THE FLASH 4.23 Review “We Are The Flash”
This post contains spoilers for The Flash.
Check out our previous review here.
Fandom deals in extremes. Often, superhero fare is looked at in terms of “great” or “dumpster fire”, but rarely does media ever just get accepted as “fine”. That’s where The Flash’s season finale sits. It’s not great, it’s not bad, it’s just ok. Fine might not be what a show wants to close its season with, but it could have been worse.
It became evident that The Flash had written itself into a corner with The Thinker several episodes ago, but they did manage to make things a little better with Marlize joining Team Flash (no matter how predictable the moment). The Enlightenment was kicked off at the end of last week’s episode, and things in “We Are The Flash” start with the team desperately trying to stop the stupefying of the planet. Since the Thinker can’t quantify emotion, they go with trying to find the good part of Clifford still trapped in the Thinker’s mind with the help of Cecile’s psychic ability.
Barry doesn’t find the good left in the Thinker (he’s dead), but he does find Ralph, which is apparently just as good? They fight off an army of DeVoes and break out of his mind in time to stop him from murdering Cecile. DeVoe transforms back into Dibney as his consciousness takes his body back over, and at this point we’re about thirty minutes in and wondering where the rest of the episode is going to go.
Team Flash was able to stop the Enlightenment, but the Thinker had a plan B in his pocket. Thanks to one of the bus meta powers, he was able to resurrect himself in digital form. It’s a lackluster moment complete with a lackluster finish when Marlize simply shuts off the chair, but that results in one of the satellites falling out of orbit toward Central City. It’s big, it’s scary, and like most things in The Flash, it's of no consequence. Team Flash gets people out of the way of the debris, and Barry stops the satellite with a little help from a friend.
For those who have been clamoring for answers on the mystery girl, it’s exactly what most of you had expected. Enter Nora West-Allen, daughter of Barry and Iris, haver of speed and breaker of time. “We Are The Flash” closes with Nora’s concern that she did something bad. Presumably, that bad was coming back in time to stop DeVoe from messing everything up, which would alter the timeline, which will piss of the time wraiths and complicate her uncle Wally’s life with the Legends. If “this house is bitchin” has been bothering you since the beginning of the season, we get a little bit of that as well, but no real answers as to why it keeps coming up, or why Harry was drawing the glyphs and saying the same words Barry did when they busted him out of Speedforce jail.
The Flash closes out its fourth season with two new daughters from two separate times and a kind of fixed Harry Wells, who’s not quite as smart but has his feelings, and most of its questions unanswered. Marlize is in the wind with the intention of continuing her work. While her husband’s story turned out to be uninspired, we at least got to see her strength shine through in the end. It was also nice to see Wally pop his head in for a second, and to get the touching moment between Harry and Cisco before Tom Cavanaugh potentially exits the series and takes one of its best characters with him. Then there’s Caitlin. She’s still Killer Frost-less, but hey, the two people who like Ralph Dibney can celebrate his return while we all wait for what will hopefully be a better season five.
That’s it for The Flash until this fall. You know what to do if you had thoughts on this week’s episode, or their season four.
