I’m filling in on The Flash for a bit and man oh man did I pick the wrong time to start reviewing this series. If you’ve listened to the CBMFP then you know that I’m kind of a fan of The Flash or at least I was. Something that I’ve agreed with Aaron about on his reviews is the fact that this show has changed in tone since the winter finale. Before there would be this apparent CW formula, but it was constantly broken up by these “Flash” moments. Things like figuring out the actual math of what Barry needed to do in order to run up a wall or stop a tornado. Now granted Barry for some reason never understood the math even though his character should, but now it’s replaced by him asking, “How fast” and the answer always being “faster than you’ve ever gone before.” There used to be Flash moments, but now there’s just CW moments.
“All Star Team Up” is without a doubt one of the worst episodes of the season. The title is stupid and how they came to the conclusion that The Atom was an “All Star” is just beyond me. It’s something that works on the cover of a comic book from the 60s not a TV show in 2015.
The premise is that Barry has been avoiding Star Labs because he’s an asshat that can’t hide his emotions around Reverse Flash. The Bug-Eyed Bandit is the villain and it’s a woman instead of a man which no one gives a shit about because a shitty character is a shitty character. She was canned from her job for weaponizing her robotic bees which she’s now using to kill other people that ratted on her. No one cares because it’s dumb and it’s very secondary to the rest of the story.
The Atom and Felicity arrive in town; Felicity just walks in the front doors of Star Labs which I guess is just left unlocked all the time or something. They make a terrible Superman joke to remind us that Brandon Routh once played Superman in a movie and now plays the D-list character The Atom instead. If this scene isn’t frustrating enough, Felicity has apparently already told her new BF that Barry is the Flash which makes the amount of people that know Barry’s identity around eight or nine people and we’re just in the first season. Also why she feels that’s her secret to tell is beyond me, but it wasn’t as bad as the two other times in the episode that people called The Flash, Barry while in costume in front of random crooks and villains. I mean why are they even trying to protect Iris at this point?
Speaking of Iris she’s pressing Eddie for “what’s wrong with him” which is that he knows the fucking Flashes identity and she doesn’t. Of course the mother fucker is sweating bullets because he knows that she’d leave him if she knew and then what purpose would he serve on the show? None.
I wonder if the writers are trying to make her character unlikable because I don’t know anyone that watches the show that can stand her. My wife can’t stand her. Her friend that watches the show with us, she can’t stand her either. Every time I bring up The Flash everyone’s first thought is how terrible Iris’ character is. She’s unlikable and by the end of the episode you’ll want them to kill her off, but much like Laurel on Arrow we’re stuck with her for life. That’s another character that started off very meh but was quickly made to be the most unlikable character on the show running three seasons now. I don’t hate Iris, I just hate everything they’ve done with her because none of it makes sense. None of it feels real. She’s not a character she’s a hammer. Whenever you need to beat some shit out of Barry you send in Iris and she does the job. When Caitlin is a better character you have a problem.
There is sadly one more thing left to discuss about this episode. Cisco has a flashback/day dream of the erased timeline in which he was killed by Reverse Flash.
I’ll say that again.
He’s having flashbacks/day dreams of when he was killed in an erased timeline… Now I hated this. It could be because they re-used the footage from that terrible episode or it could just be the fact that HOW IS THAT EVEN FUCKING POSSIBLE! It’s not. I don’t know what they were going for, but don’t be fucking lazy and shoot some new footage or here’s a thought save one angle for just this situation. It was a nightmare and they went to it two or three times and it was just ugh. It serves to make this show more unbelievable and so I’m not sure why they did it.
Overall this show is becoming a mess. They’re going for quick payoffs for storylines that had legs and it’s just sad. The season finale is looking to be a hot pile based on what they’re threading and what’s getting really out is the character interactions. No one feels genuine anymore and sure that was one of the story elements here, trust, but even then it’s hard to watch all of these characters bumble over each other. The Flash is quickly becoming the show I don’t want to watch, what a shame because they were winning me over despite the terrible casting of Barry Allen.
Score: 1/5
The Flash 1.18 – All Star Team Up The Flash airs Tuesdays 8/7 C