The Flash Review: “The Flash is Born”

Barry Allen must gird up his loins and steel his resolve to face a childhood bully who has become a sociopathic supervillain.

The Flash makes his name.

Title: “The Flash is Born”

Directed by Millicent Shelton
Written by Jaime Paglia and Chris Rafferty

Grant Gustin as Barry Allen / The Flash
Candice Patton as Iris West
Greg Finley as Tony Woodward / Girder
Danielle Panabaker as Caitlin Snow
Carlos Valdes as Cisco Ramon
Tom Cavanagh as Harrison Wells
Jesse L. Martin as Detective Joe West
Rick Cosnet as Detective Eddie Thawne
John Wesley Shipp as Henry Allen
Patrick Sabongui as Captain David Singh

Full cast and crew information may be found at the imdb

Premise

The Flash aids the Central City Police when they encounter a man who can turn to metal. Unfortunately, this latest metahuman has an unpleasant past with Barry and a warped interest in Iris.

Detective West, meanwhile, learns it can be dangerous to reopen old cases.

High Points

The Flash may be impressive, but he has to learn how to fight. It doesn’t just come with the powers and costume.

Low Point

It’s difficult enough to accept that a few people are running a metahuman prison, able to feed and shelter these characters. But why on earth would Barry reveal his identity to this latest rogue?

The Scores:

Originality: 3/6

Effects: 5/6 The effects remain uneven. Most physical effects work fine; the CGI effects still look cartoony, but they’re serviceable.

Acting: 5/6 I’m going to keep the score at 5 for overall quality, but some of the acting seemed less impressive than during most weeks.

Jesse L. Martin gets special mention for the layers and nuance he brings to his character.

Story: 4/6 The story relied on a certain amount of coincidence and hand-waving. Girder leaves Barry unexamined after he thinks he killed him; Barry is as fast as required to sustain the conflict.

Emotional Response: 5/6

Production: 6/6

Overall: 5/6 The Flash remains a superhero show first and foremost– something its competing tv heroes don’t consistently manage.

In total, “The Flash is Born” receives 33/42

3 replies on “The Flash Review: “The Flash is Born””

  1. I don’t think he was necessarily thinking clearly when he revealed his identity. It felt more like a “In your face, bully!” moment fueled more by emotions and a need for getting even. In other words, a bad deceision.

    • And they’re clearly going to use it, since the actor is booked to play Girder one more time. However, I don’t buy that he would make this decision– especially since enough time must have passed for him to think about it.

  2. Fully agreed on high and low points.

    The supersonic punch looked pretty good, even if the physics seemed a bit comic-ish.

    The fact that the Man In Yellow appeared so soon after that meeting with Wells and Det. West makes me question if it really is Wells, as that seems too obvious now. I’m surprised that time travel didn’t come up in their conversation given all the other things they’ve seen.

    From what I’m reading we may be seeing more of Flash’s powers sooner rather than later, but it’s not set in stone.

Comments are closed.