Flash - Season 3
We have a bit over two weeks until first episode of season four premieres. Bellow, you can read my take on what the last season was like. Hopefully, it'll catch you up a bit with the current state of the show. You will be able to gather some of the stories that happened last season but this review will mostly delve into what was good about the last season and what wasn’t so great.
Let’s start with the villain that tormented team Flash. Savitar, god of speed and Barry that went nuts. I personally have very mixed feelings about Savitar. I loved his visual and that he looked like some unknown entity. Not just guy in a similar suit to Barry’s but with a different color scheme which was the case with the last two villains. Savitar's design was very unique and that set him apart. Sadly as a third speedster in a row, I felt a bit of an exhaustion with the material. The only thing that fights between speedsters revolve around seem to be how fast they are and a lot of the preparation for the fights are boiled down to „I need to run faster“.
As a season villain Savitar could have been saved for later seasons when we get few adversaries that aren’t speedsters and it would have made a better impact. Sadly, we got to see two great speedster villains before him and he just did not stand a chance compared to cold and calculating Reverse Flash and menacing Zoom.
Moving to characters and relationships. This is a bit harder to review as some things were really well done and others not so much. The relationships between the characters were mostly fine. A lot of issues that came up were rationally discussed and resolved. Not all of them, but on the whole, it didn’t have that much artificial drama which was greatly appreciated. However, the lack of drama between characters was in a lot of places replaced by bending the characters out of their normal state and in some cases totally abandoning their personality so that it fits into the story and I really disliked this approach.
The biggest example for bending established character was Cisco and his approach to Gypsy. Sure it seemed funny at first but at moments it went into a cringe. It seemed like writers wrote Gypsy, a new character, and wanted her to pair with Cisco. Fine, why not. But then they realized how weird it was so instead of doing the logical thing and figuring how to pair them naturally or rewriting her personality a bit to be compatible with Cisco they chose to change Cisco for this to work. I can’t imagine why they would do this, but it was very obvious. And that is just one example.
Minor villains and their contained stories will be the last thing that I’ll try to analyze. This aspect of the show was lacking this season as well. Few were really fun and entertaining while giving flash some challenge. More of them, however, were really dull without any sort of motivation that would drive them forward. Because of that, they were reduced to very forgettable throwaways that were there just so that Flash had someone to beat that week. The better ones were, for example, Magenta, Mirror Master or Music Meister. However, most of the bad guys were so bland and uninteresting that I can’t even remember their names while writing this review.
As a whole, I’d say that the third season was a mixed bag. Some things that were supposed to be the main focus just didn’t work that well and yet other things that were there just for the fluff were great. A lot of the surprising moments that were supposed to shock us, like reveal of Savitar and HR’s death, just weren’t surprising and many fans did spot them from miles ahead. On the other hand, some things that really weren’t the main focus, in this case, Julian Albert’s arc and Supergirl crossover were phenomenal and outshined a lot of established things. I am especially sad that Tom Felton won’t be returning in season four because he was the highlight of most of the episodes that he was in.
This brings us to the final score. If I were to take individual scores of each episode we would be a bit higher but as a whole, this series was the weakest so far and a lot of things didn’t work in a grand picture, hence the lower score. I hope that the showrunners will learn from mistakes this season made and deliver us a great season starting in two weeks.
Let’s start with the villain that tormented team Flash. Savitar, god of speed and Barry that went nuts. I personally have very mixed feelings about Savitar. I loved his visual and that he looked like some unknown entity. Not just guy in a similar suit to Barry’s but with a different color scheme which was the case with the last two villains. Savitar's design was very unique and that set him apart. Sadly as a third speedster in a row, I felt a bit of an exhaustion with the material. The only thing that fights between speedsters revolve around seem to be how fast they are and a lot of the preparation for the fights are boiled down to „I need to run faster“.
As a season villain Savitar could have been saved for later seasons when we get few adversaries that aren’t speedsters and it would have made a better impact. Sadly, we got to see two great speedster villains before him and he just did not stand a chance compared to cold and calculating Reverse Flash and menacing Zoom.
Moving to characters and relationships. This is a bit harder to review as some things were really well done and others not so much. The relationships between the characters were mostly fine. A lot of issues that came up were rationally discussed and resolved. Not all of them, but on the whole, it didn’t have that much artificial drama which was greatly appreciated. However, the lack of drama between characters was in a lot of places replaced by bending the characters out of their normal state and in some cases totally abandoning their personality so that it fits into the story and I really disliked this approach.
The biggest example for bending established character was Cisco and his approach to Gypsy. Sure it seemed funny at first but at moments it went into a cringe. It seemed like writers wrote Gypsy, a new character, and wanted her to pair with Cisco. Fine, why not. But then they realized how weird it was so instead of doing the logical thing and figuring how to pair them naturally or rewriting her personality a bit to be compatible with Cisco they chose to change Cisco for this to work. I can’t imagine why they would do this, but it was very obvious. And that is just one example.
Minor villains and their contained stories will be the last thing that I’ll try to analyze. This aspect of the show was lacking this season as well. Few were really fun and entertaining while giving flash some challenge. More of them, however, were really dull without any sort of motivation that would drive them forward. Because of that, they were reduced to very forgettable throwaways that were there just so that Flash had someone to beat that week. The better ones were, for example, Magenta, Mirror Master or Music Meister. However, most of the bad guys were so bland and uninteresting that I can’t even remember their names while writing this review.
As a whole, I’d say that the third season was a mixed bag. Some things that were supposed to be the main focus just didn’t work that well and yet other things that were there just for the fluff were great. A lot of the surprising moments that were supposed to shock us, like reveal of Savitar and HR’s death, just weren’t surprising and many fans did spot them from miles ahead. On the other hand, some things that really weren’t the main focus, in this case, Julian Albert’s arc and Supergirl crossover were phenomenal and outshined a lot of established things. I am especially sad that Tom Felton won’t be returning in season four because he was the highlight of most of the episodes that he was in.
This brings us to the final score. If I were to take individual scores of each episode we would be a bit higher but as a whole, this series was the weakest so far and a lot of things didn’t work in a grand picture, hence the lower score. I hope that the showrunners will learn from mistakes this season made and deliver us a great season starting in two weeks.
A Look Inside
