*This review contains some spoilers*
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Season 4 of “The Flash” goes back to its lighter tone and silver age roots, but overdoes the hokeyness a bit too often. While they do wrap up the cliffhanger from last season quickly and fairly easily, having Kid Flash remaining the only Flash in town wasn’t all that compelling to last more than a few episodes. The plot gets going pretty quickly as Team Flash faces a villain that’s just too powerful to be stopped, at least until the plot decides to change course.
This season’s villain, Clifford DeVoe AKA The Thinker is The Flash’s toughest villain so far, and he’s one that can’t be defeated by speed. His hyper intelligence is written as almost omnipotence. He’s not just smart, he can calculate possibilities to the point that he appears to see the future. This tends to feel like a bit much at times as it implies there’s no way to defeat him because he’s already thought of everything. However, even though he’s thought of everything, he still never sees the critical mistakes that seal his doom. Neil Sandilands brings quirkiness and a bit of menace to the role. Unfortunately, there’s a long stretch where he inhabits other bodies, which means he’s played by various actors. The final form of The Thinker brings back Sandilands, and gives him a cockiness he didn’t have before. This is also the point where all his planning seems to fail him in the homestretch. Assisting him is his wife, Marlize, played by Kim Engelbrecht. Her scheming and manipulating in support of her husband makes her easy to hate. They do eventually make her sympathetic enough to root for her, even though Team Flash seems to forgive her pretty quickly.
Season 4 sees a much lighter in tone Barry Allen. While he still has his moments of depression, they’re not as prevalent as they were last season. Killer Frost/Caitlin Snow’s story arc takes an unexpected turn, but slowly becomes more entertaining. There’s a big loose thread with her origin that will have to wait till next season to be explained. The rest of the team doesn’t have much of interest happening to their characters. Most of new heroes and villains aren’t too memorable outside of their superpowers, and they’re all McGuffins that tie into the final arc of the season. The only major addition is Ralph Dibny, who just never quite worked for me. He’s overly silly, channeling he best Jim Carey impression. This is equally true of his stretchy superpowers that make cause him to come of like Carey in “The Mask.” When it comes time for Dibny to be serious, the acting is up for the challenge and he can be quite compelling.
There’s a lot that works in season 4. The character relationships are strong, and there’s some really nice teamwork. They also plant a few seeds throughout the episodes that don’t pay off till late, particularly with the slow introduction of the mystery speedster. On the down side, the show suffers from an overabundance of corniness at times, and there are too many predictable episodes and short-lived changes to status quo. The also introduce the concept of “Flashtime.” While the concept is pretty fun, it gives The Flash almost godlike speed. The fact that he can move that fast should make him unstoppable. But he’s still constantly too slow to keep the bad guys from getting away, or avoid getting knocked on his ass.
Season’s best episode: “Lose Yourself” (Episode 18): A strong emotional episode that sees the team’s biggest failure against The Thinker.
Season’s worst episode: “Mixed Signals” (Episode 2): Just too corny. Barry and Iris are more involved in couple’s therapy that saving the world.
**1/2 out of *****