Finally, after months of build up and anticipation, The Flash has premiered for mass audiences and it is everything we could have ever wanted it to be. As a lifelong Flash fan, I’ve been anxiously awaiting this episode. Though it leaked this summer and I was sure to watch it, I tuned in to watch the series premiere proper (And it was my fifth time watching the premiere overall). Overall, the first episode is an incredible start, immediately differentiating itself from the rest of the superhero TV market. With a lot of fun and superheroics, it looks like The Flash might be the TV show that we were craving all along, we just didn’t know it yet.
The episode’s plot is stellar for introducing audiences to the characters and the world of The Flash. The episode opens with Barry, back from visiting Starling City (See Arrow), as he investigates a murder. Using his keen deductive skills, he leads his cop daddy and his partner off to chase the Mardon Brothers, while he goes to watch the latest display at Star Labs. That night, the machine explodes, sending energy into the skies that causes a bolt of lightning to strike him. Nine months later, he wakes up from a coma and works with the techs at the remnants of Star Labs, dedicated to exploring the energies that were released. Soon, Barry realizes that something has changed within him, and that he isn’t the only one to experience changes…
The best thing that The Flash has going for it is the sincerity it has throughout the episode. It immediately establishes Barry as just a genuinely good guy, not some angst-ridden hero like so many others we see. I love Arrow, but this made the first few episodes of the series difficult to watch, as I struggled to engross myself in a character who was so angry at the world. Barry Allen is not angry at the world, and he has a lot more reason to be. It’s that he chooses not to be that makes Barry special, and makes the show stand out. Grant Gustin brings the perfect balance of inexperience and optimism to the role, and it’s clear that he’s looking at the world with unworn eyes, which will make his character journey all the more interesting. The rest of the cast does a great job for what they’re given, and I’m sure I’ll talk about them more in later installments, but I have to give a special shout-out to John Wesley Shipp as Henry Allen, Barry’s father. Shipp played Barry on the 90’s series, and to me, was never quite right there. However, as a guiding light and father figure, Shipp is perfect. It is so great to see that the powers-at-be decided to honor the memory of the old series by bringing him in. It’s one of my favorite castings of the series.
However, the series is not without faults. In the first episode, it follows in the steps of Arrow by delivering a great villain in an underwhelming form. One of the most disappointing trends of Arrow is that they kill off villains before they are given a chance to fully develop, leaving them as vague characters who kind of do evil stuff. Here, we see that The Flash isn’t much better, as they paint Clyde Mardon as a weird crook with no substance behind his powers. While there is hope for the character, since the Weather Wizard of the comics is Mark Mardon, his brother, it doesn’t do wonders for me to make one of The Flash’s most famous villains so… underwhelming.
And on one final note, I have to point out my favorite line of dialogue from the episode, which is when Jesse L. Martin’s Detective West tells Mardon to “Shut the Hell up.” The delivery on the line is hilarious, balancing the fine line between genuine duty and “This guy is absolutely nuts.” I look forward to more of him yet to come.
At the end of the day, The Flash is a very strong pilot, and it’s clear to see why they went straight into production on this series. It is having so much fun, and hints at such big things to come, making it a show that I will eagerly anticipate every week. The Flash has long been my favorite character in comics, and I am very excited to share him with the world.
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