Superhero TV shows are a regular part of the television viewing experience these days and we all have The Flash to thank for that. The CW series was spun off out of its predecessor Arrow but went on to achieve even greater levels of success, becoming a juggernaut in the world of genre entertainment and paving the way for so many to come after it.
Its own success allowed the Arrowverse show to stay on the air for almost 10 years, producing nine seasons of metahuman madness and speedster shenanigans for DC TV fans to enjoy. Not all of it managed to recapture the magic of its first season (especially not those last few) but its lengthy run is a testament to the popularity of the show.
Speaking of those last few seasons, they were particularly rough when it came to storytelling, as fans often felt that its weaker storylines lacked the creative spark of many of the earlier ones, especially as they relied on some characters behaving out of character in order to execute them. They aren't wrong in feeling that way, as every show has a rough patch here and there, and The Flash encountered quite a few of them over its nine seasons.
But which of the show's storylines did fans hate the most?
10. Savitar kills Iris
I miss the days when this was regarded as The Flash's worst storyline by the fans.
The series had a pretty excellent run up until this point, but the third season wasn't quite as well-received. From the fact that the Savitar storyline went on for so long that it spoiled its own twist to the show's overly convoluted and contradictory time travel logic, the cracks were beginning to show. However, the thing that rubbed fans up the wrong way the most was how it handled the revelation that Savitar was going to kill Iris in the future.
After the midseason finale, The Flash relegated Iris to a damsel-in-distress role. She had very little autonomy in the storyline that she was at the center of, and fans of the character wanted better for her than that. Sure, the writers actually addressed this on occasion, by having Iris stand up for herself whenever Barry just did whatever he could to change the timeline without consulting her over it, but there were better stories out there for the character.
In hindsight, this wasn't the worst storyline that The Flash has ever tackled. It was messy, too complex for its own good, and it did do a disservice to the characters, but the culmination of it made at least part of the journey worth it (the season finale was excellent and Iris got the chance to take back control of the situation). Unfortunately, we can't say the same about the other storylines on this list.
9. Cicada's reign of repetitiveness
Cicada's monotone reign of terror felt like it went on for an eternity and it really spotlighted The Flash's struggles to maintain its momentum for a full 20+ episode season. It was an issue that reared its head in season 4 when DeVoe needed a bunch of metahumans (and villain-of-the-week episodes) to extend his own arc, but it was far more obvious in season 5.
I think the reason that the fans were more vocal about this one was the fact that Cicada was on-screen for most of the season (while DeVoe's absence could be explained away in filler episodes). He would show up, mumble about how this would "end now", lose the battle, and fly away with a groan. It happened every week, diluting the villain further and making the show's heroes look stupid because they repeatedly allowed him to escape.
Cicada also wasn't a great villain, so the moment the Reverse-Flash subplot was introduced, he completely lost our attention. And yet the show continued with the arc right through to the end of the season. Cicada may have told us that "it ends now", but my goodness, it never ended with him.
The Cicada plot wasn't offensive. It was just dull, and it remains one of The Flash's most infamous, simply due to the fact that it went round in circles for far too long.
8. Chester and Allegra's romance
We've heard of a slow burn romance but this was taking it too far. Chester P. Runk and Allegra Garcia were both enjoyable enough additions to The Flash's sixth season, but instead of developing them with some meaningful long-term storylines, the writers opted to throw them into a bland romance that went through all of the motions.
To say that fans had it with "Challegra" would be an understatement. The two started making eyes at each other in season 7 and yet never actually got together until midway through season 9, a.k.a. the final season. Not only that, they went through the typical, tropey, kiss-regret-avoid journey we've seen on TV so many times before. And then when they finally did make it official, they had the typical, tropey doubts and regrets before finally committing. It was all surface-level storytelling, there was very little depth.
The fans of the show didn't care about the romance enough to justify the amount of time that the show invested in it. Again, this was the final season and fans wanted to spend time with the actual main characters of the show on their final televised journey. This storyline achieved nothing but taking away from that, and honestly you can't blame the fans for feeling that way.
7. The Negative Speed Force vs. Team Flash
On paper, the idea of the Negative Speed Force being the final big bad for The Flash and his allies to tackle sounds amazing. Heck, even throwing in Eddie Thawne as its avatar is a touch of poetry that we couldn't help but get excited about. Unfortunately, the execution of it all left a lot to be desired.
Final scene aside, The Flash's series finale was not well-received by fans, and a lot of that had to do with how rushed the final storyline was. As the season was wasting time on Khione's arrival, Chester and Allegra's romance, Cecile super-heroics, and an interlude nobody asked for, it resulted in just four episodes to tell the final chapter in The Flash's story. Because of that, Eddie's resurrection lacked the emotional depth that it should have had, with his overnight evolution into Cobalt Blue coming off as incredibly cartoonish far too quickly.
Then there was the whole resurrecting four previous villains and wasting their scenes on campy one-liners. The story was told with absolutely no nuance, and it relegated the show's real villain - the Reverse-Flash - to a fake speed figment who got defeated in the final ever episode by Allegra. Yes, Allegra. Not his archenemy Barry Allen. But Allegra.
There was potential there. I was all in when the "A New World" saga began, but from the second episode onwards, time was wasted, the wrong characters got the focus, and The Flash went out with a swift cartoonish battle and a short conversation that lacked any kind of the emotional depth that the early seasons were adored for.
6. The Godspeed Disappointment
For years, fans had been hoping to see Godspeed make his live-action debut on The Flash. I remember all of the rumors about his potential arrival when the show was in its earlier seasons. Unfortunately it didn't happen then, and perhaps even more unfortunately, it finally did happen in the later seasons.
August Heart has a compelling backstory in the DC Comics, and all The Flash had to do was adapt it. Instead, we got a one-note villain of the week in his first appearance (in a flash-forward season 5 episode). After that came a lot of teasing in seasons 6 and 7 about his potential arrival. When he finally did show up, we got four episodes of a one-note villain that produced thousands of robotic speedster clones that couldn't do or say anything outside of "kill the adversary".
After season 7 already missed the mark with the Forces storyline, fans were hoping the show would get it right with this one. But it wasn't to be, as the adaptation of Godspeed that the show eventually produced was so hated by fans that it left most of them wishing they had just left the character alone. It was a poor adaptation indeed and The Flash's version of Godspeed doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as other evil speedsters Reverse-Flash, Zoom, and Savitar. Honestly, the level of storytelling with those guys was of a far higher standard.
5. Killer Frost's death
The Flash's eighth season started really well with the Armageddon event, but fans began to notice it settling back into its season 7 ways soon afterwards. The reveal that a major character would die midway through season 8 promised to spice it up because there were a lot of characters on the show that really didn't need to be there. And then they went and killed off Killer Frost.
Here's the ironic thing; the storyline itself wasn't that bad. Frost got an incredibly heroic send-off when she became Hellfrost and defeated Deathstorm, sacrificing herself so that her sister Caitlin could live. But why did she need to die in the first place? The show had a long history of undermining the character and killing her off was the ultimate example of that.
What's worse is that there were characters who contributed nothing to the show who got to stay on. Chester and Allegra weren't fan-favorites and the show continually placed the spotlight on their uninteresting romance until the end of its run. And then there's super Cecile who fans had long grown weary of.
This death didn't need to happen at all, but are you seriously telling me that the producers looked at the list of characters on the show and somehow landed on Killer Frost? Be serious now.
You could somewhat justify this decision if it was about Danielle Panabker not having to pull double duty as Caitlin and Frost, but that's a moot point considering they brought in Khione just a few episodes later.
Decisions were made. None of them were good, and the fans justifiably made their voices heard.
4. Iris' time sickness
Point me in the direction of anyone who wanted to see this storyline. The Iris West fans certainly didn't want to see it. Not only was it another excuse for The Flash to make its leading lady a damsel in distress, it was a creative dead zone for the show that resulted in some of the worst out-of-character moments in the show's history. What's even better is that after introducing it in the reviled seventh season (and seeing the viewers' negative response to it), the creative team decided that they would extend it all throughout the eighth season, too. And boy do we wish they didn't.
On a surface level, the storyline just wasn't good. It was an extension of the Forces Saga when the show should have really moved on from that, and it was such a poor use of Iris, who deserved far better than whatever this was. Why couldn't we have seen her reporting on something or building her media empire? Why was this the best that The Flash could find for its leading lady?
Nobody ever really figured out what Time Sickness is, its properties changed to suit the needs of the plot, and it was just a basic excuse to write the character off the show for a number of episodes at a time. And you want to know the best part? Her husband and her family decided to play Dungeons and Dragons when the Time Sickness dragged Iris into the Still Force... instead of I don't know maybe looking for her?
Nobody wanted it but they got it anyway. Then nobody liked it. It was a complete and utter waste of everyone's time, and it did more harm to the characters involved than good.
3. Caitlin's "death" and Khione's arrival
I don't know what's worse: The fact that Caitlin Snow's death was so obviously a fakeout or the fact that they wanted us to believe it was real when they behaved so disrespectfully towards her? Both are correct and both are awful.
The Flash's final season made many missteps but perhaps the one that received the loudest response from fans was the fact that it seemingly, quietly, uncaringly killed off Caitlin and then reintroduced Danielle Panabaker as a pointless third character named Khione. It was a ridiculous creative choice given the limited time to complete the show's overall story and it was incredibly disrespectful to Caitlin to sideline her in the final season (and then not even bother to have her friends and family grieve her apparent death).
Khione herself wasn't an offensive character but she never justified her existence. The fans just couldn't wrap their heads around the senselessness in the decision-making here, because why would you waste your final season on integrating a new character who ultimately left at the end of it anyway? Honestly, points were made by those fans.
Khione was both overpowered and powerless at the same time, incapable of helping in the battle and also ending the battle with a click of her fingers; it was all very contradictory, with most of her growth taking place off-screen. Danielle Panabaker was charming as the character but that couldn't even justify this pointless storyline. Like most of the plots in season 9, it took away from the show's legacy instead of adding to it.
2. Cecile the superhero
The final few seasons of The Flash were pretty divisive, but it seems that the one thing that united most fans was their overall annoyance with the overexposure of Cecile Horton. Don't get me wrong, I liked Cecile in the early seasons and longed for the days of when she behaved like a real character, but it's hard to argue with those who felt that the show was continually forcing her in to center stage (she's literally at the front on The Flash complete series box-set) and giving her storylines that offered nothing to the show.
Cecile became more and more cartoonish as the show went on, achieving her ultimate form of ridiculousness when she gleefully decided that she wanted to be a superhero - and that she would be a superhero in a different city than the one her family lived in. Wait, now before you judge, she would visit her family on the weekend (because apparently crime does not happen on the weekend?).
You see the problem, here? And that's not even taking into account that she didn't need to be a superhero. There were plenty on the show already (some of who were already taking away screentime from the leads), so we didn't need another one - especially one that the writers wanted us to believe was "the most powerful metahuman in Central City" on a show called The Flash.
Fans had grown weary of the show's obsession with Cecile long before season 9, but the final chapter took it too far. Not only was she given a super-suit, she was inexplicably given the ability to fly when her powers were psychic. It was a mess and just another example of how its reliance on the Cecile character defied all forms of logic.
I wanted a better final storyline for Cecile than this. The show did not need this. Nobody needed this.
1. The Forces
After a pretty solid sixth season, it felt like The Flash had made a comeback. And then season 7 happened.
The idea of the show tackling the Forces was really exciting, and we all couldn't wait to see what the Still, Sage, Strength, and new Speed Forces all looked like. But it became clear very quickly that it might not have been worth finding out.
Giving each of the Forces avatars, the show introduced three new characters that fans just didn't care about (which isn't surprising given that The Flash struggled to integrate main characters at this point in its run) and then brought back Speed Force Nora to round it out.
It could have been interesting if executed right but that didn't happen. Instead, we got three potentially villainous characters that were hard to like at the best of times, all of whom suddenly started calling Barry and Iris "mom and dad" because they were born out of their love. And then there was Nora, who also referred to the West-Allens in the same way even though she looked like Barry's mother and had referred to him as her "beautiful boy" many, many times before that. Make it make sense, please.
The Speed Force then randomly went rogue and Barry needed the other three to help him stop her. And they did; and then they all lived happily ever after. But the viewers did not; they were perplexed as to what the Forces storyline was all about and why they had to witness it.
The decision to end this storyline after just eight episodes was bizarre, but wow were fans happy to see the back of it.