And here we go. . . The Flash's season opener "Flashpoint" written by CWDC world mastermind Greg Berlanti and his right-hand aide Andrew Kreisberg and directed by Jesse Warn, who also directed other The Flash outings "Invincible", "The Flash of Two Worlds" and "Things you can't outrun".
The episode carries The Flash's light tone from previous seasons and makes this season's first outing very enjoyable to watch. The episode starts 3 months ahead of where we left off and Barry lives the almost perfect world he always desired for. As we meet Barry, his currently biggest issue is how to meet Iris for the first time and he finds a very sweet way to speak with his childhood sweetheart. Overall the episode is very WestAllen heavy and even I as a long time anti-WestAllen shipper did enjoy some of their interaction.
The Flashpoint twist put on Joe was really unexpected and different from his E2 alter ego but lacked the backstory to make the experience really enjoyable. Wally as Kid-Flash was funny, he was still the same goofy guy but with superpowers, very innocent and charming. Cisco is still the funniest person in the Flashverse and even as a snob he has the perfect punch-line timing. Meanwhile, I won't tease much about Flashpoint Caitlin but I will say she was underused but delivers a couple of laughs. Overall I found it very strange that Barry didn't seek out Cisco or Caitlin to spend time with them.
Meanwhile, the highlight of the episode were the scenes between Barry and Eobard/Reverse Flash. The writing and acting, especially from Matt Letscher, are impeccable and really gripping and engaging elevating this episode to another level. The Rival speedster, played by Todd Lasance, didn't impress me much but the teases about his origin story coming did add to his character value.
The best part of this episode is that Barry finally acknowledges his mistakes and that we see some consequences of his actions already play out. The final twist/cliffhanger teases something new to the show and raises a bunch of questions about where the people in Barry's life stand.
Other tidbits:
- There are some major throwbacks to the pilot, I enjoyed them very much.
- Someone thinks he/she got kidnapped.
- Henry and Nora Allen are the ideal couple.
- Dr. Alchemist makes a creepy entrance.
The Flash Season 3 Episode 1 airs on October 4th 8/7c on the CW.
