Barry Allen struggles to find his footing in a more uneven third season.
Note: this is a mostly spoiler-free review of Season 3 of The Flash, which is now on Netflix. I'll discuss basic plot and character details but avoid getting too much into specifics.
Season 3 appears to be the real test for The CW's Arrowverse shows. Arrow followed up its first two seasons with a much rockier third season, leaving that series in a hole of which it's only just now managed to climb out. The Flash went through a similar series of hurdles this year. The Flash: Season 3 was noticeably more uneven than its predecessors, suggesting that maybe Barry Allen's best days are behind him. Luckily, the show was able to recapture its footing where Arrow continued to struggle. The strong last couple months of the season went a long way towards making up for the mistakes that came before.
It was clear right away that Season 3 faced a long, uphill battle. Season 2 ended with an exciting cliffhanger, as Barry (Grant Gustin) traveled back in time, undid his parents' deaths and created the alternate timeline known as Flashpoint. Anyone who's read the Flashpoint comic or watched the animated movie Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox was surely salivating at the thought of seeing a twisted, dystopian vision of the Arrowverse. What the premiere episode, "Flashpoint," actually delivered was slightly less exciting. Aside from a few key differences, this world wasn't a particularly dramatic change from the norm. There was still a definite appeal in seeing Barry briefly granted the happy, quiet life he's always dreamed of, but "Flashpoint" set an underwhelming precedent that would continue on for several months.
Looking back at my reviews of the first half of Season 3, it wasn't until the midseason finale that any episode scored above the low 8 range. That pretty much encapsulates the problems with the season right there. The show was often perfectly fine on a week-to-week basis, but it was rare for any episode to really stand out from the pack. The general status quo in the first half of the season too often struggled to measure up to the Reverse-Flash and Zoom conflicts from seasons past. The end result of Barry's three months spent living in Flashpoint was a handful of changes to the Team Flash dynamic, many of which became all but irrelevant after a week or two. Flashpoint also resulted in the rise of two new villains - Doctor Alchemy and Savitar (both voiced by Tobin Bell). Alchemy never amounted to much more than a shadowy, mysterious string-puller, while it wasn't until the final few episodes of the season that Savitar truly came into his own.
Again, the show really struggled to build a cohesive and compelling direction in the early months of Season 3. It was a long, long time before it became clear exactly what separated Savitar from previous speedster villains. Nor did Alchemy's quest to restore the Flashpoint status quo do much to build a strong narrative hook. More than ever, the series was forced to fall back on the core Team Flash dynamic. At least it always has that element to rely upon. The Flash may no longer be the best the Arrowverse has to offer, but after three years I've become very invested in the collective struggle of this unusual family of speedsters and geniuses.
There was plenty of character drama to work through early on, much of it the direct result of Barry's time-meddling. Iris (Candice Patton) and Joe (Jesse L. Martin) dealt with a mutual estrangement. Cisco (Carlos Valdes) mourned the death of someone close to him. Both Caitlin (Danielle Panabaker) and Wally (Keiynan Lonsdale) dealt with the spontaneous appearance of metahuman powers (with the former dreading her transformations into Killer Frost and the latter relishing his opportunity to follow in Barry's footsteps). That's to say nothing of the complications created by Barry's new co-worker/frenemy, Julian Desmond (Tom Felton). When all else failed, the Team Flash family drama could usually be relied upon to keep the show humming along.
Julian proved an entertaining and somewhat unpredictable addition to the recurring cast, adding a unique voice and temperament to the Team Flash dynamic. But the best addition this year was H.R. (Tom Cavanagh), the latest alternate universe incarnation of Harrison Wells. It's part of The Flash's charm that there must always be a Wells in the picture, even if Cisco and friends have to go on a recruitment drive to find one. Cavanagh again proved to be one of the show's MVP's, playing H.R. as a wholly distinct character compared to Season 1's Dr. Wells and Season 2's Harry. There were even a few opportunities to see Cavanagh play multiple Wellses in the same scene, just for kicks.
This season also got a lot of mileage out of John Wesley Shipp's new role as the real Jay Garrick. Like Cavanagh, Shipp successfully managed to set his new character apart from the old, casting Jay as a grizzled veteran not entirely comfortable with his status as mentor to Barry and his fellow speedsters. The only complaint here is that the season never used Jay as often as it could. That was especially true with the midseason finale, "The Present," which offered a tantalizingly brief glimpse of Jay's rivalry with Earth-3's Trickster (Mark Hamill).
Looking back, the one character who felt oddly underutilized this year was Wally. On paper, it was a big year for Wally, as he gained his speed powers and took his place alongside Barry. That paved the way for several memorable speedster team-ups (including one with Violett Beane's Jesse Quick thrown in for good measure). But there was a specific point in the season where it seemed like the writers completely lost interest in Wally. He all but completely faded to the background and never recovered as a result. The show needs to do better by the character in Season 4.
The character drama gave the early episodes weight where villains like Alchemy faltered, but that drama brought about its own set of problems. Not only was the scope of Flashpoint itself disappointingly limited, the fallout often felt small and perfunctory. Some subplots, particularly the Joe/Iris rift, were quickly resolved and forgotten, almost like they never happened at all. And at some point, the series simply felt too mired in darkness. Character drama is great, but this series has always thrived on its ability to balance that drama with lighthearted adventure and that ever-important sense of hope. But Barry Allen became more morose than ever this year, and his misery seemed to envelop everyone around him. It didn't help that The Flash was airing new episodes at the same time as fellow Arrow-verse/CW series Supergirl and Legends of Tomorrow, two shows that did a much better job of balancing character drama with lighthearted fun this year.
By the time the midseason finale rolled around, it was clear that Season 3 had two fundamental problems - an overabundance of darkness and a lack of a clear, compelling supervillain threat. To its credit, the show started making a concerted effort to address both problems around that point, though it would be some time before either was truly rectified.
"The Present" at least established clear stakes for Team Flash and a new conflict to propel the show forward in the second half of Season 3. A good start, though the problem remained that viewers knew very little about Savitar or what motivated this self-styled god of speed in his feud with Team Flash. The writers waited a shockingly long time to actually shed light on the man beneath the armor. In fact, it wasn't until late April that Savitar's identity was finally revealed. That ambiguity weighed on the show for months. As the third speedster villain in as many seasons, Savitar just didn't have the novelty factor or the depth needed to stand out.
Fortunately, that did change once the reveal came and Savitar's true endgame became apparent. The final five episodes went a long way towards reviving the Savitar conflict and building the character into someone worthy of Reverse-Flash and Zoom. That doesn't necessarily excuse the writers for keeping their cards close to the vest for so long, nor their decision to focus on a third speedster villain when there are so many other worthy Flash villains who haven't gotten their due yet.. But at the same time, the reveal did make it apparent why that prolonged secrecy was necessary. Moreover, the reveal wound up tying the season together, forcing Barry to confront his mistakes and his habit of being the architect of much of his own misery. For a villain who remained so aloof for much of the season, Savitar wound up becoming a surprisingly personal villain in the end.
It also didn't hurt that the later episodes placed so much emphasis on Caitlin's fall from grace. I still maintain that Killer Frost should have been the central villain of Season 3. But even as a supporting player in the Savitar conflict, Caitlin added a great deal of dramatic weight to the series, with the writers banking heavily on the strong bond linking Barry, Cisco and Caitlin and the tragedy that arose when those bonds were shattered. This was also a valuable chance for Panabaker to play Killer Frost not as an overt villain, but someone torn between her twisted metahuman side and the good, loyal friend that still remained within.
As for the dark tone, it's no coincidence that some of the best episodes this season were those that diverged from the Savitar conflict and focused on the lighter side of Barry's world. The two-part Gorilla Grodd storyline was very entertaining, offering fans their first real glimpse of Earth-2's Gorilla City and suggesting that Grodd would make for an excellent recurring villain if not for the sheer expense involved in bringing the character to life. The series even took the opportunity to throw in a little levity right before the end, as "Infantino Street" offered a wonderfully entertaining Flash/Captain Cold team-up before moving into the dramatic fallout of Savitar's final attack.
But nowhere did the series shine brighter this season than in the long-awaited musical episode/Supergirl crossover "Duet." For one glorious hour, all the darkness fell away and Grant Gustin and Melissa Benoist were given free reign to sing, dance and just have fun playing superheroes. It certainly didn't hurt that so many actors involved, including Victor Garber, John Barrowman and Jesse L. Martin have serious musical theater chops of their own. Not only did that episode strongly suggest that the musical crossover needs to become an annual tradition, it served as a crucial reminder of how enthralling The Flash can be when it focuses on the lighter side of Barry Allen's life. Hopefully that episode, and the generally improved state of the series in the second half of Season 3, are signs of what to expect when the show returns in the fall.
The Verdict
The Flash: Season 3 is a clear step down from the show's first two years. It's not that there were many truly bad episodes this year, but more that the show struggled too long to find a compelling status quo and make the most of the fallout from "Flashpoint." Some of the best episodes this season had little to do with the overarching Savitar conflict. Luckily, the show did find its footing in the final two months of Season 3, and that strong finish went a long way toward redeeming the season as a whole.
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