Rating: 6.5/10
After helping to save Central City from a black hole, Flash is being honored by the city’s mayor and citizens in a new holiday they’re calling “Flash Day.” Flash, however, is trying to work entirely solo now, after Ronnie died during the city’s rescue.
Arrow and Flash play off each other. Because they exist in the same universe, if one was totally unlike the other it would be weird. So they have to share or switch tones here and there to make us feel like they belong together. But, sharing your tone is one thing, trying to be the other show is something else.
Flash should not be a mopey hero like Arrow. Arrow has a right to be a bit mopey, for one thing his personal journey is completely insane. For another, almost every action he does gets people killed. He’s a darker vigilante willing to fight crime even when he’s working outside the law. Flash is a person with superpowers, and moping around isn’t very becoming of someone like this. What makes Flash great is that he’s always pushing himself harder, and trying to do things that are increasingly more impossible, but this is because he knows he’s the only one who can stop whatever it is. It’s not because he has to overcome his own self-deprecation in order to become a better hero and a better man.
In this way, Flash and Arrow are essentially emotional opposites, Flash can stop impossible forces with an equally impossible force, and Arrow is more a person who has to fail until he’s able to finally succeed. And one can be a brooding “hero this city needs” (but doesn’t actually want), while the other is a glorified superhero where people give him his own holiday in his city. You see why Flash being mopey might be a bit weird?
And, really, these shows shouldn’t be looking at each other to see what succeeds. Be free to be your own show, yo.
SCORING:
+6.5: Decent start to the season, though this feels like a different Flash from last season
