Today, I write you not of my own free will, but out of a sense of duty to The Underground. I do not particularly desire to write the blog, but I do it because I must - because I said I would - and because it will bring a sense of closure to me regarding a troubling time in my life. Today, I write to you about my experience binge-watching Season 4 of CW's "The Flash" and Season 3 of its companion show, "Legends of Tomorrow."
In short, you know, I just really didn't love it.
I know, Barry Allen. I know. I really wanted to like these seasons, but I just didn't. I'm sorry to have failed you.
Following up last summer's binge of "Flash" Season 3 and "Legends" Season 2 (which I blogged about here last June), I had eagerly anticipated Netflix's release of the most recent seasons so I could continue the journey of the Fastest Man Alive and that wily bunch of time-traveling rapscallions.
Season 4 of "The Flash" picks up with Barry having sacrificed himself to the Speed Force for the good of Central City. Of course, his absence is extremely short-lived, as he returns in the very first episode of the season, albeit with some strange, obsessive-compulsive behavior. As Barry returns to his normal self, he faces two daunting tasks: the emergence of a new supervillain known as "The Thinker" and his own forthcoming wedding with Iris West.
Season 3 of "Legends" is more of the same - they've messed up time and spend the season cleaning up so-called "anachronisms" (or errors in the known timeline of humanity). This leads to some fun (if not goofy) mash-ups, introducing historical figures like Julius Caesar, Helen of Troy, P.T. Barnum, Leif Erikson and a young Barack Obama, among many others. The overarching storyline is something about the existence of six elemental totems that, when combined, would give the bearer the ability to destroy the known universe or whatnot (seems a bit too similar to Marvel's "Avengers: Infinity War," now that I'm thinking about it). Meanwhile, the gang has to deal with Professor Martin Stein's desire to leave the Legends and live out the rest of his civilian life (which I was previously aware would happen because I saw some article months ago about how actor Victor Garber was supposedly leaving the show).
Now, let's break down what I liked and didn't like about these seasons. SPOILERS to follow.
The Good
There are some elements of "The Flash" that I still like. Typically, I feel like this is the most mature (or least immature, I suppose) of the DC "Arrowverse"; "Arrow" is way too "high school" for my tastes, I don't watch "Supergirl" and it sometimes feels like a 17-year-old wrote the dialogue for "Legends." I think Grant Gustin is teriffic. Part of me still wishes that he was playing The Flash in the DCEU. I like Jesse L. Martin a lot. Tom Cavanagh is an American treasure - easily my favorite character of the series.Similarly, there are a few characters from "Legends" that I've grown fond of. I couldn't stand Brandon Routh's "Atom" character when he would occasionally appear on "The Flash," but he has become one of my favorites over this three-season run. Mick Rory always makes me laugh. Professor Stein is probably my top Legend, though, and I was sad to see him go the way that he did.
"The Flash" delivers quality, consequential episodes much more consistently than "Legends" - and without the wall-to-wall goofiness that is sometimes present in the sister show - so I found myself paying closer attention to Barry and Company than I did for "Legends."
Despite the wacky nature of "Legends" and the fact that it continues to blatantly rip off other TV shows and movies (most notably, "E.T." and "Groundhog Day," this season), it is generally a pretty fun and enjoyable show. I like having a show that is serious enough to keep my interest but self-aware enough to have a good time along the way.
Both shows had some fun cameos, including the return of Danny Trejo as Cisco's girlfriend's father, and new appearances by my man Bill Goldberg (who played a prisoner tough-guy in a couple episodes of "Flash") and John Noble (an incredibly on-the-nose appearance as himself in "Legends" - to be fair, the episode was called "Guest Starring John Noble").
I was excited when John Constantine showed up for a couple episodes, even though I knew nothing about that character. It turns out that I didn't really care for the paranormal tone of episodes he was a central character in, but I always like it when these crossovers happen, and I thought it was especially that a character from a cancelled show got new life in another "universe."
Speaking of crossovers, this season's big crossover event, Crisis on Earth-X, was largely enjoyable - like a made-for-TV, B-List version of an "Avengers" movie - and, although I had to stop watching for a week or two to wait for Netflix to release the latest season of "Supergirl," I didn't mind having to watch epsiodes of "Arrow" and "Supergirl," along with my back-and-forth binging of "Flash" and "Legends." The return of Leonard Snart ("Captain Cold") was a bit of a surprise, despite having vaguely remembered seeing a spoiler about it on Facebook a couple months ago.
But let's be honest - the best thing about either of these shows this season was BEEBO, THE GOD OF WAR!!! What could have been seen as a spoof of "Jingle All the Way" turned into the funniest (and arguably one of the very best) episodes of all. Seeing Beebo come back in the "Legends" season finale was utterly ridiculous, but I don't think I would have had it any other way. Long live Beebo!
The Bad
Wally West spent most of his screen time with the Legends this season. I'm not sure that I really care for him on either of these shows, to be honest. Also, his hair looked pretty dumb. It's a minor cosmetic issue, but whatever he's going for there is not a good look, bro.The episode where Stein dies and Jefferson Jackson breaks down in tears a couple times was pretty brutal. The dude needs to work on his fake crying because what we saw was really rough - probably the worst fake crying I can remember seeing in quite some time.
The idea that Cisco has a hot girlfriend irritates me so bad. It did last season and it still does now. The guy is a total goofball that is good for comic relief and to get Team Flash out of sticky situations here and there, but watching him kiss Jessica Camacho is less realistic to me than a man who can vibe the superpowers of metahumans by touching physical objects.
I like those parody episodes of "Legends" to a certain extent, but sometimes it just feels like lazy storytelling, like the writers couldn't come up with an original storyline so they had to spoof a classic movie. That's like something I would have done (and did many times) in high school.
Joe West's girlfriend Cecile was soooo annoying.
Clifford DeVoe, the "big bad" from Season 4 of "The Flash" looked a bit like a poor man's Brainiac (I thought he was Brainiac the first time I saw him, so that was a little disappointing). I liked some parts of his storyline, but, as the season went on and he started turning into other people (including a woman, at least once), I started to lose a bit of interest in that plot. I found it a little hard to focus or keep track of which "Metas" where where and who was actually alive. All in all, I didn't like DeVoe as much as previous "Flash" villains like Reverse Flash and Savitar - or even recurring characters like Gorilla Grodd.
I'm not quite sure why they spent so much time and effort on crappy-P.I.-turned-Team-Flash-stooge Ralph Dibny. He made me laugh a couple times here and there - and he even threw out a "LOST" reference at one point, which was unexpected - but I never considered him a "main character." He finally started to grow on me a little bit, but then he got taken over by DeVoe (or whatever happened), and now he's... dead, I guess? I don't know. Anyway, I just thought less energy could have been expended on him since he ended up being such an insignificant part of the story.
The Ugly
Here comes the part where I may ruffle some feathers - and it's not my intention to do so. I just need to call The CW on their crap about a couple things.Sarah Lance's bi-sexual tendencies have bothered me in the past. This has been documented. But things have gotten out of hand, as her lesbian escapades hijacked the majority of the latter half of the season. I understand that not everyone shares the same beliefs as me, and that other people's actions don't really affect me, personally, so I try hard not to let this stuff bother me, but is it really necessary to force some kind of LGBT agenda into virtually every episode? Is there really, truly that big of an audience for it? Do fans of the show even like it?
This season, Sarah weasels her way into a lesbian relationship with Ava Sharpe, a Time Bureau agent that starts the season as a hard-A that can't stand the Legends and ends up as a wussy, emotional clone (literally, she is a clone). Basically any scene with Lance and Sharpe together included a reference to lesbian sex, and it got to the point where I tweeted out that I wasn't sure I wanted to finish watching the season. Clearly, I stuck it out and finished, but this stuff made me lose a considerable amount of interest.
Along with Miss Lance, we were also introduced to a gay superhero named The Ray during the crossover event. And not only is he gay - he's gay with the Earth-X Captain Cold? Come on, now. This was a minor storyline, compared to the White Canary nonsense, but it did get dragged out through a couple different episodes, culminating in Captain Cold (or is it "Citizen Cold"?) mentioning that he was going back to Earth-X to marry The Ray. I'm still rolling my eyes as I type this paragraph.
Now that I'm thinking of it, while I'm bagging on "political correctness," I thought that episode where the ladies went out for Iris' bachelorette party and they actually said "hashtag feminism" like three times?... Yeah, hated that. I'm all for equal rights between genders and whatnot, but this was too much for me. "Hashtag feminism." (*rolls eyes*) Can you imagine an episode where Barry got his pals together and talked about "hashtag man power"? Nah. Didn't think so.
To sum this section up, I would just say that sacrificing character development and solid storylines for the sake of pleasing a minority is a bad decision. Once Ava came out, I immediately lost interest in her - and labeling her as a lesbian or bi-sexual or whatever she was did absolutely nothing to make her character better. It seemed like a demotion. At least they gave The Ray the angle that he was being imprisoned and persecuted for his lifestyle. That was way more impactful than just having this tough character suddenly be like, "Oh yeah, well... I'm actually a lesbian and even though I've been acting like I hate you all season, I secretly have a crush on you, so let's go to the captain's quarters and... talk about it... with no clothes on... for the rest of the season..." So stupid.
To make a long story short (too late)...
I'm glad that Tom Cavanagh continued to make me smile, I'm glad that I met Beebo and, more than anything else, I'm glad these seasons are over. I didn't love these seasons. Both shows are fun in their own right and have some redeeming qualities about them, but at this point, I'm not dying to sit down and watch another 45 episodes of movie spoofs, lesbian sleepovers and mediocre villains. These series have turned into something that I'd recommend to my friends to shows that I would never let my parents or young children watch. That's about as succinctly as I can sum this up - and that's not a ringing endorsement. Will I be back to watch these shows in the future? It's tough to say. I think I'm more likely to continue watching "The Flash," but I think my time with the Legends might have come to a disappointing end.
Am I up in the night about this? Am I wrong in letting one character's rampant immorality ruin two shows for me? Is there anybody out there that can truly argue that these seasons were on par with previous years? If you're caught up with the shows and feel like contributing your thoughts, leave a message in the comments section below.
Farewell.
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