The Flash (Netflix, Season 9)
Jul. 31st, 2023 09:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroMy name is Barry Allen… and you know the drill by now.
Barry and company are back for one last half-season romp with the usual bunch of twists, cast rearrangements, and crossovers. This was only 13 episodes (basically a half-season) and it was a lot of “once more around the block and into the happy ending,” because with this we close down the Arrowverse collective continuity until these actors guest-star in a different series of crossovers 20 or 30 years from now. (Joe is dropped as a series regular and Mark Blaine is elevated to opening credits; though they end up in the same number of episodes.) The first storyline brings back a bunch of the more recent rogues in a battle against Red Death, the Reverse Bat-Flash. Dreamer stops in for a guest spot and establish that the cast of Supergirl is doing fine. Diggle and Oliver Queen (now the Specter, protector of the Multiverse) get an episode to do the Arrowverse nostalgia wrap-up. Lots of former guest stars get a chance to stop in, including Wally West, who we haven’t seen in forever.
Then they basically time-skip the ~7 episodes that would have been the early spring chunk of the season—between episodes 9 and 10, Khione comes into her powers and self-understanding, Mark finds himself, Chester and Allegra solidify their relationship, and Iris has the majority of her pregnancy. My best guess is that they scripted (and maybe started filming?) the first half of the season thinking they’d get 20 episodes and then only got 13, which is why they bothered with things like Joe moving out to the “country house” with Jenna—they could have skipped all of that air time and just let Joe be “busy doing other things” for the four episodes Jesse L. Martin skipped.
Anyway, then we get the big four-part finale of the show. Barry makes one last trip to the night of his mom’s death and makes peace with it. He goes to the future (where apparently we couldn’t be bothered to put a little gray in everyone’s hair or something?) so we can be assured a “happily ever after” is coming. The Justice League/Hall of Justice gets called out as existing, even if they can’t get the characters to show it. Eddie Thawne comes back to life and finally gets a happy ending. The evil speedsters get trounced one last time, with Team Flash really cutting loose because it doesn’t matter how overpowered they are going forward. Khione “ascends” in the finale and leaves Caitlin behind in her place, probably because of the fan outcry to Caitlin’s “death.” Chester gets some last-minute superpowers, because why not? Joe proposes to Cecile, which…didn’t they get married five seasons ago? They have a daughter who’s in kindergarten! Nora is finally born, which means we get a great scene of adult-Nora cooing over herself. And they put in an odd scene of Barry sending out Speed Force lightning to share the power with three new Flashes (a sequel hook that will never pay off), that emphasizes a corny-but-real message of hope and understanding.
It was actually really noticeable that Cisco didn’t stop in (through he was name-checked), because he was one of the only series regulars who didn’t show up. The other noteworthy absence was Sue Dearbon…well, and Ralph Digby, but that’s because that actor was summarily ousted and was never coming back.
Like the Supergirl finale, they really got the chance to wrap things up and they took it; this ends on the notes that we always wanted it to. Barry and Iris are together and happy, surrounded by friends and family and determined to work together to keep the world and their family safe. (Legends of Tomorrow didn’t quite get that, but their last season was still pretty satisfactory.)
I’ll miss this continuity because I loved the Arrowverse shows (or many of them; I watched a collected 25+ seasons of four shows), but when you get right down to it, it really was time. The continuity got too heavy; the plots had gotten too routine. This season was littered with ten-second flashbacks to previous episodes to remind you of events from five years ago. Even without the changes at WB, the “second generation” shows hadn’t found their footing (and were already cancelled) and there wasn’t a handoff that could have made them the standard-bearers of another five years. And the originals were all definitely ready to turn over—and thankfully, most of them got to end on their own terms. I may someday rewatch early seasons of The Flash or later seasons of Legends, and I’ll always think of this continuity fondly, but I’m cool with dropping the curtain on it now.
Overall: I’m glad I finished this out. Goodnight, Arrowverse Earth-Prime. I’ll see you elsewhere in the multiverse some day.
Barry and company are back for one last half-season romp with the usual bunch of twists, cast rearrangements, and crossovers. This was only 13 episodes (basically a half-season) and it was a lot of “once more around the block and into the happy ending,” because with this we close down the Arrowverse collective continuity until these actors guest-star in a different series of crossovers 20 or 30 years from now. (Joe is dropped as a series regular and Mark Blaine is elevated to opening credits; though they end up in the same number of episodes.) The first storyline brings back a bunch of the more recent rogues in a battle against Red Death, the Reverse Bat-Flash. Dreamer stops in for a guest spot and establish that the cast of Supergirl is doing fine. Diggle and Oliver Queen (now the Specter, protector of the Multiverse) get an episode to do the Arrowverse nostalgia wrap-up. Lots of former guest stars get a chance to stop in, including Wally West, who we haven’t seen in forever.
Then they basically time-skip the ~7 episodes that would have been the early spring chunk of the season—between episodes 9 and 10, Khione comes into her powers and self-understanding, Mark finds himself, Chester and Allegra solidify their relationship, and Iris has the majority of her pregnancy. My best guess is that they scripted (and maybe started filming?) the first half of the season thinking they’d get 20 episodes and then only got 13, which is why they bothered with things like Joe moving out to the “country house” with Jenna—they could have skipped all of that air time and just let Joe be “busy doing other things” for the four episodes Jesse L. Martin skipped.
Anyway, then we get the big four-part finale of the show. Barry makes one last trip to the night of his mom’s death and makes peace with it. He goes to the future (where apparently we couldn’t be bothered to put a little gray in everyone’s hair or something?) so we can be assured a “happily ever after” is coming. The Justice League/Hall of Justice gets called out as existing, even if they can’t get the characters to show it. Eddie Thawne comes back to life and finally gets a happy ending. The evil speedsters get trounced one last time, with Team Flash really cutting loose because it doesn’t matter how overpowered they are going forward. Khione “ascends” in the finale and leaves Caitlin behind in her place, probably because of the fan outcry to Caitlin’s “death.” Chester gets some last-minute superpowers, because why not? Joe proposes to Cecile, which…didn’t they get married five seasons ago? They have a daughter who’s in kindergarten! Nora is finally born, which means we get a great scene of adult-Nora cooing over herself. And they put in an odd scene of Barry sending out Speed Force lightning to share the power with three new Flashes (a sequel hook that will never pay off), that emphasizes a corny-but-real message of hope and understanding.
It was actually really noticeable that Cisco didn’t stop in (through he was name-checked), because he was one of the only series regulars who didn’t show up. The other noteworthy absence was Sue Dearbon…well, and Ralph Digby, but that’s because that actor was summarily ousted and was never coming back.
Like the Supergirl finale, they really got the chance to wrap things up and they took it; this ends on the notes that we always wanted it to. Barry and Iris are together and happy, surrounded by friends and family and determined to work together to keep the world and their family safe. (Legends of Tomorrow didn’t quite get that, but their last season was still pretty satisfactory.)
I’ll miss this continuity because I loved the Arrowverse shows (or many of them; I watched a collected 25+ seasons of four shows), but when you get right down to it, it really was time. The continuity got too heavy; the plots had gotten too routine. This season was littered with ten-second flashbacks to previous episodes to remind you of events from five years ago. Even without the changes at WB, the “second generation” shows hadn’t found their footing (and were already cancelled) and there wasn’t a handoff that could have made them the standard-bearers of another five years. And the originals were all definitely ready to turn over—and thankfully, most of them got to end on their own terms. I may someday rewatch early seasons of The Flash or later seasons of Legends, and I’ll always think of this continuity fondly, but I’m cool with dropping the curtain on it now.
Overall: I’m glad I finished this out. Goodnight, Arrowverse Earth-Prime. I’ll see you elsewhere in the multiverse some day.
no subject
Date: 2023-07-31 10:59 pm (UTC)