The Flash Review – Season 1 Premiere, Episode 1: City Of Heroes

Strap in folks! The Flash is speeding onto TV, hopefully for longer than a single season this time. Since we’ve got no previous plot threads to discuss, let’s just get right to it.

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Not So Quick Summary: (And yes, the irony of this feature for this show is not lost on me!)

We begin with Barry Allen doing voiceover. He’s already the Fastest Man Alive, a crimson blur zipping around. To understand his story, we need to believe in the impossible.

That story begins 14 years ago, when Barry’s mom comforts him after getting into a fight with some schoolmates. In our first dose of heavy foreshadowing, she says, “It’s better to have a good heart than fast legs.” That night, Bary awakens to see something weird going on with the water in his aquarium and heads downstairs to see his mom getting assaulted by a yellow blur.

Fast-forward to today, where as a CSI, Allen is running late. Detective Joe West covers for him, saying he sent Barry on an errand. From the evidence at the crime scene, Barry is quickly able to tell the cops what happened. He’s obviously good at his job, as he gets the same kind of flashes the producers on CSI use when those folks are checking out crime scenes.

Afterwards, Iris West gives Barry good-natured crap about going with him to the S.T.A.R. Labs “atom-smasher” event. He gives her a crash course in why the particle accelerator is noteworthy, and after giving Detective West the lead he needs, they get Joe’s blessing to go to the event.

Now we get to the CW part of this: Barry is about to tell Iris he has feelings for her that go beyond surrogate bother-sister or even besties, but she immediately puts him in the Friend Zone (patent pending). Ouch! A hoodlum snatches Iris’ bag, ambushing Barry when he runs him down. A policeman catches the robber, and it’s “Detective Pretty Boy,” a.k.a. Eddie Thawne, a transfer from Keystone City that Iris obviously thinks is hot.

Later, Linda Park reports from the scene of the particle accelerator as Barry is in his lab, looking at an old case that happens to be his mom’s murder. Detective West and his partner are tracking down the last lead Allen gave them.

And then, it happens: the particle accelerator goes haywire while West and his partner get into a shootout with Clyde Mardon. The partner is hit, and while Mardon gets away in a small plane, it gets taken out by a wave of energy from the particle accelerator site. As you may have heard, Barry is hit by lightning, and while medical personnel try to help him, he’s in bad shape.

Nine months pass before Barry awakens suddenly in an unfamiliar place. He’s being watched over by Caitlin Snow and Cisco Ramon, as well as Dr. Harrison Wells. He was the guy responsible for the accelerator, though he’s now in a wheelchair. Barry is surprisingly fine despite his ordeal, as whatever happened to him kept his muscles strong. Or as he puts it, “Lightning gave me abs? If only it was that easy …

Dr. Wells explains a bit of wha happened, but all Allen wants to do is leave. His first stop is to see Iris, who can’t believe he’s okay. The first sign of his transformation happens when a waitress drops her tray and time seems to slow down. Barry next heads to the police station, where West is called away by a bank robbery — it’s Mardon, alive and sporting nifty weather-controlling powers. Barry sees a perp go for a cop’s gun and seems to inadvertently stop him at super-speed. Freaked out, he goes out back, where he discovers that he can run really, really fast. Naturally, he thinks it’s awesome.

Out on a test track, Snow is skeptical of Allen’s claims, but Wells and Ramon are excited. They want him to test his speed, but first, Barry wants to know why Caitlin never smiles. It has something to do with her losing her career and fiancée in the particle accelerator incident. Turns out Barry is right; he clocks several hundred miles an hour, but he also flashes back to the night of his mom’s murder, crashing hard and hurting himself.

Oh, but his broken arm heals in three hours, which Snow calls impossible. Barry tells Harrison about what he saw when he lost focus. He wonders if someone else like him could have killed his mom, but Wells reassures him that he’s one of a kind.

Next stop, Iris, but Barry’s heart sinks when he sees her kissing Thawne. Iris makes Barry promise not to tell Joe, but while they talk, he needs to save her from a speeding Mardon. He zooms off after the … let’s call him Weather Wizard, just to pick a name at random .. and actually gets in the car with him. They crash, but after they both crawl out, Barry gets a firsthand demonstration of Mardon’s weather powers. Crazy fog rolls in fast, and a pursuing cop car crashes.

Joe lays into Barry for allowing Iris to get so close to the danger, and he scoffs at his surrogate son’s theory about Mardon still being alive, let alone controlling the weather. That leads into a blow-up about the night Mrs. Allen died, with Joe basically telling Barry to accept that his dad is the killer. A minute after Barry storms off, Thawne shows up with a sketch based on eyewitness accounts of the bank robbery. Oops, that sure looks like Mardon!

Another confrontation awaits at S.T.A.R. Labs, as Allen lays into Wells and company over the full extent of the accelerator’s effects. They were more widespread, and more “meta-humans” were probably created. Barry wants help locating them, but Wells is more interested in him as a research project and tells him he’s no hero. Allen speeds off but flashes back again.

A mere 600 miles later, Barry finds himself in Starling City. It turns out the voiceover we heard earlier was Allen telling his story to Oliver Queen, otherwise known as Arrow. He gives Barry a pep talk, saying Allen can inspire the people of his city in a way he can’t, becoming something more than a vigilante. He can save people … in a flash! Zing! Before Queen leaves, he suggests Barry follow his own advice and wear a mask. Both guys think the other’s gimmick is cool.

Back in Central City, Barry asks Caitlin and Cisco for help. Ramon has something that might help — a suit intended for firefighters that can stand up to heat and abrasion. It also happens to be bright red. Convenient, that. He puts it to good use right away, as West and Thawne have tracked down Mardon, and it quickly goes bad with the Weather Wizard whipping up a tornado. After all, he thinks he’s a god, and gods should think bigger than bank robberies.

The Flash saves the cops from some spare debris, and his suit allows him to stay in contact with Snow and Cisco. Problem: the tornado is heading for the city, and it’s on its way to becoming an F-5. In classic Flash comic book fashion, Allen decides to run around it in the opposite direction. The suit can take 700 miles per hour, but can he — especially with Mardon fighting him?

When Flash has some self-doubt, Wells comes and gives him another inspiring speech about how he was wrong, and that Barry can be the hero to clean up the mess from the accelerator explosion. He digs down deep and snuffs out the tornado, but for some reason, he unmasks right after that. Mardon recognizes him and is about to shoot him when West gets a shot off first. Oh, and now Joe is the fourth person who knows Barry’s secret. Why even wear a mask?

Since seeing is believing, West now thinks Barry is telling the truth about … everything, really. But he makes Barry promise not to tell Iris, worried about her safety. He goes to visit his dad in prison, vowing to find the real killer. We also see Iris and Eddie together, Cisco putting the familiar lightning bolt on the Flash suit, and Barry saving someone from an accident while remarking that he thinks his friend’s suggestion for a name is going to catch on.

Then, there’s a bit of a surprising epilogue: Wells isn’t exactly what he seems. He goes into a high-tech room, where he reveals that he can walk, he doesn’t need glasses, and he’s got a holographic newspaper from the year 2024 with a headline that reads, “Flash missing, vanishes in a Crisis.” Holy Silver Age Easter Egg Flash fans!

Extra Footage: We get very quick glimpses of future episodes, where we see Multiplex, Captain Cold, and … Barry kissing Felicity Smoak?

Final Thought: I loved it. The tone is great, the comic book references were plentiful, and there were plenty of reasons to come back for more. Even the obligatory CW love triangle didn’t bother me much.