The Flash: Season Six Mid-season Catch-Up

Blows dust off keyboard and Cracks Knuckles

Good thing I don’t believe in Good-Byes, huh!

So we’re back!  WOBAM has returned to the internet and I could not be happier for us to be together again: You me, Our Lord and Savior, Patty Spivot:

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Evil Kara Zor-El!

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The gang’s all here and it’s going to be just like old times.  But first, let’s do a quick recap of season six so far:

Things picked up a few months after the end of season five and though the gang is trying to get back to normal, the loss of Nora is still weighing heavy over everyone.  As you might expect; Barry and Iris most of all.  There’s a sense of tension brewing while the gang deals with Godspeed clones and our first Meta of the Week: Chester Runk aka Chunk; an aspiring YouTube star that accidentally fuses with an artificial black hole and nearly destroys the city but thanks to Barry and the Power of the Queen-

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Excuse me: Queen!

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He saves Central City and Chester using an experimental super-computer Barry and Cisco have designed, ironically called “the Mac.”  By the end of episode one the status quo for the first half of the season is established for the cast.  Barry and Iris are finally ready to mourn the loss of Nora, Cisco is exploring both his relationship with Kamila and life without powers. Caitlin has given Killer Frost control over their shared body and Joe and Cecile are settling into family life.  Ralph’s new status quo is the search for a missing person, Sue Dearbon. (She will be introduced later this season and played by Natalie Dreyfuss)

Also introduced in the first episode was Ramsey Rosso aka Bloodwork.  Bloodwork was the primary villain of the first half of season, he was a Gifted Oncologist driven to obsession after he was unable to save his mother from a rare blood cancer that he is suffering from as well.  Since it’s the Flash, you can bet that his attempts at a cure will involve Dark Matter and they will go horribly wrong.  In Ramsey’s case he’s essentially become the Lord of the Undead and he intends to cure death by turning the world into his thralls.

Last but by no means least, the Monitor Arrives and cast the Shadow of Crisis over the season by declaring that “Barry Allen must die” t save everything.  In fact, Crisis is the biggest looming threat over the season. We’ll come back to my feelings on that later but first let’s continue our recap. 

In episode two, “A Flash of the Lightning” tries to time travel to after Crisis to find out what happened but since that would be cheating and Crisis has stirred up anti-matter all over the Multi-verse he can’t pull that trick off so he visits Jay Garrick on Earth Three and the two Flashes whip up some tech (with the help of Jay’s wife who is the Earth Three counterpart to Barry’s mother) to send Barry’s mind into the future and Barry watches the death of the Multi-verse in all it’s different possibilities until he witnesses himself die to save everything.

Left with no choice, Barry decides his best option is to embrace his fate and try to leave behind a Team Flash that can continue on without him.  Unsurprisingly this topples the status quo for the Team and everyone is forced to process their friend’s pending sacrifice.  Cisco and Iris have the biggest challenge in this as Iris will lose the love of her life while Barry has chosen Cisco to take over the team when he’s gone.

The road to Crisis comes to a head in the two part episode: “The Last Temptation of Barry Allen” where Bloodwork, now in complete control of his powers, uses an attack on Ralph to infect Barry with his blood.  Bloodwork uses his powers to offer Barry a chance to “live” through Crisis by becoming his thrall.  The Speed Force then attempts to interfere and save Barry but (and pardon the phrasing) Barry is having a crisis of faith.  He’s done everything asked of him to this point and his reward seems to be to die and leave behind the people he loves.  Barry seemingly submits to Bloodwork but anyone that’s ever watched the GI Joe episode where Dusty joined Cobra, it turns out to be a ruse.  Barry uses his connection to Bloodwork’s mind to prey on his humanity using the memory of his mother.  Barry and the team subdue Bloodwork using the Mac (it doesn’t seem to be doing much supercomputing but it’s really working as a meta-prison.

And not a moment too soon because just as this story arc ends and Crisis begins.

So there’s the bird’s eye synopsis of Season Six so far. (I’ll come back around and review the episodes individually as well as the season five episodes I didn’t get to over the rest of the seasons.) Let’s talk about what we’ve seen thus far.

They had a lot of things to deal with not just Bloodwork and Crisis but character building and I thought they did a pretty good job of keep all the plates spinning.  It should come as no surprise that Grant Gustin did most of the heavy lifting.  Gustin was given plenty of moments with everyone as Barry prepared for Crisis and said goodbye to his friends and the chemistry the case has built over the last five years really helped to make sure those moments shined.

In addition to Gustin, Carlos Valdes had plenty of time to shine with this season.  The last two seasons, Cisco was primarily defined by his relationships with Gypsy and Kamila, so taking his powers away (even if only temporarily and even if they cheated quite often by using Cisco-tech) gave him something different to do and a new way to approach the character especially in the episode “Kiss Kiss Breach Breach” where he had to solve the murder of Gypsy and face down a sociopathic alternate Universe double.

Danielle Panabaker was also given the chance to do more with the “Killer Frost” side of her character, even if they did lean into the “Any man that likes Caitlin ends up a villain” trope with Bloodwork. As for Bloodwork, I really liked the character as a concept and Sendhil Ramamurthy (Heroes, New Amsterdam) was fun in the role.  So much fun, in fact, that I’m hoping we haven’t seen the last of Bloodwork this season.

There is some places where they can improve, I think this threat they’ve been hinting at for Post-Crisis is still a bit too vague and the case feels like it’s reaching a critical mass before some people feel like they’re just there to be in a shot and collect a check but with Crisis wrapping up they producers and writers will have more freedom to address the issue that have crept up.

In the end, the verdict on the first half of Season Six is pretty positive and I’m looking forward not only to the rest but to get down in the trenches and take things episode by episode.

But that will have to wait until February 4^th, when The Flash returns with “Marathon” so until then…