What a great first season. While I do believe Daredevil is the superior show, this is a show that fully embraces what it is, and excels at telling an engaging superhero story. Not only that, but it has some great music, great actors, memorable characters, along with impressive special effects. While Arrow may have disappointed this past season, The Flash was anything but a disappointment.
I’m the fastest man alive
First of all, I want to talk about the story of this season. It was very well handled because it involved something very hard to depict: time travel. While I do believe there are many unanswered questions, they pretty much nailed the time travel aspect. It was a prominent theme to the show, so if it wasn’t handled well, the narrative would suffer. This season really was about the hero’s journey, along with the reveal of the main villain. Both were very interesting, and they were expertly weaved together. Grant Gustin is the star of the show, and he truly shines as Barry Allen/The Flash. He handles the emotion of the character very well, the comedy, along with the anger and frustration. An early critique on Mr. Gustin was that he is too young. I do not agree with this, and the show even does a good job explaining why he is the flash at a young age. Along with Grant Gustin, Tom Cavanagh plays Harrison Wells. He may very well be my favorite actor on the show. Wells is a very mysterious character, and while you may think you know who he is, the show does a fantastic job to defy your expectations. I will not delve into spoilers here for anyone who is interested in the show, but has not watched it yet, but he is by far the most fascinating character. The last character I will focus on is Carlos Valdes as Cisco Ramon. While I could talk about Jesse L. Martin as Joe West, I expected him to be good in his role. I was not overly fond of Carlos Valdes in the beginning of the season, but he really grew on me. Not only can he deliver the shows funniest scenes, but he is capable of delivering heart and emotion as well. There is a particular scene towards the latter half of the season, where Mr. Valdes displays his acting chops. Props to him for proving me wrong, and becoming one of my favorite characters. I look forward to where he goes next in the coming seasons. Along with some great acting and engaging storytelling, there are also some special effects that are very well done for television. Occasionally they are not that great, but for the most part I was impressed. What truly impressed me was their rendition of Gorilla Grodd. This is a character that is very hard to pull off, but somehow the team was able to pull it off very well.
You’re him. You’re the Reverse Flash
With everything that the show does get right, there are several missteps here and there. First of all, Caitlin Snow was not very well utilized throughout the season. She did not have as many layers as someone like Cisco or Barry. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but I did not find her as compelling of a character. On the bright side, it seems like the next season will give her much more to do. Another negative to the show is that it had some forgettable villains and forgettable “filler episodes”. These are episodes that do not deal directly with the overarching plot, and simply exist because the show needed another episode. They were not bad episodes at all, but I would not mind having less episodes, but all of them relating to the main plot in some way shape or form. One last gripe I have is the opening theme. I am tired of superhero shows like Arrow and The Flash having a lack of a memorable intro. The show could have a great intro if the crew really put their minds together, something memorable like Daredevil’s intro. This is not something that I am specifically saying makes the show worse, but something I think is lacking from many shows these days. This one especially. Who know’s though, perhaps they will have a better intro in the future.
Closing Remarks
Even with it’s missteps, this is a fantastic show. It surpassed a show that I held in a very high regard (Arrow) and proved that it’s young cast is more than capable of delivering some of television’s finest moments. They did a great job on the first season, and something tells me the second season will be even better.