The Flash has an interesting problem starting out this season—one I’m sure plagues all of the Arrowverse shows currently. There’s so much hype leading into Crisis On Infinite Earths that it’s difficult to place much stock into anything else. It’ll be very interesting to see how the show manages to balance those expectations, while also setting up future threats for the show itself.
As the new Showrunner, Eric Wallace has a lot on his plate. Though if there’s anything the show needed the most, it’s new blood when it came to the creative department. Besides some minimal Crisis set-up, the Season 6 premiere started setting up two different villain threads. The first was Ramsey Rosso (played by Sendhil Ramamurthy), who will go on to be the villain Bloodwork. So far, Ramsey’s addition to the show seems fine—I mean we don’t have too much to go on. We learned of his immediate connection to Caitlin, and saw his fight against death begin his transformation into the formidable Bloodwork. The second threat, which I think will end up being one threaded throughout the entire season, was Godspeed. It was a very brief set-up/tease for sure. Is Godspeed even the villain being set-up? Or is it something bigger? We’ll have to wait to find out, but it was certainly one of the more intriguing aspects of the premiere for me.
As for good ol’ Team Flash, things seemed fairly normal on their end. Barry and Iris are still dealing with the loss of Nora, Cisco is adjusting to being Vibeless, and Joe is fitting in snuggly into his new position as police captain. Then there was Caitlin and Killer Frost, repeating a storyline that we’ve already gotten. Sure, it’s just the slightest bit different, but not enough to really separate it from the past. Maybe it’s just a means to justify having more Killer Frost on screen over Caitlin. Needless to say, the two still aren’t my favorites. Jumping back to Barry and Iris, I find their grieving really interesting. As they put it, they are mourning the loss of Nora, even though they know they will see their own Nora soon. It’s an intricate and intriguing dynamic that differentiates this loss over past traumas that they’ve had to deal with.
The team did gain a potential new ally in Chester Runk, the man accidentally responsible for all of the black holes popping up in Central City. He looks like he could be a fun addition to the team, something the show clearly seems to be aiming for. I’m excited to learn what those glowing eyes may mean for him as well. I guess they needed another meta after Cisco wiped away his powers. Nowhere to be seen however is this season’s new Wells. I’m sure he’ll pop up eventually, but it’s always strange not having a Wells for the team to bounce off of.
The Flash returned with a fairly standard episode that didn’t hit too many speed bumps during its run. We got some interesting teasing of what’s to come, while the show also made it known that the Crisis is coming—and The Flash must die. I really don’t know how the first half of the season will look while it isn’t focusing on the upcoming crossover event, but hopefully Eric Wallace is up to the task and will make us proud. I mean it can’t be worse than the previous two seasons…right?
Bonus Notes:
- Talk about great song choice with that Queen selection.
- Man am I glad to finally be rid of Cicada.
