The four-part series finale of The Flash reminds us of the highs and lows of the series with returns of several familiar faces, touching on familiar themes, and unnecessarily bloating the story with excess B-storylines for the numerous characters. The original spinoff to Arrow, The Flash helped cement the foundations of the Arrowverse. At its best the Scarlet Speedster entertained while keeping its focus on the humanity of criminal scientist Barry Allen (Grant Gustin) who used his speed to help save Central City from all kinds of threats, included some inadvertently caused by himself.
Far past its peak, the finale caps of the show (and really the Arrowverse as a whole) with Barry getting jumped around the timeline yet again with a new evil force obsessed with beating the Flash. On his final run, the Flash will revisit the past on the day his life changed, show up in the future for some time with his daughter, and eventually return to the present to battle an all-star rogues gallery of speedsters with the help of his friends. The oddest choice is to bring back Eddie Thawne (Rick Cosnett) and turn him into the final big bad of the series, although crafting a new villain with deep history with the heroes allows for the kind of compromise the Flash would unlikely be able to come to with the other villains who return including both Matt Letscher and Tom Cavanagh as different versions of the Reverse-Flash.
The battle across time leads to an hit-and-miss final four episodes starting off strong with Barry’s return to the past before floundering in “Part Two” with the rest of the characters waiting for his return before ramping up to the big showdown with pretty much all of the big name evil speedsters of the series showing up in the final confrontation (to quite easily be taken down by the good guys). In the end I don’t think the message of a “new world” is quite sold, but we do get the birth of baby Nora, farewells, and new beginnings for several characters. Even if The Flash limped to the finish line in its final seasons, and the ending doesn’t ultimately do more than keep the characters on their current paths, there’s still enough for the show to go out on its own terms with a nice farewell for its fans while teasing a world of future speedsters to keep the world safe (while at least saving us from an awkward extended future timeline like Arrow was saddled with in its final seasons).
