***This review contains some spoilers***
Watch the SPOILER review on YouTube
Season 6 of “The Flash” tries its best to juggle two major story arcs and the “Crisis on Infinite Earths” crossover, while also dealing with real life drama of the COVID-19 pandemic that ultimately ended this season three episodes short.
This season tried something a bit new. It was split into two halves and each dealt with a different villain. Overall, this strategy worked. The Arrowverse shows seem to go through the same pattern every year, and they often feel like things get dragged out too long because they have to wait till the 22nd episode to defeat the latest bad guy. By essentially giving us two short seasons, they moved through the story at a pretty good pace. The Bloodwork stuff goes by a little too fast, but he’s not the most interesting of villains. Meanwhile, the Mirror Master stuff feels just about right, especially with the more complex story they were telling. It looked like they might’ve been setting up a finale where both storylines came together, but since they had to wrap up the show abruptly, there’s no way to know what they had planned. Also happening in the first half of this season was the set up for the crossover. Considering the Bloodwork stuff wasn’t always that engaging, the hype for “Crisis” helped keep the stakes high.
As far as returning characters, there was some good stuff. Because of the impending Crisis, Barry was in an interesting place. Despite the gloom and doom of his supposed upcoming death, they kept his character upbeat. Once the second half of the season got going, we got stuck with an angry Barry. While this was part of the big bad’s plot, it made Barry a bit annoying at times. But, by the finale they had him heading back in the right direction. The most interesting stuff from Iris was her mirrorverse story arc, especially the Mirror Iris. It was interesting seeing a more aggressive take on the character, because even though she was an imposter, she still had all the memories and emotions of the original Iris. Killer Frost’s story had some potential, and it was fun seeing an uninhibited version of Caitlin. Unfortunately, the longer she was around, there more she just seemed just like the old Caitlin, but with a white wig. Thanks to Danielle Panabaker’s pregnancy, Frost spent the end of the season hiding behind pillows and resting under blankets to try to cover up the baby bump. Ralph had a solid storyline with his love/hate relationship with Sue. They had good chemistry, but they crossed the line just enough with her to make her a little too unlikable. Wells is back, and this time he’s the roguish Nash Wells. It was a nice new take on Wells, but he was always a little too mysterious to really fit in with the ream properly. As far as the rest of the main cast, they really never seemed to have all that much to do.
We got a few new characters. The villainous Bloodwork became one note pretty quickly, and his powerset was a little vague sometimes. Mirror Master was a lot more interesting, and looked powerful enough to take down all of Team Flash. The show also added Allegra and Chester Runk. Allegra’s transformation from crook to valued team member went too fast. And Runk seemed to be set up as a replacement for Sisco, but then he was gone for the majority of the season.
Overall, the sixth season of “The Flash” benefitted from splitting up the season into two parts. It used the least interesting plotline first so that it could be propped up by the upcoming crossover. However, the lengthy hiatus and shortened season due to the coronavirus killed the show’s momentum and forced it to limp to a cliffhanger ending.
*** out of *****