The Flash gets off to a great start, as Barry Allen, via voiceover, points out the red blur zooming around Central City. “That’s me. There I am again! Now I’m over here!” It’s charming and earnest, much like Grant Gustin, who plays Barry. Gustin, a veteran of Glee, showed up on Arrow last season to tease the Flash’s imminent spin-off series, and while he made a handsome, dorky romantic foil for Felicity Smoak, viewers still wondered, Can he carry a series by himself?
The answer is a resounding yes. Gustin is more than up to the task, and The Flash is fun as hell. It’s not as grim as Arrow, its sister series on the CW, nor is it as campy as Fox’s Gotham. But that doesn’t make it frothy beach reading; the stakes are high, the mysteries only beginning to mount, and the sense of peril is real.
When Barry was a young boy, his mother was attacked by something that looks like a ball of lightning in his living room. His dad Henry (played by John Wesley Shipp, who played Barry in the 1990s Flash TV show) was charged with the murder, and has been locked away ever since. Barry is a skilled forensic tech – who always shows up late, har har – with the Central City PD, and has a serious if unrequied crush on his boss’s daughter, Iris West (Candace Patton).
Iris and Barry go to STAR Labs to watch them turn on their fancy new particle accelerator. STAR is headed up by Harrison Wells, played by a game Tom Cavanagh, who’s clearly having a blast. I’m most familiar with Cavanagh from his work on Scrubs, and I gotta say, he’s really grown into his face, and maturity is a good look for him. Anyway, as you know, the particle accelerator goes kablooey – we saw this on Arrow last season, remember – and Barry’s in a coma for nine months. When he awakes…well, there’s no easy way to put this: he’s super fast.
The Barry Allen of the comics was more of a lantern-jawed jock, which is why it’s such a treat to see Gustin’s wide-eyed, aw-shucks wonder at his situation. There’s an early scene where his limbs are jittering beyond his control, and he runs straight into the back of someone’s van, because he can’t control his powers just yet. But when he can – man, the running scenes in “Pilot” are exhilirating. Smile on my face, goosebumps on my arms.
Barry teams up with Wells – now wheelchair-bound – as well as Dr. Caitlin Snow (Danielle Panabaker) and Cisco Ramon (Carlos Valdes), the both of which, again, we saw on Arrow last season. (Great synergy, CW!) Cisco’s name is Cisco, which is a problem, but he “makes the toys,” i.e. Flash’s iconic suit, so I guess I’ll get used to him. And to be fair, Valdes’ role mainly needs him to geek out about Barry’s ability, and his wide grin perfectly conveys the holy-crap amazement that The Flash aims to evoke.
There’s a bad guy in “Pilot,” and his name is Clyde Mardon, a bank robber who also got super powers when the particle accelerator exploded. Mardon wasn’t the only one affected by the blast, which is a great way of creating a bunch of villains for Barry all at once, one of which was hinted at: a busted cage in STAR Labs with a sign on it reading “Grodd” (Also, they did Barry’s speed tests at Ferris Air – as in Carol Ferris, as in Star Sapphire; not a villain, but a cool Easter egg). Only problem is, he uses his ability to control the weather to rob banks and generally be unpleasant. In a great set piece, Barry unravels Martin’s tornado (the CG here looks really great) after some encouragement from Wells. (The speech is a little too late though, Cavanagh’s solid delivery notwithstanding; Barry’s seemingly spontaneous decision to become a superhero happens a little too quickly.)
But Wells, naturally, is not all he seems. First of all, he can actually walk; second, he has a newspaper crying out Flash’s abdication, and it’s dated 2024. I can’t tell you how good Cavanagh is in this role; he’s ambiguous enough to possibly be a villain, yet likable enough to be trustworthy.
There’s a great scene in “Pilot,” a little more than halfway though, that pretty well encapsulated my feelings on The Flash. Barry runs to Starling City to meet with Oliver Queen (another thing this show does right is get the obligatory Oliver cameo out of the way as soon as possible). Barry and Oliver have a bro down wherein Oliver convinces Barry that he can inspire and protect Central City. Oliver makes his exit by scaling the side of a building, to which Barry says, “Cool.” Then Oliver sees Barry zooming down the street, smiles, and says, “Cool.”
Yep, that about sums it up.
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