In contrast with something like Marvel’s new Daredevil series, The Flash comes across a little schmaltzy—like the guy who is pretending to like hardcore rock, but who gets freaked out at a real mosh pit. In truth, I am always that guy in real life, so I like The Flash more than Daredevil even though I’d have to admit Daredevil is “better.” But The Flash is great at what it does: it’s a paradoxical throwback that’s more satisfying than maybe it should be.
Spoilers for the first season of The Flash.
When the 1990 show as on the air, both my parents used to talk about how good it was, which really speaks directly to the adorableness of my parents. Yes, it had a killer theme song, and yes Amanda Pays and John Wesley Shipp gave serviceable performances, but was it “good?” No way. But it was probably “good” relative to other stuff they could watch with their kids in the ’90s—everybody remember Super Force? Time Trax? The point is, The Flash was slightly more hardcore than other science fiction or superhero fare on television, but was still basically a safe show that pretended to be tough. And the new Flash is exactly the same.
The ultimate season-long reveal of this new Flash is that it’s kind of an alternate universe sequel to various old versions of the Flash, and not just the 90s one. (It’s like everyone on the writing staff took a cue from J.J. Abrams’ 2009 Star Trek.) We briefly see the silver hat of the golden age Flash—Jay Garrick—skitter across the floor during the wormhole shenanigans of the season finale. Captain Cold messes with everyone in Central City numerous times, while the midseason finale saw a full-on crossover with Arrow. Mark Hamill’s Trickster even “returned” last month, which allowed Mark Hamill to laugh maniacally like the Joker, but in the full flesh. (Sidenote: In the pantheon of Hamill cackling like a psycho, his 1990 performance as The Trickster on The Flash actually predates his voice-over work on Batman: The Animated Series.)
And then of course there’s the fact that John Wesley Shipp (90’s Flash) plays our current Barry Allen’s dad. In this version, the Flash’s dad is in prison, convicted for the murder of Barry’s mother when Barry was only a child. Right from the beginning of the show, we’re told this is going to be the main thing to care about: what the hell happened the night Barry’s mother died? What were those flashing lights shooting around her, and can Barry somehow exonerate this father?
Funnily however, the “secret” of what happened that night would probably only be mysterious to a young kid, or someone totally unfamiliar with superhero or science fiction narratives. From practically the first second, most of the audience were like “oh, I bet that’s future-time-traveling-Barry fighting the Reverse-Flash.” This wasn’t too hard to figure out, as we’re told almost immediately that the leader of S.T.A.R. Labs—Dr. Wells—is really from the future and hiding a secret. That secret becomes a little more complex when we learn that not only is he is the Reverse-Flash, but he’s also not “really” Dr. Wells. He’s actually a guy named Eobard Thawne, a bigtime asshole from the future who stole the body of the “real” Dr. Wells when he lost his time-traveling mojo.
Over numerous episodes, the show sets up a slow reveal that Thawne/Wells/Reverse-Flash travels back in time because he wants to kill Harry Potter Flash/Barry Allen as a child. His plan backfires of course, because future-Flash stops him to save his younger self. In response, Thawne decides to kill Barry’s mother, because the untimely death of someone’s parent would never cause them to want to be a superhero… (Also because I guess he felt like he had time?)
Despite being from the future, Eobard Thawne has apparently never read any comic books. How many superheroes grow up with perfect households? Hmmmm? But the moronic and bizarre plan of Thawne doesn’t end there! Because he can’t time travel anymore (he lost the “speed force.” Just deal with it.) Thwane decides he needs Barry to become the Flash after all, so he can harness the “speed force” again and go back to his own time. It’s not that this doesn’t make sense in a plot-hole kind of way, it just doesn’t make sense in a silly kind of way.
Of course we all know that once you create an alternate universe/timeline, you can only travel along that timeline. Thawne/Reverse-Flash is like a really incompetent (but somehow patient) version of Nero from Star Trek 2009, with a little Voldemort thrown in there too. And in the ultimate time-travel paradox WTF twist, we find out that Thawne is actually the descendant of a good present-day cop named Eddie Thawne. And in a true-season end shocker, Eddie shoots himself Looper-style to retroactively prevent Eobard Thawne from being born. Everybody following this? Whoo-ah somebody’s coming!
The season finale of The Flash concludes with Barry keeping the current timeline intact by letting his mother, once again, die at the hands of Eobard Thawne. He does this not for sort of keeping the space-time continuum clean reasons, but instead because he loves his adopted father and in general likes his life the way it is, even though it’s a little screwed up. But because Eddie kills himself and Eobard Thawne ceases to exist, a giant “singularity” emerges which threatens to destroy the spacetime continuum. It looks mostly like a giant storm cloud, but maybe this was what Doc was worried about if Marty messed up things in Back to the Future.
Anyway, the silliness of all of this is really great, actually. All the events occur in season one of The Flash stem from everything Eobard Thawne does—he starts S.T.A.R. Labs, he trains Barry as the Flash, he kills Barry’s mother, he makes bad jokes. Now that he’s been erased from history, does that mean the first season of The Flash never happened? It might seem like a mistake, but because this show’s origins are so mixed to begin with—what with its reliance on perceived nostalgia for old Flash—I found this ending totally on point with what the show was going for. We don’t know why the Flash exists—either in his universe or in ours.
But you know what? I’m glad he’s around. Bring it on. Run, Barry! Run away from reasonable explanations, plotlines that make any sense, and those nostalgia paradoxes that are trying to eat you. Keep running! Because as long as you do, people like me will always, always follow.
Ryan Britt is the author of Luke Skywalker Can’t Read and Other Geeky Truths, forthcoming from Plume Books on November 24th. His writing has appeared with The New York Times, The Awl, Electric Literature, VICE and elsewhere. He is a longtime contributor to Tor.com and lives in New York City.
I’ll point out that this thread runs through the show itself. Every time Barry tries to compare himself to Oliver Queen, every time he tries to get hardcore and gritty, the script and the characters remind him that “he’s not that kind of hero.” It’s a subtle reminder to the audience as well, that The Flash is a different flavor of superhero and it’s entirely possible for both kinds to exist in the same universe.
If this season was a giant callback/alternate sequel to the various original versions of the comics and TV series, those of us who have never read the comic or saw/remembered the series wouldn’t have connected with it or figured it out.
The links back to the comics and old TV series have just been Easter eggs to those who have read/seen THE FLASH.
Plus, characters don’t know they are characters. You don’t know, for example, that you are just a bad burrito dream of a very minor eldritch god of geeks.
When the 1990 show was on the air
I read an article somewhere that what makes The Flash is different from other super hero shows is that is does NOT try to make the Flash into a Batman clone. Arrow makes Green Arrow (a character who is already a Batman clone) into (even more of) a Batman clone (despite his comics counterpart doing nearly EVERYTHING he can in recent years [and by that i mean the last 3 decades] not to be one: running for mayor, getting married, the beard). Smallville tries to give Clark Batman’s angsty origin story yet also eat it’s cake and have him be Superman. Man of Steel was even worse. Technically, every ‘cop goes outside the law to get justice but at the end of the arc realizes he’s a good guy and can’t kill the villain but the guy still ends up dying because reasons’ is a Batman clone.
The Flash is gloriously, happily NOT a Batman clone, at all, and when he tries to be, the other characters call him out on it, and the character always SCREWS IT UP. Acting like a Batman-clone explicitly gets bad results for him.
And as to ‘How many superheroes grow up with perfect households?’ Superman (his adopted parents dying is a feature, not a bug. Losing your parents does not retroactively make for imperfect household), Peter Parker (again, death is a feature of being alive, not a bug), Captain Steel, Commander Steel, Citizen Steel (those guys are all related, by the way, same big-ass family), Mary Marvel, post-adoption versions of Billy Batson (unless you say he doesn’t count because he was living in the streets after his parents died? Before they did they were pretty happy), Dick Grayson, Tim Drake (systematically taking that away from him to make him a Batman-clone came MUCH later in his career)… Hell, even the Punisher had a pretty decent family life. He had to, since he took losing them so badly.
Actually, the very fact you’re asking that proves there are TOO MANY BATMAN CLONES prominent in media.
Seeing that picture of Mark Hamill made me totally want to watch this. But then I read the rest of the article and was reminded of the really long and confusing Wikipedia entry I read about all the flashes and the “Speed Force” and all this stuff that kind of reminded me of why I dropped my subscription to Amazing Spider-Man so many years ago, and now I kind of don’t want to watch it. I don’t remember all of that Wikipedia entry, but I’m guessing Reverse-Flash is NOT a guy who runs really, really slowly?
I’m not sure why you think Thawne getting stuck in the past and needing the Flash to power him back up as being silly. Granted, anything dealing with superheroes must involve some level of silliness, but this part of The Flash is consistent with the lore AFAIK, since Barry is the source of power for all speedsters.
I’ve enjoyed this show waaaay more than I ever expected to, and am looking forward to some more mind-bending time-warping fun in Season 2!
@5 Give it a shot. I never read a comic in my life and I found it pretty entertaining. Its a good companion for Arrow.
Jay Garricks hat! Hurrah! OK here’s what I want to see next. Golden age Flash, maybe from the WW 2 era and Golden Age GREEN ARROW played by the current actor being all swashbuckly and jolly Ollie. He should be like Errol Flynn in Robin Hood. And he MUST have that ridiculous phallic Arrowcar! And a whole quiver full of boxing glove arrows!
@5 I’m betting Reverse-Flash is not a guy in a nudist beach that hides in the bushes and puts on a trench-coat when unsuspecting victims walk by, either…
Ooh ooh! And The Arrow meets earth 2 Green Arrow and is supremely embarrassed while the rest of the Arrow crew laugh…until they meet THEIR dopplegangers!
I’m pretty sure that this timeline is caput. Once the singularity is dealt with, I’m guessing the timeline will be rewritten. The way they are presenting this is not “parallel” or even “alternate”, but one, single malleable timeline.
Also, the “singularity” was not caused by Eddie’s death. Its not caused by the inherent paradox. It’s caused by the Flash’s method of time travel. The Particle accelerator created a black hole when Barry and the particle collided. Its only stable for a certain amount of time. They didn’t get the accelerator shut down fast enough, and the “singularity” over Central City was the result.
Part of the reason I’m sure the timeline has been rewritten is the new show only has one half of Firestorm in the cast… the professor who first theorized it. Since Eobard was never born, he never killed barry’s mom, nor did he kill the real Harrison Wells, which means we get Tom Cavanaugh back next season. So, how is the flash created? We’ll see.
I hope they don’t screw the pooch on this one. They’ll need to have a pretty solid reason for how Team Arrow got out of Namda Parbat without Barry.
In the original timeline as presented by Wells/Thawne, the particle accelerator accident happens in 2024. Wells/Thawne was able to speed up the process by a decade. Maybe in this new timeline, someone else (like the time traveler on the new show) leaves Real-Wells a present to help speed up the process? Then they wouldn’t have to explain anything on Arrow.
@11/anthonypero: The timeline cannot be “kaput,” because the timeline is shared by Arrow. It wouldn’t make sense for that show to come back next season and suddenly be in a different continuity due to factors from a separate show. Those people who only watch Arrow and not The Flash would be confused, and it would arbitrarily scuttle the ongoing character and plot threads of the series and render them irrelevant. I don’t believe they would do that. I also don’t believe they’d rewrite history and erase everything that happened in the first season of TF itself. That wouldn’t serve the characters well.
It’s true that there have been a few shows that have rewritten their timelines on a permanent basis. Eureka did it at the start of its fourth season, but that was to revitalize the show and make some adjustments to the premise, and the core six characters all remembered the original timeline and were thus still shaped by the events that had come before. Fringe also rewrote its timeline in the fourth season, with only one character (and later a second, and eventually a third) remembering the original history and that worked fairly well — but it also didn’t share a universe with another show, so it was free to screw around with its own continuity. Then there was the Yancy Butler Witchblade series, which ended its first season by turning back time to the start of the pilot movie, so that everything from the original timeline was forgotten by every character, and events in season 2 arbitrarily proceeded differently with no explanation. That just didn’t work at all, and it may have contributed to the series’ cancellation after the second year. It’s one thing to reboot the timeline to shake up an established, older show that’s reached a point where it could use refreshing. But doing it after just the first season feels like throwing away a lot of untapped potential.
As long as Arrow‘s in the mix, I just can’t see The Flash altering the entire timeline. At most, we might see an episode or two set in an alternate history before Barry gets back to the established one. Or we might see a new timeline established alongside the existing one. The producers have said we’d be getting into Earth-1/Earth-2 stuff next season.
And I disagree with you about the singularity. It did close. Caitlin and Ronnie got the accelerator shut down in the nick of time, and the singularity vanished. But after Eddie killed himself and Eobard was “erased,” the singularity suddenly reopened. That suggests that the temporal paradox created a new instability that ripped the singularity back open again, like reopening a freshly closed wound.
As for the lack of Ronnie in the news about Legends, I was wondering if maybe that was a deception — that they were trying to make us think Ronnie was going to die, so that it’d be a surprise when Eddie died instead. Of course, if that were the case, then the need for the deception would’ve passed, and we still haven’t heard anything new about it. But consider: Legends won’t premiere until midseason, so there’ll be a fair number of episodes of Flash and Arrow that can set up the spinoff. Ronnie is now married to Caitlin, and we’ve seen a glimpse of a future Caitlin becoming Killer Frost. Maybe something will happen to Ronnie in the first part of next season, and that will send Caitlin down a dark path.
Wait, wait wait…is there a different tv show, called Arrow, that is somehow intermingled with this show? I was this close to looking up if I could see this show for free online…but now I’m having doubts again.
@14/crzydroid
Yes they are in the same universe and their been a few crossover episodes, but its a totally different flavor of show and you don’t have to watch both to enjoy it. I only seen half of arrow season 1 and I’m having no trouble following
@13
See my comment @12. They can totally reset the timeline and hardly have any effect on Arrow.
@13:
Eureka altered the timeline at least 3 times by my count, without putting it back. And they actually managed the whole thing well.
@13:
Also, please note that it has been confirmed that Tom Cavanagh will be returning as a titled series regular for Season 2:
http://www.fashionnstyle.com/articles/62396/20150525/flash-season-2-spoilers-barry-meet-wally-west-tom-cavanagh-return-confirmed.htm
So, yeah, the timeline will be altered. I’m guessing the real Harrison Wells will not have died, Wally West will exist as Iris’ baby brother, and only Cisco will remember the other timeline to start the Season off. As long as they come up with a plausible reason that the particle accelerator accident happened in the same time frame as it did on Arrow, there is no reason to even mention it on Arrow. The new timeline could have many of the same events happen, but with a slight twist, things that wouldn’t even matter to people who watch Arrow only.
For Anthony – I agree with CLB – both regarding the worm hole (meaning, yes, it was a SECOND one, not the first, reopening – and that in large part, caused by Eddie shooting himself, not Barry’s actions); I think this will be a comic book physics explanation, so that they do preserve most of S2 in the same way that one day time travel experience of Barry’s, just a few episodes prior to the finale, caused some changes, in addition to what Barry himself changed – e.g. capturing Weather Wizard at the start of the episode) but no major disruptions to the time line. But also regarding the return of Harrison Wells; he’s coming back not because the first season will be ignored/dismissed, but (a) he was a popular character and (b) they still need someone in a mentor role for Barry. He would just, presumably, somehow be the Wells that existed prior to Future Thawne without everything else re-written (inexplicably, Nora remains dead by Future Thawne, but not Wells in the continuing timeline).
I agree that this is where the show plays fast and loose with logic. I’m not sure how much different this is with techno babble in any science fiction show (and essentially most superhero vehicles, whether they be comic books, movies or TV series based on meta human abilities are science fiction) has these elements, from warp drive (Star Trek, et. al), time travel (Dr. Who, et. al)….
I’m with the comment early on that most of what the OP termed sequel aspects are Easter Eggs – or, better yet, a form of fan service for the very hard core fan element of the show (most pointedly, the Mark Hamill role) and many of which (such as the Ferris Air/Coast City mentions) may never play an actual role in the show going forward.
I found the season entertaining and the show is really the only appointment television I ended up with this past year, other than Agent Carter (and similarly to that show), my biggest complaints ends up not being the comic book logic (I’m a current reader, after all), but where the characters acted in a stupid manners, were written that way (the singularity example from the finale, or the easy way the chief and other agent were used by Faust in AC), or the stupidity is a pretty clear plot contrivance, but that’s a complaint I could levy against essentially any kind of media available today.
Finally, I’m not sure The Flash was designed to be family friendly – it’s definitely not designed to be say Hart of Dixie or even to have the obvious (although ‘family hour’ acceptable) sexuality or some of the adult themes in some of its fellow network shows such as Supernatural or Reign, but given the popularity of superheros with kids, it makes sense to think of it as having a broader audience in ways that say Arrow doesn’t necessarily share, even with some of the same production staff involved.
I’m not sure how any of that (regarding continuity) disagrees with what I’m saying, FDS. I specifically said that most, if not all, of the events of the first season would be similar in the new timeline, with just some minor adjustments. The fact that Harrison Wells (the real Wells, not Thawne/Wells) confirms that the first Season’s timeline will not have happened moving forward. That doesn’t mean it won’t be substantially similar. But its not the same timeline. It can’t be, if Real-Wells is alive.
The substantial changes that I’m proposing are going to happen are a) Barry’s dad doesn’t go to jail, so Barry does not grow up with Joe West and b) Joe West gets remarried, or otherwise has another child, and Wally West is on the show. It isn’t the Flash if we don’t play around with Timelines… and so far, this show has handled timelines very specifically, and everything I’m hearing about the new show handles it the same way: alternate timelines aren’t alternate. There is one prime timeline and it can be rewritten. So the only way to get Wally West isn’t via an alternate timeline, but by rewriting the show’s timeline.
I think we’re talking past each other to a degree. Nothing I’m reading.understanding in the comments @13,20 actually disagrees with what I think could happen. I happen to be off the opinion that they can do a bit more with rewriting the timeline without affecting viewers who only watch Arrow. That’s the direction I think they are headed.
Regarding the singularity. I could be wrong. I don’t think it actually matters, but I certainly could have interpreted the situation wrong. It doesn’t really make sense that a paradox would open a black hole over the city exactly like the one they described would happen if the Flash didn’t return in time, but have it be caused by something else entirely than the writers hung out there initially, but sure. It also doesn’t make sense that a paradox would open a black hole in the first place. The particle accelerator formed the first black hole. Not because of a paradox but because of a matter/antimatter principle. Which, granted, is a type of paradox, I guess.
Its most likely a combination. Space/Time was ruptured by the initial black hole, it was “closed” but space/time was still weakened, and the paradox created by Eddie tore the weak spot to shreds… the reason its outside and above the city now is probably simply for visual effect.
@21/anthonypero: Of course it doesn’t make sense; we’re dealing with comic-book physics. Anyway, what you say in your last paragraph is exactly what I’m proposing, so I don’t know why you present it as a disagreement when we’re both saying the exact same thing.
And allowing a timeline to be rewritten is not incompatible with having parallel timelines. Just look at “The City on the Edge of Forever” vis-a-vis “Mirror, Mirror.” Both phenomena can exist in the same fictional universe. They’re not mutually exclusive, just variations on the same underlying processes. I’ll never understand why so many people online insist that a universe can only use one approach or the other, when there are plenty of fictional universes that use a mix of both.
Besides, the producers have already said that they intend to get into Earth-One/Earth-Two stuff in the next season. So yes, there will be coexisting parallel timelines in the show.
Call it a misunderstanding, then. As I said, I think we have been talking past each other to a degree.
I had not read that the producers had already confirmed an Earth-One/Earth-Two thread. Thank you for the information, I will go hunt it down.
I never said it wasn’t possible to have both kinds of alternate timelines simultaneously, I said the show had consistently portrayed only one kind of timeline alteration, through the whole season, with Thawne/Wells trying not to rewrite his own future while getting home faster, and through the episodes where Barry traveled back in time. I also said what I’ve read/heard/seen of the new show is consistent with that portrayal. They are trying to stop time travelers from changing the past to affect the future. To this point, they’ve been consistent. That certainly doesn’t preclude the showrunners from choosing to go a new direction, merely that we’ve been given no evidence (with the possible exception of the Jay Garrick hat falling out of the singularity, if that is meant to be more than merely an easter egg and fanwank) that parallel timelines exist and ample evidence that rewriting a single timeline exists.
Earth 1 and Earth 2 are not parallel timelines, CLB, not in the DC comic verse (and not how it has been shown in the DCAU, or how it was shown on Smallville); it’s a multiverse, similar to the Mirror verse on Star Trek), so Wells being dead (let’s say S1 is Earth 1) would be identical to Sisko’s wife being dead in DS-9 Prime, but alive in the DS-9 mirror. That’s not what has been talked about so far in the comments.
My opinion is that the show has shown us, so far, a theory of time travel akin to Looper with some combinations of the same kind of logic-free time travel we typically get in media with lazy writers (e.g. About Time, NuTrek, Superman I, etc.). Unfortunately, they (The Flash producers) are also appearing to be conflating say the string-theory idea of parallel universes (which I believe is what both worm holes represent – because in the DCU, the time spheres travel in direct line and the designers of the time spheres (be it the LoSH Time Institute/Brainiac-5 versions, or the Rip Hunter versions) are always cautioning users about not being seen, not changing the past, etc. (In other words, it would match time travel as we saw it in the third Harry Potter book.) and also conflating the original many worlds theory (which is generally, again, the multiverse theory of the DCU).
Anthony, I don’t want to go back and re-read everything, point by point. You write immediately after my last comment: “I specifically said that most, if not all, of the events of the first season would be similar in the new timeline, with just some minor adjustments. The fact that Harrison Wells (the real Wells, not Thawne/Wells) confirms that the first Season’s timeline will not have happened moving forward. That doesn’t mean it won’t be substantially similar. But its not the same timeline.” In essence, you’re saying S1 didn’t happen, but it will have happened (or will happen) in a substantially similar way [so Arrow, etc. won’t be impacted, starting from before I got involved.] – my point, which is the same point being made on any number of comic book sites discussing the finale is that the producers made a choice to ‘kill’ Future Thawne without being willing to pay an consequences. In other words, where we are disagreeing is here.
If Eddie shooting himself is enough to wipe Thawne from that MOMENT (going forward) which is how I believe they are planning to sell it, it should still close-loop other things (e.g. Nora stays dead and always died as originally shown, Barry’s dead still in jail, all the metas created by the accident still existing, etc.) which again is how I and most people believe the show will be in S2 meaning Real Wells (the one killed when Barry was a kid) would still, also, be dead. NOW, the way they can bring Wells over without making all this seem way-too bat-crap cray-cray even for Comic Book Physics, would be saying he’s Earth 2 Wells, NOT the one Future Thawne killed.
THAT’s what I think is going to happen. Just as Lionel Luthor was brought back to Smallville in the same manner.
Also, Anthony, Wally was always Iris’ nephew in the comics, which is also how I think they are going to get around the age difference, presuming Iris is about 23 or so, and I suspect Barry slightly older. So Wally will potentially be introduced as he actually was in the comics, as a teenage sidekick.