TV Review: The Flash season three (spoilers)

TV Review: The Flash season 3

When The Flash debuted three years ago, it was a breath of fresh air.  In the aftermath of the successful super-angsty Christopher Nolan Batman films, as well as the nearly as angsty Spiderman movies, it was a relief to find a superhero who was thrilled to have powers and was delighted to casually help strangers without their knowledge.  There was a loose, jokey (pardon the expression) vibe amongst the cast, and the whole enterprise was a lot of fun.

Three years in and now the show is as sullen as a Goth teenager. The Flash, AKA Barry Allen (Grant Gustin) agonizes over creating an alternative timeline where he was even happier because his parents weren’t dead, which made things worse in the long run.  Barry’s friend Caitlin Snow (Danielle Panabaker) has metamorphed into a villain called Killer Frost.  His other friend, Cisco Ramon (Carlos Valdes) has also metaporphed into someone called Vibe, but isn’t happy about it.  His girlfriend Iris (Candace Patton) was prophesied to be killed at the end of the season, and said death was replayed at least twice each episode.  Season 3 is NOT happy.

About the only consistent bright spot has been Tom Cavanagh, who at this point has played so many variations on the character of Harrison Welles that I have lost count.  This season’s iteration was “HR” who was from a parallel dimension and, unlike the Harrison Welles’ from prior seasons, was not a genius.  But unlike the other versions, this one had a perpetual smile on his face and a drumstick (musical kind, not chicken) in his hand.  Cavanagh’s ability to create totally different characters from subtle variations in the source material has been astonishing, and he is without a doubt the MVP of the series.

Like individuals in a time loop, the characters in season 3 keep making the same stupid mistake over and over and over.  Someone tries to keep a secret from the group; the secret threatens the group in ways the person didn’t anticipate; the secret is divulged and the problem resolved.  Lather, rinse, repeat.

Don’t get me wrong, I still like the show.  Gustin and Patton have great chemistry, and the show is ridiculously clever in creating problems out of alternate time lines, parallel dimensions, and crossovers with other CW shows (loved the musical number with Supergirl and The Flash).  But I truly empathize with Iris’s father Joe (Jesse Martin), a cop who is forever asking the scientists, “So, how do we stop the time wraiths from the speed force from traveling to a parallel dimension?”  I empathize because I was just as confused.

Season’s three “Big Bad” (copyright Buffy the Vampire Slayer) was the speed god Savitar, which was a stupid concept to begin with. I mean, for a god he wasn’t very god-like.  The tension in the first half of the season was the secret identity of Savitar’s acolyte, which (surprise!) turned out to be the new cast member (Tom Felton), which anyone could have seen coming a mile away.  The tension in the second half was could Team Flash stop Savitar from killing Iris, and again this being network television the answer was almost assuredly “yes.”  So, there wasn’t a lot of dramatic tension.

But the show can rebound next season.  One promising sign is that the creators/producers seem to be aware of the angst problem.  A late season episode had Barry develop amnesia, and everyone comments on how much cheerier and less angsty he seemed, which I took as meta-commentary. 

And the show does have its imagination going for it, even if it is creating portals and parallel dimensions.  One highlight this season was the musical episode which reunited Glee co-stars Gustin and Melissa Benoit from Supergirl.  The show takes risks, with a throw-it-on-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks attitude.  When you have that, you can appreciate the hits and forgive the misses.

Of course, the season ending cliffhanger left things open.  Step one is finding a way to bring Barry back from the speed force prison; step two is finding yet another way to bring back Tom Cavanagh.  After that?  They have an infinite number of universes and any number f alternate time lines available to them, so they should be able to come up with something interesting (and less angsty).