Intergalactic Comics: The Flash: “The Flash Reborn” Review

Wednesday, October 11, 2017

The Flash: “The Flash Reborn” Review

By: Ashley Binion (@ashleybinion)

After a rough junior season outing, The Flash returns to a fourth season with hopes of a series to be reborn.

Warning: Spoilers ahead.

“The Flash Reborn” was a fitting start to the season. It wrapped up many loose strings from the season prior while creating a new mystery in their tag scene.

With Barry stuck in the Speed Force, we find that six months later, Iris and Former Team Flash are doing their part in keeping Central CIty safe. Even though they don’t have a flawless success rate, they are doing a stand-up job catching criminals. It’s the effort that counts, right?

Considering how much I was disliking Barry in the third season, I could have watched a few Barry-less episodes seeing Team Iris bumble around. I’ve always believed that Grant Gustin carries the show single-handedly with his charisma; however, the series did just fine without the main actor in the beginning of “The Flash Reborn.”

For much of the series run, I’ve had issues with Iris. There has always been a disconnect with how the show writes her and what the audience wants her to be. For some reason, the writers just don’t get it. As weird as this might sound, Iris was a much better character without Barry around.

Sure, she was still all about Barry even though six months had passed, but her character was so much stronger and much more likable. She wasn’t constantly in distress or there to just build Barry’s fragile ego up. The reporter in her was running Team Iris and she was doing a pretty good job at it. As we saw in a previous season, Earth-2 Iris is a much better character than her Earth-1 doppleganger. She was a woman who had drive and didn’t rely solely on Earth-2 Barry. Arguably, this is why Lois on Smallville worked so well. She didn’t rely on Clark for everything and was her own person. Iris hasn’t had that except for the first scenes of “The Flash Reborn.”

Barry eventually returns thanks to some scientific jargon from Cisco. It feels like the writers want to move on from season three as much as the audience does, so they hand-wave certain things away and create some plot holes along the way. It’s fine, I can live with it as long as those they don’t become something that the series focuses on in the future.

I can’t wait for Caitlin’s storyline to unfold. The small amount of scenes she had at the bar were intriguing. I usually don’t comment on wardrobe because it’s not something I spend a lot of time focusing on, but gosh her biker chic makeover was so distractingly bad. It was getting in my way of listening to the conversations that were taking place. When wardrobe is that bad, it takes away from the scene. Speaking of wardrobe, I’m loving Barry’s new suit. Hopefully this is the final incarnation. The color is more vibrant and the gold accents are on point.

And oh yeah, do you remember that guy named Julian who was on last season? I honestly didn’t, and he’s not around anymore. With a throwaway line about him moving back to London, the writers erased him from the Arrowverse. If there hadn’t been that quick line, I wouldn’t have remembered his character. This just shows how forgettable he and season three as a whole was.

As it has been widely reported, The Thinker is the season’s main antagonist, which is good because three seasons in a row of speedster villains was too much to handle. The same type of villain brought nothing new to the series and often felt like a retread. Thankfully, the show is trying something new with a different type of villain. I can’t wait to see what The Thinker has in store for Team Flash.