Is Barry Allen all Flashed Out?
The Flash has long been a favourite television series of mine. Since Grant Gustin's introduction as Barry Allen on "The Scientist" (Arrow's second season episode), the character was portrayed with much heart, geekiness and scientific curiosity. He brought a great embodiment of our beloved comic book character and with the subsequent launch of his own show, Barry was fast overshadowing the show where he debuted.
The first season burst on our screens with all the awesome technology, superpowers, and amazing special effects and provided escapism and hope to our lives. Where Arrow was dark, grungy, focused on crime and drug lords and corporate criminals, The Flash was lighter, more hopeful and campy.
Politicization, political correctness, feminism and liberalism, though present in Arrow on a small scale, and Supergirl on a much more massive scale, The Flash was one of those shows where PCness didn't seem to infiltrate. Since season 3, that had changed.
With viewership steadily declining as a direct result of the show's quality, it's no wonder. As you can see from the graph below, seasons 1 and 2 were pretty amazing by IMDB's television ratings standards, with an average episode not falling below 82%. The one low point of that is season two's "Back To Normal".
"Back to Normal" saw Barry lose his powers and going back to his normal way. This was a poor writing decision. We all know what being a normal human is. It doesn't an interesting story make.
And that brings us to the dreaded season 3 and onwards. Overall, it was an interesting season. It brought us Draco Malfoy who pretended he was Indiana Jones, and a Final Fantasy villain who turned out to be the evil Xerox Barry from the future, but it also brought us "Duet". This would be the lowest rated episode of the entire series so far, taking place in a dream musical where 'love saves the day'. Now, I have nothing against love in any form, but Iris is just not a good character. She is annoying and bitchy and whiny, not to mention self-centred and did I mention annoying? The show is called The Flash, not let's sing about our feelings. While I did like the episode and though the songs were really catchy, it did not feel like an episode about a superhero.
Halfway through season 3, something happens that changed the direction of quality for The Flash; the 2016 election. With Trump elected and liberals short-circuiting, the Arrowverse was thrown into chaos. Female presidents started popping up in all the shows, while Trump was only loosely mentioned to be president in one of them, Legends of Tomorrow, where he was only president in an 'doom world' reality. The Flash still remained slightly insulated from politics, but very barely. Feminism and liberalism began coming more and more to the surface.
Season 3 ended with a very predictable plot, a Harrison Wells dies, Barry has to go away for a while and Iris is sad. Of, and let's mention the inconsistent news article. Which is only written by Iris when the plot calls for it.
Season 4 trailer turned off a lot of viewers. With Iris narrating it and saying that she is now running things. Feminism now began to dominate the series. As you can clearly see on the chart below, not for the better either. Team Flash is not led by Iris, all men on the team are useless, white men especially, and liberal propaganda is plugged into every episode, completely overwhelming any possible plot. This season has already had two of the worst episodes EVER. "Girls Night Out", rated at 55%, though in all fairness, I think "Birdemic: Shock and Terror" probably has a more watchable storyline, takes a wide brush and paints all the male characters on the show into oversexed alcoholic pigs while it portrays all the women as perfect and respectable. But this was just the beginning of the anti-male, anti-white, anti-heterosexual acid-wash. The season slowly progresses to introduce the big bad, DeVoe. DeVoe, or The Thinker, is a white, male scientist who foils The Flash as he is always ten steps ahead. Well, they decided he would swap bodies. Within three episodes, DeVoe goes from being a white man, to being a black man, to being a white girl sharing a lesbian kiss with his wife. Not only did they do incorporate some trans-racial change, they also did a transgenderism one too. Because gender is on a spectrum.
With the quality of the show tanking, viewers are leaving. If "Girls Night Out" and "Duet" proved anything, it's that people HATE Iris as a character and would like to see less of her. As you can see in the chart, the only episode in the last three seasons with a viewership higher than 3.5 million is "Invasion!", an epic All Arrowverse crossover with a dozen superheroes kicking butt.That's why viewers tune in. More superheroes = more costumes = less Iris whining and bitching.
As of writing this, the fourth season is sixteen episodes in, and it's not going too well. What could possibly be the best thing to do for a campy escapist superhero show about a relatable guy?
Give his powers to his annoying wife and have her do better at it on her first day than he did during his 4 years. Yay, feminism. Oh, what's that, a 60% rating? Like we didn't see that coming, of and let's not even mention the pitiful 2.09M viewers. That's 0.6% of the US population. That makes a change from the original 1.5%. That's what happens when you torture 98% of your audience to deliver propaganda that only concerns the 2%, who really don't even give a shit about it to begin with.
In Conclusion:
The Flash had its moment, and unfortunately it is gone. For those fans of The Flash, I highly recommend ending your viewing with the season 3 finale is it is a perfect ending point. All the plot points are wrapped up and you get to avoid all the feminism. Well most of it.