After The Flash seen in the cinema with great delay, the television one also comes to an end with the series finale, available from August 25 on Infinity +.
Before we begin, I have to ask you to do one thing: believe in the impossible.
There are several commonalities between the The Flash cinematographic (here our review) that peeped out this year after various postponements and the final chapter of The Flash serial, returned with the ninth and final season again in this 2023. As we will explain in the The Flash 9 series finale review, available from August 25 on Infinity +, two are mainly similar characteristics: the use of faces loved by the public and a strong look at the past and the comic origin story of the Scarlet Sprinter. This is because the emotional element is always the strongest and most enduring in stories with “super” traits, and The CW series brings with it an entire shared universe, as Ezra Miller did in a certain sense in parallel acting as turning point for the new DCEU.
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The ninth and final season of The Flash, like the most recent previous ones, has been divided into chapters and paragraphs (the parts and the episodes) with different Big Bads as per the old tradition of generalist TV. After Rogue War e Interlude #4in which the main antagonists were Ryan Wilder/Red Death and the Rogues, we have moved on to the last 4 episodes which form A New World (in times of Multiverse and looking to the future, it seems particularly apt). The four parts use something very common as a pretext for the last few seasons (or last paragraphs in this case), namely time travel, which allows you to embrace old faces that have remained in the hearts of fans. While it’s been a constant feature of The CW series (and it is of the cinematic Flash as well), time travel allows you to dash between the past, present, and future, sort of like a super heroic Christmas Carol that rattles Barry (Grant Gustin) along the important and decisive events of one’s life.
The so-called canons we’ve come to know in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse as instrumental in making a specific superhero what he is. So let’s go back to the fateful day of his mother’s death and his father’s arrest, which inevitably marked the life of the Scarlet Sprinter – even if both interpreters, Michelle Harrison e John Wesley Shipp, we have seen them over the course of nine seasons in other guises, and the first still represents the Speed Force, but the nostalgic effect is equally striking, above all by finding the whole family reunited. Family ties are certainly the main theme of this epilogue, among the biological ones, those that we choose once we are adults like Team Flash that has evolved over the years, and those we return to in times of need.
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Final origin story
And here is the real surprise return of theorigin story (but don’t worry, we won’t reveal many others in this review). That is the final main villain Eddie Thawne / Cobalt Blue, presented at the beginning of the episode with roses in shades of blue and light blue. His interpreter returns for the occasion Rick Cosnettin the last chance for the heir of Harrison Wells/Eobard Thawne or the Anti-Flash (also back Tom Cavanagh) to have his moment as a hero and not as a villain, another canon and decisive moment in Barry’s life that took place at the end of the first season. We therefore reflect for the last time on what such a (super) hero is, with an extremely current final message of the ability to coexist between entities apparently destined to remain in conflict with each other, nemesis par excellence. An important and hopeful message not only after the pandemic, but also with what is happening to the planet with climate change. The ecological theme is developed through the character of Khione, the third version played by Danielle Panabaker, mother of all living beings and of all elements, with great tact and sweetness.
They therefore affect the original members of the cast rather than the recent ones, which is why theabsence of cisco (Carlos Valdes), despite the actor’s commitments: not only the already nominated, but also the return in this last cycle of episodes of Joe West (Jesse L. Martin) reunited with his Cecile (Danielle Nicolet), Marc Blaine ( Jon Cor) reunited with Khione, the endgame of Chester (Brandon McKnight) and Allegra (Kayla Compton) and the family reunion of the Allens with the Nora of the future (Jessica Parker Kennedy). Not caring about the narrative short-circuits of any time travel, the finale of The Flash focuses entirely on emotions, on the themes listed so far, on the Grant Gustin’s charisma that is, the longest-lived, most successful Flash and the one to which one cannot help but remain inevitably fond of. He also focuses on his secular and comics-derived relationship with Iris West, the woman of his life (and not Eddie’s), played by Candice Patton and who in the end is about to symbolically give birth to their daughter Nora, already known by the parents in the future. That’s not all: in the final part Barry also opens up to his possible heirs and new owners of the red suit, giving that perfect sense of closing and opening the circle, of a superhero legacy typical of comics.
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And they lived fast and happy
No maxi-crossovers this year, as it’s the last remaining series of the Arrowverse, except for Superman & Lois which however has a story of its own. The return of Stephen Amell in the now resigned role of Oliver Queen / Green Arrow remains right, the series from which it all started and which gave birth to Grant Gustin’s Flash, the longest-running of the shared universe and therefore the second with greater responsibilities closing after the one dedicated to Green Arrow. That sense of responsibility pervades the entire series finale, starting with Barry’s voice-over who returns to present us with the story, its origin and its epilogue, his once upon a time and his and they lived fast and (perhaps ) happy.
Conclusions
At the end of the review of the series finale of The Flash 9 we are satisfied with the epilogue given by the authors to the most famous and longest running Scarlet Sprinter in entertainment. We appreciated the homage to the origins of the series, thanks to the guest stars brought back for the occasion (a pity for Cisco, the only one absent from the appeal) and the Dickensian-style time travel, complete with a final ecological message of hope and openness towards humanity. For all its flaws and naiveties, the show leaves a major gap in modern genre seriality.
Because we like it
- Grant Gustin says a perfect last goodbye to the character he is most intrinsically linked to.
- Time travel as a narrative trick.
- The return of the day of the death of Nora, the comeback of Eddie and Harrison.
- The surprises and easter eggs of the finale.
What’s wrong
- The series contains all the limits, of writing and staging, that it has always had.
- The fact that Cisco does not return, despite the actor’s contingent commitments and despite being nominated anyway.