Duck Fox

I am not a very big fan of The Flash by any means. I hardly followed DC comics at all until very recently (like, since the New 52, which is apparently the worst time if I’m looking for quality stories involving DC characters, but I digress). The Flash was kind of the lowest guy on my list of characters to check out. Well, maybe above Hawkman. The entire concept of his character seemed hopelessly futile. I mean, it’s one thing to make a superhero who’s super smart or super strong, or incredibly resilient to damage. These kind of heroes can still display limits to their “superness” and have interesting battles and issues involving the balance of their personal lives. If you’re “the fastest man alive,” though, the biggest problem you’re likely to face is… You know what, the sex joke is too easy. Point is, I never understood how any villain wouldn’t be hopelessly outmatched by The Flash. 

He can literally run fast enough to go back in time. There was even a half-hearted meme developed to illustrate how ridiculous his powers can become. Approaching the “Pilot” for this spinoff of the CW’s critical and ratings darling, Arrow made me very apprehensive precisely because Barry Allen had all the hallmarks of being an unstoppable super powered dynamo with no one in the much more realistic take on DC Universe that was the world of Arrow. Turns out, I should have been worried about the amount of interesting storylines and believable character motivations. 

Given that it is a pilot, I can cut this first episode of The Flash some slack. It had to drop in a whole slew of information to allow us to get acquainted with the main cast. But of the cast, only Barry (played by Glee’s Grant Gustin) and his surrogate father, detective Joe West (Jesse L. Martin) are intriguing enough to make me want to tune in. Candice Patton’s Iris West, daughter of the aforementioned detective, vacillates between being mildly annoying and downright frustrating. She spends her time either teasing Barry or getting hot and heavy with the new detective, Eddie Thawne (Rick Cosnett) rather than actually connecting with her childhood best friend. Rounding out the cast are Danielle Panabaker and Carlos Valdes as Caitlin Snow and Cisco Ramon, two hot shot scientists at S.T.A.R. Labs, a prestigious research center that enjoys long walks on the beach and creating catastrophes via exploding particle accelerators. Their boss is the amicable Harrison Wells (Tom Cavanagh), who has become a paraplegic by the same particle accelerator accident that put Barry in a coma and gave him super speed. 

While those who previously watched Arrow will remember Barry’s lab accident from the backdoor pilot last year, The Flash gives us a bit of precursor showing Barry in his day job as a CSI before then replaying the events of said episode. Then, after 9 months in a coma, Barry wakes up with chiseled abs and the ability to run at hundreds of miles per hour. Wells takes him under his wing and explains that the particle accelerator probably created more “metahumans” in the gemstone cities. Across town, the police are dealing with a deranged bank robber named Clyde Mardon who was previously thought to have died in a plane crash on the night of the particle accelerator malfunction. He naturally has the ability to control weather, and uses it to create very scary rain clouds, necessitating the police back off for fear of getting wet. 

Barry finds out about Mardon and has it in his head that he should do something. Cue obligatory Green Arrow cameo. Oliver gives Barry the motivation to step up and do something, even though his new coworkers at S.T.A.R. are against it as he can’t control his speed so well. But even for a superhero show, this is a weak obstacle that is clearly there to run up the clock before the fateful showdown. Wells basically says as much towards the end with his generic diatribe about how he was afraid for Barry to step up to the plate. Maybe he just wanted to wait until Ramon finished his super special speedster jumpsuit. Which, I won’t lie, did look fantastic. After suiting up for the first time the pilot really does kick into high gear and become worth the wait. Though the Weather Wizard is ill defined throughout the overstuffed episode, he does get a magnificent (temporary?) send-off as he whips up a powerful tornado. Flash runs against the wind and cancels the storm. You might say he rained on Weather Wizard’s parade! (Puts on sunglasses). Detective West sees Barry’s superheroic display and has no doubt in his mind that strange and seemingly impossible things are out there. Of course, Barry knows this all too well. He previously witnessed what looked like lightning murder his mother when he was 11, and has been trying to find out the cause of this event to clear his father’s name. 

As far as Pilot’s go, The Flash is serviceable. It creates the world and infuses it with a colorful character. But the supporting characters are all one-dimensional with only the barest hints of depth. Barry’s motivation to become a hero is also rather slim. While Arrow showed that avenging a loved one is a believable goal, The Flash is predicated upon something mysterious and otherworldly ending Barry’s mother’s life. While he doesn’t have to have a “hit list” of people who have failed his cities, Barry should have a more concrete reason for putting his life on the line. Especially when Detective West points out that his becoming a blur of justice could endanger Iris and all his other friends and family with the least amount of subtly possible. Especially when Barry should know how Oliver lost his mother recently, and how many times his other friends and family members were endangered by his night life as a vigilante. 

And I suppose that’s really where my biggest gripes lie with the show as it stands: there is just no way I can see it existing in the same universe as Arrow. The score is light and happy, with just a hint of mischief, making the stakes feel that much lower. The fact that Flash taken to his most ridiculous extremes is kind of a Deus Ex Machina makes it that much harder to connect with the characters. There are plenty of ways a human with a billion bucks can fail himself, his city and his family. But how is a hotshot CSI with the ability to break the sound barrier going to be at risk of failing anyone? The suffocating optimism even leaks in through the way the characters address Barry’s coma—sure, they’re sad, but his love interest moves on to another guy in a few months. Over on Arrow Laurel wasn’t over Oliver after 5 years! There is a lot of potential for this show to be something great, but I can’t give it a full recommendation or condemnation because it is really splitting me with the light hearted tone and less than interesting characters. The Flash may be fast, but it will have to do some serious running to catch up the greatness of its sister series.