The Flash 'Finish Line' Review

I knew it. I goddamn fucking knew it. You couldn't do it. You didn't have the balls to do it. You couldn't kill off Iris and given Barry a huge emotional obstacle to overcome and have proven that he can't be consumed by the darkness...but you find a way to give him something else to redeem him. There's an irony here, last season Barry acted fine until the last episode where he went completely out of character, this season was the reverse, he acts out of character until the last episode. With no options left, he tries the one thing someone consumed by darkness would never do, show compassion. He offers Savitar a chance, a chance to live a normal life, to be redeemed, to present him with the possibility that they don't have fight, and for a second there, Savitar even starts to consider it. But in the end, Savitar represents everything Barry should never be, so of course he doesn't take the offer and they have to have a final duel in which Team Flash wins. But it doesn't end there, the speed force needs a prisoner, if it can't be Savitar, another speedster needs to take his place, and Barry willingly sacrifices himself to the speed force. This is an idea that I suggested weeks ago back when Jay initially stayed in the speed force. Barry needs to be punished, even if he does the right thing in the end, he has spent a whole year being selfish, idiotic or reckless, he needs to make a sacrifice, he needs to show why he's a hero and we got that, we finally have Barry making the selfless choice.

Now that being said, there are of course some issues with this episode, most notably is all the bizarre moments of our heroes hesitating to kill. The first one was during the fight between Cisco and Caitlin where it looked like Cisco was about to kill her but hesitated...when was he ever going to kill her? When was that even remotely an option that Cisco had considered? Caitlin's his oldest friend, he's the one that would go farther than anyone else to help her, the idea of killing her would never even cross his mind, why the random moment of hesitation? Then there is a very similar moment where Barry was about to kill Savitar, but he didn't because he would never turn himself over to the darkness like that. Guys. Barry has already killed multiple times in this show! Atom Smasher, Sand Demon, Tar Pit, it wasn't a big deal for any of them, plus he was more than willing to kill Reverse-Flash, stop acting like this is a big deal for him anymore or that it would affect him in any way. Wasn't the idea that Iris' death was the only thing that could turn Barry dark?

Oh yeah, speaking of, Iris didn't die, they didn't go through with it. Instead they killed H.R. Because I guess they realised "yeah he was kinda useless". Which is not to say he was season-one-Iris bad, but he didn't contribute nearly as much as the two prior Wells'. Every so often he made a contribution by giving an out of the box idea, but sacrificing himself to save Iris was probably the biggest contribution he made as a character and as bad as it might be to say, I won't miss him, and hope the next Wells will give more.

Now, the season as a whole...it was a fucking mess. This is quite possibly the worst characterisation of Barry Allen I have ever seen, nothing about him was heroic. This person was selfish, moronic, hypocritical and made so many bad choices yet nothing of consequence ever came of it. It was a season of everyone telling him how much he fucked up but "gosh darn it he's trying!". Savitar as a villain was a fine enough concept, but I'm sure I'm not the only one who is sick to death of the speedster villains, for the love of god give us something new. Caitlin was either resorted yet again to another stupid love interest subplot or was inexplicably a villain (They still haven't explained why her ice powers made her evil). Pretty much everyone else had a strong season, Wally was finally useful (Hallelujah!), Cisco is now a superhero so good for him, and Joe is still the strong, supportive father figure that he's always been. A show like this lives or dies based on its main character and this season, The Flash was an awful protagonist, if this was my introduction to him I would never want to follow someone as awfully written as this. The Flash deserves better than this guys, fix it.

This isn't to say the season as a whole was irredeemable. Some of the standalone episodes were absolutely fantastic, in particular 'Attack on Gorilla City' and 'Duet'. When the show embraced the silly and over the top comic book nature and just fully embraced everything about the superhero genre without a smidge of embarrassment is when this show is at its best. Though in reality, a series where the standalone episodes are better than the season long plot is rarely a good thing. I want this show to get better because to me, season one of The Flash is still the best thing DC TV has ever produced. There are certainly good things about this season, but whenever I think about it, I'm only ever going to think about how awful Barry was as a character, and that's not a good thing.

The finale I'm giving a 6/10.

The season overall I'm giving a 5/10.

-Danny