The Flash (Season 7)
My name is Barry Allen, and I’m the dumbest man alive.
The resolution of last season’s plot, including talking Mirror Monarch off the ledge and having Iris deal with the traumatic fallout, was pretty decent. I was also amused by the lengths they went to to resolve some of Ralph’s plot without his actor. (Who was fired at the end of last season for being an asshole, if you missed that.) And then they casually bring Sue back for two episodes to use plot points they clearly still wanted her for, while having him be “off on a case” at the time. It’s kinda like the throwaway lines about where baby Jenna is at any given point; she clearly still exists post-Crisis but we haven’t seen her in years.
Whoever thought that another courtroom drama setup was a good idea? Fire that guy. The trial of Killer Frost was even more stupid than the trial of Barry Allen, and Cecile continues to be downright terrible at her job. (…and then they reversed the whole thing off-screen three episodes later.) The Kristen/Joe plot felt like it was just padding episodes, and bits of it (like the meta-cure bullets) were introduced and then ignored. Why not have her try to use them on this season’s villains, who as either forces of nature or artificial speedsters, would have been immune to them? I have to wonder if there was an episode or two in this short season (18 episodes vs. 22) that they had plotted but then had to cut entirely. That same train of thought carries over to them doing the big Cisco farewell and then having him come back for the finale four episodes later.
The Strength/Still/Sage Force thing was only marginally less dumb than their mangling of legal proceedings, but honestly it was a dumb idea in the comics to begin with, a cheap copying of the rainbow Lantern Corps. I feel like they generally got even more cartoony/comic bookish than some previous seasons, which is really saying something.
They also had a bunch of episodes where characters were missing for long stretches with thinner and thinner excuses. I don’t know if there were covid scares on set or they were cramming in vacations to a shorter filming schedule or what. It did mean we got more focus on the side characters, for better or for worse. And got characters going, “I know what Barry would do if he were here!” Which, as anyone who watched the previous six seasons knows, you should NOT do because BARRY IS A MORON.
Continuity breaks down in the last couple of episodes-Nora West-Allen returns from the future, and this version of her seems reasonably similar to the one from a few seasons ago who, y’know, got erased from history. Jay Garrick zooms in from Keystone…I guess his Earth-2 history got merged into the post-Crisis Earth and nobody mentioned him before now? Godspeed (the current version of the real one, not one of the clones) was in Iron Heights at the beginning of the story…and still was at the end when his future-self ended up there too, I guess? Thawne was banished from the Wells conglomerate last season as a bodiless entity but they still managed to bring him back and he’s really the only hanging thread going into next season.
The last episode had a really “series finale” feel to it; bringing back every guest star they could get a hold of, having an epic lightningsaber duel, and ending on a big heartfelt vow-renewal. No cliffhanger or anything. I’m guessing the writers didn’t actually think they were getting another season.
Overall: I’m not pretending this show is actually good any more, but it’s entertaining.
The resolution of last season’s plot, including talking Mirror Monarch off the ledge and having Iris deal with the traumatic fallout, was pretty decent. I was also amused by the lengths they went to to resolve some of Ralph’s plot without his actor. (Who was fired at the end of last season for being an asshole, if you missed that.) And then they casually bring Sue back for two episodes to use plot points they clearly still wanted her for, while having him be “off on a case” at the time. It’s kinda like the throwaway lines about where baby Jenna is at any given point; she clearly still exists post-Crisis but we haven’t seen her in years.
Whoever thought that another courtroom drama setup was a good idea? Fire that guy. The trial of Killer Frost was even more stupid than the trial of Barry Allen, and Cecile continues to be downright terrible at her job. (…and then they reversed the whole thing off-screen three episodes later.) The Kristen/Joe plot felt like it was just padding episodes, and bits of it (like the meta-cure bullets) were introduced and then ignored. Why not have her try to use them on this season’s villains, who as either forces of nature or artificial speedsters, would have been immune to them? I have to wonder if there was an episode or two in this short season (18 episodes vs. 22) that they had plotted but then had to cut entirely. That same train of thought carries over to them doing the big Cisco farewell and then having him come back for the finale four episodes later.
The Strength/Still/Sage Force thing was only marginally less dumb than their mangling of legal proceedings, but honestly it was a dumb idea in the comics to begin with, a cheap copying of the rainbow Lantern Corps. I feel like they generally got even more cartoony/comic bookish than some previous seasons, which is really saying something.
They also had a bunch of episodes where characters were missing for long stretches with thinner and thinner excuses. I don’t know if there were covid scares on set or they were cramming in vacations to a shorter filming schedule or what. It did mean we got more focus on the side characters, for better or for worse. And got characters going, “I know what Barry would do if he were here!” Which, as anyone who watched the previous six seasons knows, you should NOT do because BARRY IS A MORON.
Continuity breaks down in the last couple of episodes-Nora West-Allen returns from the future, and this version of her seems reasonably similar to the one from a few seasons ago who, y’know, got erased from history. Jay Garrick zooms in from Keystone…I guess his Earth-2 history got merged into the post-Crisis Earth and nobody mentioned him before now? Godspeed (the current version of the real one, not one of the clones) was in Iron Heights at the beginning of the story…and still was at the end when his future-self ended up there too, I guess? Thawne was banished from the Wells conglomerate last season as a bodiless entity but they still managed to bring him back and he’s really the only hanging thread going into next season.
The last episode had a really “series finale” feel to it; bringing back every guest star they could get a hold of, having an epic lightningsaber duel, and ending on a big heartfelt vow-renewal. No cliffhanger or anything. I’m guessing the writers didn’t actually think they were getting another season.
Overall: I’m not pretending this show is actually good any more, but it’s entertaining.