The Flash is a great television show, there’s no doubt about it. Its colorful characters, great storyline and dedication to the comic book mythos sets it apart from the other pieces of moving media trying to capitalize on the superhero craze (when’s the Batman v. Superman reboot coming?).
The Flash ’s biggest problem is how complicated the story can get. There’s time travel, dimension hopping and multiple versions of the same characters. Some plot points, like the man in the iron mask, take full seasons to pay off. Thankfully I have a bachelor’s degree in comic book bullshit, so I can follow all the craziness happening on-screen. I followed every major Marvel story event from Avengers Disassembled to when they blew the whole goddamn universe up in Secret War . A few doppelgangers and time remnants don’t bother me.
My mother, on the other hand, is struggling to follow the show. See, my mother likes mindless daytime television: NCIS, America’s Funniest Home Videos and whatever Grey’s Anatomy rerun is currently on television. To “exercise” her brain, she watches Jeopardy every night, yelling out wrong answers and being shocked that she was wrong. The Flash is the one exception, the one show we still watch together.
My mother yells: “how is Zoom able to dimension travel?” and I have to explain to her about the different earths and how the Speed Force moves everything. She nods her head sometimes in acknowledgement, but most of the time it’s as if I’m trying to explain Einstein’s theory to a toddler. Still, she enjoys the romantic subplots and emotional baggage of The Flash, understanding just enough “comic book science” to enjoy the show.
That was, until last night. Below this point there will be super spoilers for the show’s ending, so if you haven’t finished The Flash don’t read any more. Zoom kills Barry’s dad, after which she predicts: “he will be back later.”
My mother was not buying the “Zoom just wants to race” storyline. Zoom is supposed to be this beyond evil monster, and the culmination of his plan ends up being a race. It makes sense to me, because in the comics Hunter Zolomon, Zoom’s real name, just wants to prove he’s the fastest man alive and that he’s better than the Flash. It’s an old-style comic book MO that’s about as two-dimensional as the paper it’s printed on. To my mother, Zoom just sounds like a playground bully who’s mad and pouting.
I watched that race maybe three times in total, because my mother could not grasp what the hell was happening. “Why are there two Barrys, why is one of them spinning, did they just kill the Flash?” The Flash created a time remnant to stop the energy device, the second Flash then used the Speed Force to run fast enough to stop the magnetar, they killed the second Flash who is just a double from time travel. These answers made sense to me, but to my mother I might as well have been speaking Hebrew.
The episodes’ ending confused the hell out of both of us. Every question she asked I couldn’t answer; I was just as confused. “So Barry’s mom never actually dies, what’s going to happen to the rest of the story?” she asked as we were getting up from the living room couch. I shrugged my head and said “guess you have to wait for next season.”
Comic book shows are great when they take inspiration from the source material and adapt it for a moving, live-action medium. Supergirl struggled to do this, using comic book stories like “For the Man Who Has Everything” and mangling them so that the story makes so little sense it can barely be called an homage. Supergirl was my mom’s favorite comic book show for this very reason; she knew nothing of the source material, so didn’t care that they were choking it to death. There was romance, catfighting and colorful fights, and that’s all she needed.
Still, Supergirl was cancelled and moved to a different channel because my mother isn’t who these shows are made for. Diehard fans love seeing their favorite characters represented faithfully, which is why The Flash did so well and Batman V. Superman didn’t.
After all of this, I don’t think my mom is coming back for Season Three of The Flash.
