The Flash: Season 2

In the time that I’ve been watching a lot of TV and reviewing it, I’ve realized that the quality of a network a television show airs on does not always correspond with the quality of the television show.  For example, Daredevil is a great show on a great service like Netflix, but Netflix also put out Richie Rich so they don’t always bat 1000. The CW, a network I have a lot of problems with, puts out Arrow, a show that I have a lot of problems with. But in the same year, they put out The Flash, a show that defies everything the CW has wanted to put out in the past. 

I don’t feel like I necessarily gave the first season of the Flash the review it deserved. I had a lot to say about the CW Arrowverse and I really wanted to get to the end where I talked about how the CW universe and the universe of the movies isn’t connected but at the same time they are connected by the fact that the comic books have always pointed towards multiple universes. And while Grant Gustin might not be the Flash in the movie universe, that doesn’t mean that they couldn’t do a quick cameo in the Flash movie pointing towards the existence of multiple universes. I was so excited by talking about the potential of that, because it is really exciting if they decided to acknowledge that in the films. But I sort of blew past the reviews of both the 2^nd season of Arrow, and the first season of The Flash, both actually really entertaining seasons of television. 

The fun part about this season is that it just supports the theories I had in my first Arrowverse tangent. I’m going to focus more on the structure of the second season and what I liked and what I didn’t like, but there will be time to talk about different Earths and the implications that are set up by the second season of the Flash. 

The first season of The Flash ended with Eddie Thawne (Rick Cosnett) killing himself in order to negate the existence of Eobard Thawne or Harrison Wells (played by Tom Cavanagh). The actions of Thawne created a singularity above Central City and would have destroyed the city. The last thing we saw was Barry Allen (played by Grant Gustin) going off to save Central City from a huge singularity. 

The first episode takes place 6 months after that singularity and the Flash has been doing his thing by himself. He was able to stop the singularity, but at the expense of Ronnie Raymond (played by Robbie Amell). On a side note, as much as it is sad to see that character die, they really needed to get rid of Robbie Amell, he’s just not a good actor. Barry feels guilt for the loss of Ronnie and he feels like he’s keeping his friends and family safe if he works alone. 

However, a number of meta-humans start appearing and Team Flash soon figures out that they are not from our world. Barry realizes that he needs all his friends to stop a looming threat. Team Flash includes a lot of Barry’s friends, including Cisco Ramon (played by Carlos Valdes), Caitlin Snow (played by Danielle Panabaker), his adopted father, and detective Joe West (played by Jesse L Martin) and his sister who he has had a crush on for years and now knows his secret identity, Iris West (played by Candice Patton). 

But the team is also supported by a man by the name Jay Garrick (played by Teddy Sears) claiming to be The Flash from another universe. They are also supported by the Earth 2 doppleganger of Harrison Wells, the very man who killed Barry’s mother. On top of that you have people making guest appearances and having a run of episodes where they carry Barry through a story arc like Dr. Martin Stein or one half of Firestorm (played by Victor Garber) and of course Barry’s love interest for the first half of the season Detective Patty Spivot. Of course throughout the season, everyone visiting the Flash, whether they be friend or foe, harken the coming of the speedster who only goes by the moniker of Zoom. 

Now I go back and forth on what I think about Zoom. On one hand, he is a very menacing villain and he actually has tense moments just being a scary dude. But at the same end, it is a little bit of a retread from the first season. The main villain is a speedster, Barry of course faces him early on in the season and he gets his shit wrecked. The entire season Barry is wondering if he’s fast enough to defeat this evil speedster. It is a little bit of a retread. Having watched the entire season though, I do see the differences, and while I want the third season to focus on a main villain that isn’t a speedster, I actually really liked to overall story of Zoom and what his motivations are for wanting to fight the Flash and spread his wrath across universes. 

And that really is the best thing that really sets Season 2 apart from Season 1. Earth 2. 

Because of the singularity created in the last season, Team Flash has now opened up portals to other worlds like Earth 2. In the first half of the season, there really is only mention and brief glimpses into Earth 2. But when they actually go to Earth 2 and they get to interact with their dopplegangers, things get a lot more fun. This was definitely a great way to up the ante of the show and introduce a whole new level of storytelling to a show like The Flash. 

Now something that was an issue in the first season and carried over to the second is the science by which they solve their problems. The part of the Flash that is probably the most formulaic is that it goes down like a lot of 40 minute episodes do, bad guy shows up, the Flash fights him, fails, then the team reconsolidates and figures out a way to stop the bad guy, The Flash fights him again and wins. The issue is the science is absolute bullshit. It does that thing that movies do where they explain a very complex idea with something that seems plausible but then throw in a lot of scientific mumbo jumbo just enough to get you confused and go back to your thought process that this could be plausible with the right circumstances. Now this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, especially if episodes getting formulaic doesn’t bother you like it doesn’t really bother me. 

The one issue that The Flash has with its explanations is the bullshit radar when it comes to time travel. The thing I have really liked about The Flash is that it delves into Time travel, but not enough to turn the show from a superhero show into a time travel show. It’s very clever in its use of characters, show atmosphere, and plot lines that it is a lot of fun. However, that doesn’t always mean that their explanation of why things that should be paradoxes are not paradoxes.

The thing that I thought was going to be the biggest issue was the drama. While The Flash is a TV show that is one of the better superhero shows out there today, I always reminded every once in a while that it is airing on the CW. And this is for a multitude of reasons. The acting can be pretty cheesy and hokey at times. Some of the actors were hired more on the basis that they look good as opposed to their acting ability. And as much as we try and run away from it like the speedsters we wish we could be, there is always that super dramatic subplots that plague the filler episodes in this 24 episode season.

And to be fair, these episodes are not nearly as CW-ish as the filler episodes of Arrow where Oliver’s rich sister is having relationship issues while possible developing a drug problem with the rich white people drugs, The Flash does have plots that do relate to more people and ground the characters better than Arrow does. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t a lot of filler episodes in a season that is so good, it could just be streamlined into a 10-12 episode Netflix series.

And while I complained a lot about the filler episodes (Evidence being in my Twitter feed), the one

good side of a lot of filler episodes is marked by two great choices. The first one is that a lot of those episodes focus on Barry and not the less interesting people, most namely Iris. Filler episodes are more likely to be bad in the Flash because they are just Barry questioning himself when he really shouldn’t be. In other shows, most namely Arrow, they would have dedicated almost full episodes to Iris and her relationship issues, or actors who are just not as likeable. On top of it all, every episode, whether it’s a filler episode or not, taps into the rogue gallery giving Barry a villain of the week to face off against. A lot of the focus is on the task at hand of Barry defeating that villain, and the filler relationship stuff really takes a backseat.

But that is really helped because the cast of characters is developed really well in The Flash. And this is really what helps the show in a lot of ways. In the times that they do focus on Barry’s relationships, something that isn’t as exciting as fighting bad guys, it works because Barry is a likeable character and we care about him. The times where Joe is dealing with his long lost son Wally (played by Keiynan Lonsdale), it works because we care about Joe and while that story wasn’t as interesting, we wanted to see him succeed. Even the times where the dialogue is cheesy and the acting is hokey, it works because this season has built on what the first season did and created characters that are likeable and you care about.

And while it can feel like there are so many episodes, it does culminate into something great because everything is pointing towards the final showdown between Barry and Zoom.

We live in a world where TV has become so cinematic and because of that, our already short attention spans believe that the best shows can be condensed into 10-12 episodes on a streaming service. The Flash is an example of how to do the 24 episode season correctly. This was something that I felt with the first season, that I blew through these seasons and thoroughly enjoyed all of it. While I can’t say any episode really stuck out and can be named my favorite, but overall the season was a lot of fun.

I think the season took a lot of risks and it made me really excited to watch the third season. The Flash is the beacon of hope in a hit or miss Arrowverse. While Arrow may be either really good one season and awful the next, while Legends of Tomorrow just can’t hit that right note to keep me interested, I know that The Flash still manages to hit it on the head every time and give me something really worthwhile to enjoy.

But those are my thoughts on The Flash Season 2. I might do a spoiler review to talk about the individual stuff in the season I was a fan of, and I might add in some thoughts on the future of the series and make some speculation (even though the third season is happening and my speculation is probably wrong). I will let you all know. I just wanted to get my overall thoughts on the season out there. But what did you think? How does Season 2 compare with Season 1? Are season 3 and on of Arrow something I need to check out? Give me your thoughts on Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @cmhaugen24 as well as send me your requests for future movies and TV shows I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on Future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

I’ll leave you with this. This has to be one of my favorite soundtracks from a TV show of all time and possibly up there with one of the greatest superhero themes of all time. Enjoy!