When CW’s The Flash series started four years ago it was such a fresh fun show and I really enjoyed it. It had an overall pleasant atmosphere of geek love and fans like me reveled in it.
As the seasons passed the show started to lose it’s way. The joy waned and the episodes became more and more soulless not to mention boring to boot.
By the end of season 4, I had reached the stage where I was watching The Flash purely as a superhero fanboy complete-ist and I was not enjoying it at all.
This is a major issue for me and one that actually plagues most of the CW shows. In my view, they all seem to regress season after season in the same manner; the standard CW angst creeps in, then the overly long “speeches” happen more often till they become the order of the day. And finally the motivations are all over the shop with no consistency.
Now the brand new episode of Flash season 5 is here and guess what?
I LOVED IT!!!
I smiled throughout most of this opener and yes, it did have one cringe-inducing speech but it wasn’t too bad and I will overlook because the rest of the episode brought me joy.
This was a pleasure to watch and it clearly seems whoever wrote this episode remembered its geek fanbase; it was full of throwaway easter eggs that had me grinning like a idiot!
New character Nora Allen (XS) played by Jessica Parker Kennedy is a breath of fresh air and she brought much needed energy and a new direction to the show. I was glad when at the end of the episode it seemed she will be staying around for awhile.
I hope she rubs off on the rest of the cast – especially Iris.
Another delight was Ralph Dibny who acted like he had not learned anything over the last season of the show. He was hilarious and his “discovery” of the many-verse was golden.
This was a joyous return to form for The Flash. I sincerely hope this is not just a one off and lasts the whole season.
Other cool bits for those who know:
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Flash Ring debut
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Ryan Choi name check
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Grodd vs King Shark reference
Kudos CW, kudos.
