Season 2 of The Flash was uneven, at least in terms of quality. Just look at the final two episodes. The penultimate episode, “Invincible,” was one of the best hours of the season, and certainly the best to come out of the second half. But then the show immediately followed it up with the noticeably weaker finale, “The Race of His Life,” one of the most damaging episodes of the series, if you ask me and plenty others.
In short, the finale was a lot like the season itself. Bloated, messy, and terrible at multitasking. Its biggest error, though, was upending every episode before it, as well as Barry’s very growth as a character, in order to make room for the next big event storyline. It wasn’t a convincing development of the overlong Zoom arc, but rather a blatant attempt to recapture the thrilling cliffhanger from “Fast Enough,” Season 1’s finale.
Just to be clear, The Flash is still one of my favorite superhero shows on the air right now, and it’s the easily the best of the DC bunch until Young Justice comes back around (someday). But let’s face it. The show has moved on from the quirky, lighthearted, science-friendly, and Silver Age-inspired set pieces of the first season to something that looks weirdly similar to Arrow.
The characters certainly brood more, and the show has taken on a darker tone that probably sounded great in the writer’s room. To be fair, the show I fell in love with is still in there, somewhere. Even if lately it’s been overshadowed by clunky storytelling that wants DC comic book storyline inclusion to take precedence over a cohesive and beautifully simple narrative.
But that doesn’t mean the show can’t get back on track as year 3 begins. Here are just a few of the problems the show faces moving forward, and how they can potentially be solved over the course of Season 3.
Click “Next” below to start with #1.
