My Thoughts on The Flash (Season 1)

As a disclaimer, I think I'm rather late to the party when it comes to the Arrowverse and that starting off with a spin-off of the original Arrow and watching it not chronologically may influence my views on the series as a whole, this is just my view on the season as unbiased as it is.

The first season introduces us to a world of impossibility with a starting narration by notable characters that help give a guideline/hint of what the episode's theme is about. It's fun atmosphere is what drives it's appeal that allows us to connect to the characters all while also having it's tear-jerking moments that crucially defines each individual character. It's a roller-coaster of emotion but seems lacking in some areas as the episodes seem like fillers as a proper story arc is never quite set in motion, though hinted at, until the later episodes, leaving some villains rather underwhelming and the characters aimless. I enjoyed the character and watching each area of their lives explore and as a superhero show, it definitely worth watching.

Spoilers ahead!

Barry Allen is a forensic assistant working local police force with Joe West who raised him after the mysterious death of his mother and his father wrongly imprisoned for her death. Barry also has a long time crush on Iris West from their childhood and they seemingly have a close connection but Iris is oblivious to the crush unlike everyone else. A particle accelerator created by Harrison Wells malfunctions and releases unknown energy into the sky which seeds a freak storm resulting in Barry getting struck by lightning. Nine months later, Barry wakes up from his coma and meets Caitlin Snow and Cisco Ramon and Iris is dating Eddie Thawne, Barry's colleague, both Caitlin, and Cisco are assistants of the now infamous Dr.Wells and the defunct S.T.A.R Labs, they help Barry in stopping crime and saving meta-humans (people like him affected by the particle accelerator explosion) when he realizes that he has super speed and proceeds to take on the title "The Flash".

I adored Barry Allen as a character, the adorable nerd never fails to captivate us in his conviction and faults that really made his character so connectable. Everyone has felt what he felt at that point, minus the superpowers, it humanizes him and makes him vulnerable which creates empathy for him. I couldn't help but root for the poor geek through his hard times and it evokes a sense of wanting to protect him as a precious gift through his pitiful endeavors. His heart of justice and sense of morality is the epitome of his lovable character (which I assume was because of his meeting with Arrow).

The series takes on a typical fashion of taking down villain after villain, exploring the limits of Barry's speed and allows him to both grow physically and morally. The show does hint at Wells having a mysterious and dark side since he came from the future, but I think that the choice to make it apparent in the first episode was kind of a letdown. It's a cliche where every mad scientist is evil but for Wells, I appreciated him as the Reverse Flash. It's rather confusing to see Wells trying to help Barry, saving his lives and mentoring him because we know he has an ulterior motive but it also helps improve Wells as a character because of the conflict.

For the most part, I don't have many issues with the plot of the story until it involved time traveling I'm no expert on this theory but I don't the show justified its usage. We know it must be a thing as the show revealed a newsletter from 2024 but I think it just complicates things, it doesn't establish a ground for reasoning and comprehension and for an impossible world, it just seemed bizarre and just perplexing to watch. The concept is told to have major and devastating impacts if a person would to go back in time which would cause a ripple effect in the entire timeline (butterfly effect yay!) but we didn't really see the full-scale extent of it. We see a significant change when Barry travels simply a day back in time but the show didn't really prove its impact. In the timeline itself, wouldn't the same thing have occurred? It seems more of a timing coincidence for something that seems inevitable. We don't see what happened to the first timeline that Barry traveled back/away from but Cisco is somehow able to experience these gaps in time itself (because he was affected by the particle accelerator too). It's just confusing to me.

Another thing was the love triangle between Barry, Iris and Eddie. It was one thing for Eddie to sacrifice himself by shooting himself (it would've been funny if he shot his balls instead which would have stop Wells who is his descendant without taking his life), but another to show that Barry is married to Iris in the future. This once again ties into the time travel because it truly questions whether or not the characters have a free will in their destiny or should it be fate that is unchangeable. With Wells trying so hard to cause a specific event to trigger in the future which can be altered, the answer is obvious. To some extent. he didn't have to die and I respected Iris because of her choice to be with a man that she didn't love purely out of commitment but it's like the show had set Eddie up as fodder. And still, I don't know how this whole world of parallel universes and multiple timelines work. Was there even a point for Barry to travel back in time? Shouldn't he have realized that if he saved his mother, he wouldn't be the flash? What about in the timeline that Wells came from, how did The Flash come about there? Maybe my questions would be answered in season two, three or four. But I highly suspect that they would bring back characters because of this whole concept of time travel.

I appreciated the cameos from other superheroes that helped Barry along his way (I'm sure I would appreciate it even more after watching the rest of the Arrowverse), and I hopefully can look forward to seeing more Barry Allen in the other shows too. I think the actors in the series deserve more praise especially Grant Gustin and Tom Cavanagh. Their performances were amazing and the two vastly different characters are so well flushed out by both of them. Barry's last moments with his mom when he traveled back in time once more (so there's like 3 of them in the same time period now?) had me complaining about chopped onions and it  the iconic line "run Barry, run" gave me chills throughout the entire series because of the phrase's devotion and meaning behind it. Props to both of them.

I also thoroughly enjoyed the drama though it sometimes felt kind of irrelevant but still managed to lighten the story, though the main drama of the crew struggling to understand Wells reflects the audience really well. I mean, couldn't have Wells just stated his true intentions of wanting to travel back in time and needs Barry's help for it? I mean surely Wells could've manipulated the truth in a way that made himself less blameless and yet more responsible for Barry and his power to recruit him back into helping him return back to his timeline without exposing the fact that they are both enemies in the future too. I do hope that happens in another alternate universe though.

Overall I enjoyed The Flash and I really look forward to season two. My hopes for it as a series is that it doesn't get caught up too much in exploring the realm of impossibility that it leaves the viewers stuck between an alternate timeline and an a parallel universe (or a maybe wormhole).