THE FLASH Season 4 Premiere Review: Evolve or Die


THE FLASH has certainly never had any problem creating juicy cliffhangers to end its seasons on; giving them satisfying resolutions, however, is a different matter. Whether it’s giant singularities or new time lines, the show has often shied away from giving the devastating fallout every finale ends on any lasting consequences once the new season starts up. The city gets saved, the timeline is restored-- everything is pretty much back to the way it was before by the premiere’s end. Because of this previous pattern, “The Flash Reborn” manages to stand out from its predecessors for its willingness to stir the pot, even if it fails to capitalize on the full potential of a world without the Flash. 

Despite his absence from most of the promotional materials, Barry actually gets freed from the Speed Force relatively early on in the episode. And while it does feel a little cheap that his escape gets hand-waved by comic book science mumbo-jumbo instead of any previously established loophole, it doesn’t really take away from the story of Barry adjusting to life outside the Speed Force. I was pretty impressed with Grant Gustin’s performance when it came to time-displaced Barry; if you’re a dedicated fan of the show you can see that the way he delivered his lines matched up almost perfectly with how they were done originally. It’s a seemingly small detail, but it went a long way towards selling the concept. (I’m also betting those lines seemingly referencing the Trial of the Flash storyline from the comics where Barry is tried for murder will probably end up being more than just an Easter Egg, though I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s saved for a little later on.) 

The fact that there were so many nods to the series pilot only seemed to further reinforce the idea that this was a little bit of a soft reboot. Barry’s shed his previous dour attitude for a chipper optimism, Team Flash is back to being a ragtag group rather than an ever-expanding organization, and thanks to his enhanced abilities the Speed Force, you can once again call Barry the fastest man alive-- without adding on asterisk mentioning Wally, Thawne, or Savitar. But as far as I’m concerned, Iris becoming the team’s leader was the best change made. The show has too often struggled with letting Iris to be a proactive character, instead usually just having her react to the extreme situations that happen to her. 

Unfortunately, for every chance taken there seemed to be another opportunity wasted so as to not shake things up too much, with Caitlin’s character regression being the most egregious example. At the end of last season, she told the team that she was neither Caitlin nor Killer Frost but someone who would walk the path in-between, setting her up as an anti-hero of sorts. But during her very first scene in Season Four, it’s shown she’s back to being the same old Caitlin, albeit with an edgier sense of fashion, and she’s instantly welcomed back into the team with almost no mention of her previous villainous actions. Sure, we see later on that her Killer Frost side hasn’t vanished completely, but Caitlin hiding her sinister alter ego from the team is the exact same subplot she had for the entirety of last year-- it’s hard to imagine there’s any new beats for the writers to hit by retreading that plot line. 

It’s also frustrating how Wally seems to be stuck in the role of sidekick. Obviously, it’s unlikely that Wally will ever truly take up Barry’s mantle as the Flash properly given Barry’s the show’s lead, but seeing him treated as a comedic junior superhero that gets easily disposed of by bad guys even after Barry’s half a year absence; inexperienced or not, it’s hard to believe he’d really have that much trouble with one android if the plot didn’t require Barry to be the one to save the day. 

Ultimately, you do have to give the show for shifting the status quo more than they’ve done in the past. But that’s such an incredibly low bar given the series track record it hardly feels like an achievement. Even with all spectacle of the Speed Force and flying robots, the highlights of the episode were moments like Joe and Iris’s heart-to- heart or Cisco’s plea for Caitlin to come back to STAR Labs. These quiet moments are what take the stunts beyond just cheesy CGI and to emotional drama. 

But if the characters keep being forced back into their agreed upon boxes then even these moments cease to be compelling; growth and evolution are what keep long- running shows alive. THE FLASH took a few baby steps in the right direction with the premiere, but now that we’re in Season Four properly it’s high time the series embraced its namesake and ran full force ahead into the chaos of actual change.

Written by Kaitlin Roberts, THE FLASH Beat Writer


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