CW's The Flash Is Really Losing Its Way Lately

When Wally told Iris that Barry only proposed to change the future, she called off the engagement (Wally!). Like every other will-they-won’t-they in television history, she had to back out because she was afraid Barry wasn’t marrying her for the right reasons. C’mon! He’s been in love with you since he was nine! Is it unreasonable that he might want to marry you to save you from Savitar and because he loves you? No. But wait!

When she realizes her mistake,  Barry then has to call off the engagement because it turns out she was right. What?! Cut it out, Ross and Rachel. Good thing Barry lip synced her a new proposal at the end of the very next episode, calling into question why the writers would even introduce the uncertainty in their relationship if it was just going to be resolved in the span of three episodes.

Wally, Wally, Wally. Bros before Sisters, man. (That’s the saying, right?) When Wally ran to Iris to tell her that Barry only proposed to protect her from being skewered by Savitar, he shredded what little tolerability he had left. He was already obnoxious, literally whining for half a season because other people got superpowers and he didn’t.

But then to go and rat Barry out like that, actually endangering his sister in the process? Last straw. Turn in your jacket, Colonel Mustard. 

“We never go anywhere anymore!”

Team Flash’s marriage is getting stale. They are almost always at Star Labs, and if not, they’re either at Joe’s house or Barry and Iris’s apartment. They never even go to Jitters anymore! Their world has become quite small, especially considering a couple of them could go anywhere in the world in an instant. Sure, they do some occasional Earth-hopping, but the vast majority of their time is spent chatting on wheeled chairs at the lab.

Jesse and Wally started dating in Season 3 despite any discernible chemistry. In fact, Jesse had even lamented how annoying Wally was when she was granted with powers and he wasn’t. That doesn’t bode well for romance, but there’s romance nonetheless. In Episode 14, Jesse’s father lies to Wally about being terminally ill so that Wally will push her to go back to Earth-2 with him. Well, it immediately backfires, leaving Harrison looking like an ass and Wally like an idiot, but it speaks to a larger issue: that Jesse Quick and Kid Flash’s relationship is just kind of ridiculous.

Case in point: at the end of Episode 16, Wally tells her he loves her, which she requites before running off to protect the Flash-less Earth-3. You’ve been dating for like a month. Slow your roll, children!

From day one, Harrison Wells (or Eobard Thawne) pushed Barry to get faster. Every episode: “You’re not fast enough, Barry”; “You need to get faster, Barry”; “If you had gotten here faster my pizza would still be hot, Barry.” Virtually every fight Barry has had in three seasons has had a singular solution: more speed. The result being that the climax of Season 2 was essentially a footrace between Barry and Zoom. Cool.

Too many times has Barry slammed a fist on a table and cried, “I’m just not fast enough!” (Iris may feel differently). The constant refrain of needing more speed is The Flash’s version of Oliver’s darkness in Arrow. Find another fulcrum, writers.

Over the course of two seasons, we came to know and love Team Flash (save for the many iterations of Harrison Wells). But in the Season 2 finale, Barry changed the timeline, and thus changed all of those characters and their relationships. Suddenly, Iris and Joe weren’t on speaking terms; neither were Cisco and Barry, as Cisco’s brother was killed in the new timeline. Tragic. Fortunately, Barry was able to use his charm to bring everyone back together and re-establish the relationships that once made them a close knit family.

The problem is that, accepting this new timeline, those relationships never existed in the first place! Flashpoint stripped away all character development before it— and it is implausible that the characters in question would just become a version of themselves that existed in another reality. Philosophical mic drop.