The Flash season 9, episode 1 review: Wednesday Ever After

“Welcome back. Let’s do this. One last time.” Spoilers for The Flash season 9, episode 1 follow.

The Flash has entered its final season and there’s really one question that everyone has on their mind regarding it: Will it be an all-out sprint or will it limp toward the finish line?

Here’s what went down in The Flash season 9 episode 1, “Wednesday Ever After”.

The Flash season 9 episode 1 review

The final run

The final season of The Flash has begun and we now finally have a very important character from the Flash mythos in the show, and he enters with a bang. Or should I say, a boomerang (My keyboard is audibly booing me.) It’s Captain Boomerang. It only took nine seasons for one of Flash’s most iconic rogues to actually appear in the show. It’s not the main version of Digger Harkness though, as he died in Arrow, but rather the Owen Mercer version.

He’s not really the same as the comics, which is fine, because in the comics Owen is an idiot and gets killed by the other Rogues during Blackest Night. In this though, although he’s not in too much of the episode, he’s just unhinged, which is pretty fun. He literally sets off a nuke in Central City, which Barry stops by vibrating the blast (which is dumb nonsense, but whatever at this point). How can you not have fun watching this deranged nutjob because of that?

But the real villain of the season only makes an appearance in the final scene of the episode and it’s Red Death. So, another speedster villain? Yes, but Red Death is a bit different than other speedster villains as in the comics he is a version of Batman from a something called the “Dark Multiverse” who absorbed Barry in order to try and save his world from destruction, only to be driven mad. It’s not really clear right now if that’s gonna be fully the case with this version, (though there is a twist with the show’s version of the character) but who knows.

https://twitter.com/CW_TheFlash/status/1623501223029784577?s=20&t=0dE1WzSp1agCul1lsbEEbw

Groundhog day

It’s groundhog day. Again. They’ve already done this plot in this show and it was derivative when they did it the first time. Now? As the beginning to the final season? It’s frustrating. There is nothing interesting that happens because of the plot of this episode. At all. They try to make it more interesting by having fun camera movements and shot choices, but the script simply doesn’t facilitate anything of interest happening for most of the episode.

Really the only thing of note that happens in the episode is that Iris is frustrated by coming back to her life and basically being out of it for two seasons. Which makes sense, but her frustration at Barry for him trying to help at times doesn’t always land. Yes, absolutely, him focusing too much on the future was not good and she was right to call him out on it, but there was just something off in how some of their conflict was handled in the script. However, this leads to a great scene between Barry, Joe, and Cecile that teaches Barry that the journey is more important than the destination in a lot of ways which leads to him burning the future book that he made and was obsessing over.

So, while the plot was incredibly derivative, at least it led to something meaningful for the characters. Still not the best way to have your final season premiere to be though.

Outside of the main plot, nothing meaningful happens either. Really, the biggest thing that happened was that Allegra and Chuck finally kissed. But really, it feels like an afterthought for everyone at this point.

The Flash starts out its final season on a derivative note, but there’s still enough good here to maybe lead the way to a solid final season.

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What did you think of The Flash season 9 episode 1? Let us know in the comments below!