it up if it was just going to be destroyed minutes later?

 

I actually felt like with a slight tweaking this could have even served as a series finale. I'm sure there would have been complaints about not having enough 'finality' to the series, but considering the Flash continues to operate as a hero beyond the ending of the show anyway it woulda been ok.

Mainly just serve as the ending to the "prime Arrow-verse" on TV, let people see the heroes continue and then connect them (or really let THEM be aware since the audience already is aware) that a multiverse exists.

 

I would love it that for all future DC projects they had Oliver Queen be the boss overseeing each reality.

 

Given that Green Arrow was the guy who recreated the entire multiverse, I guess we could say that all DC is the Arrowverse now...

 

Vic was a Cyborg.

Unless there was time travel, or we are dealing with new but similar worlds...

So Barry is maybe from the past too.

Although... Is Caesar Romero's Joker, at 116, is still Threatening Gotham on a weekly basis?

 

And that wouldn't be a bad thing. There was a calmness to Oliver I really enjoyed. It almost almost like the DC version of Gandolf in terms of wisdom and encouragement.

 

Oliverse.

 

Incidentally, I didn't think Green Arrow's "You have failed this city" line worked here. There was nothing about Bloodwork's plan that was specifically about Central City. It would've made more sense to say "You have failed this universe" or something. As it was, it was just a cheap catchphrase drop. It didn't feel earned.

On the other hand, I'm a bit relieved that when Oliver urged Barry to keep running, he didn't end it with "Run, Barry, run," as I expected him to.

 

You have failed this universe?

 

It was great to see the Green Arrow back. I had forgotten how much I missed Oliver. He really is the heart of the Arrowverse. I did not care for the evil batwoman villain in the first part of the season but this ep was a return to form. And next week's ep teases the return of OG Reverse Flash. The final eps of the series are looking good.

 

I had no idea how much I'd missed Oliver! Nicely done. And I'm pleased that Bloodwork has been stripped of his powers - I honestly didn't like the character (although I like the actor).

 

Best episode of the season so far.

 

I think Today's episode was even better

 

That was like movie level good. If they can keep this up through the next three parts it’ll be a hell of an ending

 

The last few episodes make me wish the show didn't stall throughout the season. This should have been a major Arrowverse event to end the season. Really looking forward to the final 3.

 

So they are saying this is the final piece of the puzzle to the death of Barry’s mother. Doesn’t quite work since we know the Flash that tried to stop him was a very different Flash but I suppose Crisis could have changed that.
I assume the stuff with Eddie is the Cobalt Blue thing. Something people have been saying will happen since season one.

 

I guess they had to save their money and guest casting for the big finish, hence the "filler" stuff in the middle. I think they're going to make this as big an event as they can within budgetary and logistical limits, and hopefully there are still some surprise guests yet to come (like hopefully the Legends).

I was confused by the timeline at the end. Was this a different Thawne getting trapped in the past, or was it the original Thawne all along? Did Barry just change Thawne's timeline, or was this closing a loop?

The present-day timeline is confusing too. It seems like there's been a time jump of several months to the end of Iris's pregnancy, with Khione developing her powers during that time, and yet Chester and Allegra still seem to be picking up where they left off last week with testing out costumes for Allegra (Cisco was so much better at this). Or did that scene take place months before the other "present-day" scenes?