S07.E18: Heart of the Matter, Part 2

[Trini]

SEASON FINALE – The Flash enlists a host of speedster allies, including Iris and his children from the future —Bart (guest star Jordan Fisher) and Nora West-Allen— to end the speedster war and defeat a deadly new adversary: the villainous Godspeed (guest star Karan Oberoi).

Marcus Stokes directed the episode written by Eric Wallace & Kelly Wheeler.

Airdate: 7/20/2021

Edited July 21, 2021 by Trini

[bettername2come]

Why yes, I did yell "It's a whole family of supers!" when all the speedsters took off running in a line. I liked seeing Iris and Barry fighting back to back (nice visual representation of "we are the Flash"), but I wanted it to be better, bigger, more epic. Jordan Fisher is a great addition to the Flash family. He plays a good mix of fun and serious, and I really like his chemistry Jessica Parker Kennedy. Iris needs to wear a ponytail more often. She looks adorable. I'm so happy to have Cisco back. I hope this means we'll get a few guest spots by him in the next season. It does feel more realistic to have him come back and rejoin the team seamlessly when needed. I love Jay stopping Bart from going after his father. I did not call Reverse Flash coming back. What's all this "you can't kill a god" nonsense? Does the man no know what happened to Savitar? Speed force lighsabers? I honestly don't now how to feel about this. Somewhere between awesome and cheesy. I like that Reverse Flash's downfall is not letting anyone else kill Barry. 

Didn't call Kramer having Peter Petrelli powers. 

Barry proposes for a third time. I assumed Bart was gonna sing "Running Home to You," so it was nice it was something else. He got his dad and Papa Joe's sweet vocal abilities. "They say love is a friendship that is caught on fire, but ours is a friendship that was struck by lightning." That was a good finale kiss. And no sad cliffhanger! This finale is way better than the season was. 

I think my favorite thing about this season has been Michelle Harrison getting to do stuff besides give pep talks and die. Not saying I was onboard with all the Speed Force Nora stuff, but she showed a good range and I'm genuinely happy for her getting a meatier role. 

[Primal Slayer]

This season felt like FOREVER and thank the speed force it is finally over.

Most of this episode felt like a glorified Power Rangers episode. I like Power Rangers but...I do expect more from The Flash. The show has certainly gone down in quality and feels like it's become a children's show with some adulting here and there.

It's possible that I already forgot since Godspeed did not live up to all the hype over the past 3 years but...why was organic speed so important to him? Why did he care about being the fastest man alive? Just because? 

I REALLY REALLY REALLLLLLLYYYYYYYYYYY wish that they'd left out Speedforce Nora in this. I don't like the Speedforce having a human embodiment, taking sides, and being a parent/child/whatever to Barry/Iris. It lessons what the Speedforce should be imo. I love JPK but...the over the top fangirl, talking at hightend speeds is just not for her. It was a fairly cringe scene and wasnt needed. Nora doesnt need to fangirl at Speedforce Nora and not sure why they have to even team up with her in the future. 

This really has to be the corniest final fight I've seen in a long time. These Godspeeds were like Power Rangers putties. The thing is....none of Flash fam were doing anything that Killer Frost and Vibe couldnt do but they werent part of the fight. We had this big family of Speedsters and all they did was throw some variation of Lightning or wind at these Godspeed clones and they went down like it was nothing. And that lightning saber fight between Flash/Godspeed/RF lol...omg that fight...it was a thing..that they did and I laughed throughout it.

Speaking of RF...the writers really could've pulled a good reverse big bad with Reverse Flash helping Barry and then beating him and killing someone on Team Flash before Barry beats him again....but no. They had to take their easy way out.

RF kills Godspeed which totally changes the future and Nora/Bart are fine as if it never happened in their future lol. And now Speedforce Nora can remove memories of other speedsters?

The vow renewal was cute, hated the singing. I've really grown to hate singing on CW shows...EVERY show has to have someone who sings. 

Cop Lady turned out to be a meta afterall! The very thing she HATED and she is one of them and it reveals itself just in the nick of time. Glad that entire storyline is over, didnt really seem to even go anywhere. 

At this point id much rather The Flash end and if anything give us a Bart Allen spin off. He's enjoyable, the actor plays him really well and this team just feels burnt out with stories. 

[cambridgeguy]

I can see the writers room now.  Anyone pissed about the West-Allen wedding being crashed by Nazis and then hijacked by Oliver/Felicity?  Fine, here you go.  Anyone bitching about this loving couple almost never showing physical affection?  Fine, here's a real kiss. 

Speaking of the writers, someone must have watched Star Wars before they worked out the final battle.  How do you have a lightsaber duel?  No problem, a speedster can yank lightning from thin air and wave it around like a sword! 

And unfortunately bringing RF back just reminds everyone that they already had their peak evil speedster in S1.

[UnoAgain]

Now being back Wally...mention cecile's other kid... Let Barry comment that he's part of a black family... Let Jefferson Pierce show up... And gimme a villian who hurts ppl again.. 

[miasth]

The vow renewal😍 It definitely made up for the wedding that was hijacked by Olicity. Cisco as the officiant  made it all the better

Bart is aptly named. He is so much like Barry down to the singing voice. 

I love Jay Garrick. I saw "Uncle Jay" when he spoke to Bart.

Using Thawne to stop Godspeed was smart and something I actually did not expect.

[Primal Slayer]

3 minutes ago, UnoAgain said:

Now being back Wally... 

  

3 minutes ago, UnoAgain said:

.mention cecile's other kid... 

 

[thuganomics85]

Whelp, that was a finale I guess.  Certainly better than last season's since they didn't have to do a rush job on is due to shutdowns.

Still not sure what to make of Godspeed and his motivation being wanting to get "organic speed" to make him more powerful instead of the synthesize one he was using, but if nothing else, he certainly has to go down as one of the most campiest villains yet.  Props to the actor for just going all in on the scenery-chewing and yelling.  He seemed to be having fun, at least.

It was fun watching all of the speedsters together in a line and taking down clones (including a souped up Iris from the time she was briefly a speedster!), but I was cracking up over how Speed Force Nora was the only one who decided to just wear her normal outfit.  Even if she didn't have a speedster suit, at least bring back the goth eye-liner!

Should have known that Eobard/Reverse Flash was going to pop back up.  That man will never stay dead!  And while he's not a regular anymore, I suspect this is far from the last time we'll be seeing Tom Cavanaugh here.  Carlos Valdes too.

Hope this isn't the last we see of Nora or Bart either.  Jessica Parker Kennedy and Jordan Fisher really brought a lot of fun to these last two episodes.  Also hoping this version of Jay pops back up.

Chester and Allegra.... did stuff.

So, not only is Kramer a meta, but a meta who can mimic the power of other nearby metas?  Okay, then.  Still felt like she and Joe were just off in their own little world for most of this.

Barry and Iris renew their vows!  And make sure to have Cisco officiate it this time, and don't repeat the mistake of zipping an unexpected Diggle to the place and making him vomit.  It was cheesy, but nice, and definitely well performed by Grant Gustin and Candice Patton (both of them really saved this season a lot of times.)

All in all, I thought the season got a little better at the end, but it honestly was pretty silly and even bad for the majority of it, and might be the weakest season yet.  I know some of it might be due to the shutdowns/COVID and maybe even some scrambling due to Ralph's sudden exit, but there were also just moments that wouldn't work even if everything was normal.  I'll obviously be back, but I really hope they course correct a lot of this.

[Bulldog]

For a finale, that was very underwhelming. 

[Lantern7]

"Godspeed vs. Flash . . . and Reverse-Flash. With Speed Force Light Sabers. Because why the hell not?"

Seriously, I have little problem with Speed Force Whip and Speed Force Shurikens, because they're from Nora and Bart. Ditto for Barry saying "Crash."

At least the season is over. Plenty of time to wonder what could have been without the pandemic screwing up the schedule. And with no teaser, there's nothing to look forward to . . . or dread. Seriously, I couldn't get myself worked up for Godspeed. I'm glad Barry reached out to Thrawne. It was an ass-pull, but it was totally justified.

Team Flash vs. the Godspeeds was fun. Once again . . . I dug the whip and big-ass energy throwing stars. Jay using his helmet like Captain America's shield? Eh, why not? Speed Force Nora doing . . . anything? Meh.

About Jay .  .  . so we went from multiple worlds to Earth-Prime, we got a Jay Garrick that's always been around?

Wedding felt like dressing up the underwhelming season. Still good, though.

An appreciation for Jesse L. Martin . . . he's a distinguished actor, he's done this show for seven years, and he totally sold that he was surrounded by Speed Force Putties beating the shit out of each other. Oh, and Carver is a metahuman. Does that really excuse her earlier crusade? I don't think so.

Here's to a better season, along with a new Ralph. I'm thinking that if we get Ralph, we'd get Sue. And maybe she has a few more catsuits to break in.

Edited July 22, 2021 by Lantern7

[rmontro]

When they gave Bart the mic at the wedding, I was hoping he was going to sing "Poker Face".

[DanaK]

Are Joe and Cecile not already married? I thought for sure they were

Very, very rough season, a lot due to Covid, including last season getting shut down early and those episodes getting moved into the beginning of this season, but let’s face it, the show has been struggling even before Covid hit. I think it’s time to start thinking about wrapping the show up

I found myself liking Bart and I liked the interaction between him and sister Nora. I was not expecting Reverse Flash to show up. Decent finale with a very nice ending with the renewal of vows

[Trini]

I enjoyed this for the most part. So they really saved the budget for these last two episodes, 12 Godspeed costumes for the entire stunt team, and lightning VFX, huh? I hope we don't have to wait until the finale for good, action-packed Flash family plots next season.

Now I'm mad they didn't have more of August and sooner, because I think the actor did great. The opening scene with him and Barry was really good. I don't think I like the resolution for Godspeed, though. Shouldn't they send him back to the future? I feel like wannabe speedster gods is a different level of criminal that Iron Heights probably shouldn't be handling. Also - Speed Force Nana (Thanks, Bart!) can just erase memories now?? Sure...

It was great seeing all the speedsters fighting together! They should try to have more of the Flash family involved in things. Iris and Nora in their matching supersuits! New power displays! I really wish that Wally could have been a part of this, even in spirit or something if they couldn't get Keiynan back. (I was thinking maybe he (offscreen) could have been SFN's anchor, but then he probably wouldn't have agreed to bring back Thawne.)

Just me, or were there some romantic undertones to the Joe/Kramer subplot? They didn't do it on purpose, I'm sure, but there were a couple of romance tropes in there, just sayin'. So this disconnected subplot turned out to be a big pot of nothing. Glad Jesse got his checks, but I wish Joe had spent more time with his actual family this season.

At least Chester and Allegra's and their side plot was better integrated, although I was not invested. Poor Caitlin; she's really there to be the Team doctor even though she didn't know what was wrong or how to fix it. Sad.

So Wallace really said, "We're doing Star Wars on The Flash!!" I didn't really need to see a lightning swordfight, but there was so much other fanservice, maybe I'll let this slide.

Working with Thawne is never a good idea, right? This will obviously come back and bite them? I just hate how they continually have to let Thawne go every time he shows up because they're not ready to end his story yet. Just stop doing that because it makes Barry look stupid. And then actually having a line with Barry brushing it off as a 'later problem' annoyed me. He is literally your worst enemy and you're faster than him now, so... why??  I also didn't think it was a good look to bring in Thawne to do Barry's 'dirty work'. If August was going to end up alive anyway, they could have let Barry (with or without the Flash Fam) defeat him himself.

Forgot to mention Cecile -- because I still think she's out of place in these Team Flash/STAR labs plots. And poor Jenna didn't even exist for this entire season. ::sigh::

But we end on a happy note! I was surprised that Wallace didn't throw in a cliffhanger. I was squeeing from Barry's re-proposal to the Flashtime kiss. The family and friends gathering; Cisco officiating; Bart singing!! Anyone know what song that was? I doubt it's an original for the show. Everyone looked great.

Kinda disappointed they didn't confirm a WestAllen pregnancy, though.

[tvwatchergordis]

Good season finale. I think it's up there with my faves from S2, S1,S4 and now S7. TBH this finale kinda felt like a series finale to me. Tied up lose ends pretty well imo. And it left Barry,Iris, their children and the rest of their family in a good place imo. The future looks bright. I know that Thawne is still out there but IMO he doesn't seem as much of a threat especially since Barry is stronger and faster now. Yep could have easily been the end of the Flash. 

I liked how Iris got her powers with the help of SF Nora and it made sense because of the spark of the speed force inside her. I thought the way the writers would give her powers would be stupid but it wasn't. It was nice seeing Iris fighting alongside the rest of her family. Also A+ on Nora and her mom wearing similar speedster suits. 

The family fight scene was good with everyone having their own sorta of speedster ability weapon:

Barry: lightning

Iris: wind/tornadoes

Nora: lazo whip

Bart: Star hoops.

The wedding debate, I hope this episode settles it the fights on this matter between the two fandoms get way too toxic. Now Iris and Barry have their own ceremony which was nice. Bart's singing tho???? I melted. Iris looked pretty there. 

From WestAllen's children Bart is definitely my fave. He never annoyed me and was lovable from the start. yeah this Nora is different + more mature but I still get OG Nora vibes from her sometimes and nope(sorry). Loved the bonding moments between him and Jay. Could definiftely feel their future relationship forming. 

The Starwars speedster/lightsaber duel between Flash, Godspeed and Reverse Flash- I'm sorry but that was hilarious couldn't help but laugh. 

Now we wait til November to see what comes next. 

Edited July 21, 2021 by tvwatchergordis

[Trini]

I figured as much:

 

[shantown]

5 hours ago, bettername2come said:

Barry proposes for a third time. I assumed Bart was gonna sing "Running Home to You," so it was nice it was something else.

Bart choosing to serenade his parents DURING the ceremony was a weird choice. Jordan Fisher has a great voice, but if they were really going to shoehorn a song in there I would have rather it be "Running Home To You." At least that would have been a bit of a nice callback.

Speedsters vs SpeedPutty's was a fun way to show off various tricks, but a bit underwhelming as far as finale fights go. Bart had electric throwing stars, Nora stole Dreamer's telephone cord whip, "Uncle" Jay whips his hat around like a frisbee, SFN tried to Thanos snap them, and Barry and Iris pull out some old tricks but have each others back the whole time. I have to admit it was really fun to see the West-Allen fam suited up together, I just wish Wally could have been there too! Was hoping the "very unexpected" guest star was going to be KL. I don't think it's that unexpected for TC to guest.

So Kramer could mimic meta abilities - treading a little close to DeVoe there, or that meta who Devoe stole the "meta ability stealing" ability from. It sounds like the character won't be around next season so I guess no need to speculate if she'll be an ally, enemy, or one turned to the other. A little weird that so much of her plot happened almost completely separately from the main show. Did she interact with anyone besides Killer Frost and then Joe?

Loved it ending with WestAllen in Flashtime together after renewing their vows. I guess I can't complain that the season ended on a positive, happy note. This was a rough season for a lot of reasons that were out of the control of TPTB, but there are plenty of issues within their control that I hope they work on for next season. And I hope we get at least one episode of Nora and Bart heading back to the future. They injected some much needed energy into the show and it'll be a shame if they disappear between seasons!

[Jediknight]

2 hours ago, rmontro said:

When they gave Bart the mic at the wedding, I was hoping he was going to sing "Poker Face".

There's no doubt that Cisco would have high fived him.

That honestly felt like a series finale.  Flash has had 2 good series finales as season finales.  This one, and season 5's before the Crisis tease.  So, I've got faith when it's the end they'll be able to deliver a series finale more like Agents of SHIELD than like Supernatural.

Once Godspeed was brought in, this season got a whole lot better.

[Diapason Untuned]

Someone in the writer's room must really like Power Rangers... The speedsters arriving in a flash of lightning, Godspeed's whole Rita act and the clones were basically Putties.

They must  have been saving their budget for this, because the action was pretty good. The lightsaber duel was a great highlight.

I howled when Barry schooled Thawne and told him that he just plain outranks him now.

I had no idea Bart's actor had any singing experience so I was floored when he started singing. He's really, really good!

[Lady Calypso]

6 hours ago, Diapason Untuned said:

I had no idea Bart's actor had any singing experience so I was floored when he started singing. He's really, really good!

Yeah, Jordan Fisher is a Broadway actor, playing roles in Hamilton and Dear Evan Hansen. And he also did work on Disney years ago. 

7 hours ago, Trini said:

Working with Thawne is never a good idea, right? This will obviously come back and bite them? I just hate how they continually have to let Thawne go every time he shows up because they're not ready to end his story yet. Just stop doing that because it makes Barry look stupid. And then actually having a line with Barry brushing it off as a 'later problem' annoyed me. He is literally your worst enemy and you're faster than him now, so... why??  I also didn't think it was a good look to bring in Thawne to do Barry's 'dirty work'. If August was going to end up alive anyway, they could have let Barry (with or without the Flash Fam) defeat him himself.

That frustrated me so much. Instead of coming up with ANY other type of reason as to why Barry couldn't deal with Thawne now (he tried searching for him but couldn't, he ran into the future last second, or he actually got recaptured, etc), they just had Barry...let him go and not even bother looking for him. Hey, Barry, you may be faster than him now but he JUST said that he'd find a way to get faster. So...maybe you want to ensure that he doesn't show up a year from now, faster than you? Maybe it SHOULD be a present you problem instead of a future you problem? Just a thought? 

Not to mention Barry being OH SO SHOCKED when Reverse Flash tried to kill Godspeed. Hmm, what did you think was going to happen, Barry? That RF wouldn't try to kill Godspeed? 

Other than that, this was a decent finale. I did enjoy the use of all the speedsters and how they used their abilities in different ways against the Godspeeds. Now, Speed Force Nora probably didn't need to be there, only because she showed that she could literally take them all down with the snap of her fingers. 

And, of course, the Star Wars battle at the end was a bit ridiculous. Decent CGI, though.

So, Kramer is a meta who can copy other metas' powers for a short time and....and she's gone now. Well, what a lackluster reveal only to ship her back off to Nancy Drew. Why couldn't they have had this reveal several episodes ago? 

The end scene was very nice. The vow renewal was sweet and Iris/Barry got to have their Very Rare Kiss of the season. 

[catrice2]

11 hours ago, Bulldog said:

For a finale, that was very underwhelming. 

I am underwhelmed just reading abt it. Watching will probably be worse. I think it is a terrible idea to give Iris and Barry grown children and have them try to parent.  They need to stay in the future

[GHScorpiosRule]

I watched the last two episodes back to back. I like Fisher as Impulse/Bart. I had to take all my resentment and bloviating about how he's really supposed to be Barry and Iris' grandson, AND that their kids aren't twins, AND that they don't have their comic names like, you know, Barry and Iris do.

So Kramer is like Amazo* now?

I actually liked seeing Thawne show up at the end. Sue me.

I'm not sure what's going on with Candice Patton--I skipped a few episodes between the two part finale and when the "forces" were handled and speed force with Nora's face went from "bad" to "good", I guess?

Anyhoo, she seemed off. She came across to me as if she were on medication or something. No affect; nothing; not even with the kids. Her emotions finally kicked in at the end, when she and Barry renewed their vows. And yes! Finally! a kiss! more kisses! This has to be the only show that hasn't had any kissing between the actors that are in relationships.

So now Cecile wants to git marrit? Thought she told Joe she didn't want to back when she got pregnant. I don't think he asked or anything, but I think she did say she didn't want to because she'd already been there and done that. That hint was soooo not subtle.

I really enjoyed Karan Oberoi, who played August (soooo attractive).

What?

And it tickled me that when he got the organic speed, he called for his clones (he called them his children) to come home in Hindi! But then that other line he said was so garbled I couldn't make out what he said--I'm sure it was Hindi, since I had two sets of closed captioning appear on my screen.

*DCAU-Justice League Unlimited character who could become/mimic the powers of heroes near him by scanning them.

[Quark]

A very mediocre finale, although the vow renewal was nice. Candice Patton looked phenomenal.

Considering how Godspeed has been hyped up for the past few seasons, the way this was just wrapped up was very underwhelming. It's almost as if the writers need some sort of Big Bad for the second half of the season and thought "Oh I know, Godspeed has appeared a couple times, we can reintroduce him" and put zero effort into him. The actor was decent though.

I loved Allegra's line about not wanting any pep talks from Chester. This show could really dial that down.

Barry letting his archenemy go was completely ridiculous. They've literally spent the last two episodes talking about how evil Thawne is and Barry just lets him go? Madness.

So Kramer is a meta? And? That all seemed so pointless to me, unless there's more about this next season.

It's been a pretty poor season overall, but I adore how much Michelle Harrison we got. Superb actress.

[rmontro]

14 hours ago, Jediknight said:

Once Godspeed was brought in, this season got a whole lot better.

I'd say it was more the kids, but close enough.

 

3 hours ago, Quark said:

Barry letting his archenemy go was completely ridiculous. They've literally spent the last two episodes talking about how evil Thawne is and Barry just lets him go? Madness.

Seems to be Barry's M.O.  Either let them go or give them a speech to turn them good, or at least less evil.

[Frozendiva]

I liked the Star Wars type lightning sabre fight.

A nitpick and it's something that is part of the show. With all the metahumans around, and this being the age of social media and Youtube, why does no one pull out their phone and capture some footage for the local TV stations? All those people on that bridge, running from the clones and not one person took out the phone.

A bit underwhelming. Too much time was wasted with that song.

No idea what will be coming up for next season.

[Primal Slayer]

I dont know why they chose to have a Godspeed "war" where the clones or whatever arent even necessarily wrecking havoc to Central City, they are just standing around punching each other and looking stupid while doing so. 

Even when all the Speedsters showed up, Godspeeds just STOOD THERE. They did nothing. There was ZERO fight. 

[Proteus]

This show tries so hard to be cool. Yet everything comes off as underwhelming.

[dmeets]

Reverse-Flash. AGAIN. And this time it was Team Flash's doing. Way to continue to piss on Eddie sacrificing himself and all of his non-evil descendants.

Wow, the stunt choreographers have been kinda phoning it in. Power Rangers and a light saber battle.

Did the Godspeed war actually do anything other than be a nuisance? It didn't really seem to be bringing Central City to its knees. Aside from jumping onto cars, they pretty much seemed to be minding their own business unless Bart was around.

I liked amnesiac August, and so was bummed that personality was immediately wiped out when he got his memory back. But apparently the only villains from the past couple years that don't get redemption arcs are the brown men. And then they said he was locked away but that SF Nora was able to take away his memory of Flash being Barry. Why not try to erase the Godspeed memories again since he seemed to be a decent human being before?

[rmontro]

21 hours ago, Frozendiva said:

A bit underwhelming. Too much time was wasted with that song.

I shouldn't say this, but I'm not a fan of "renewal of vows" ceremonies on TV shows.  I don't see what it does to advance the story, it's just a cheap way to fill time.  I know Barry is the Paragon of Love, but this kind of schmaltz could give you diabetes.

 

21 hours ago, Primal Slayer said:

I dont know why they chose to have a Godspeed "war" where the clones or whatever arent even necessarily wrecking havoc to Central City, they are just standing around punching each other and looking stupid while doing so. 

I didn't watch even a second of this video (I may eventually), but the title of it made me laugh.  "The Flash:  The Stupidest Show Alive".  I'll include the link just for completeness sake, and to give proper credit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydEIY3QL2tA

 

8 hours ago, dmeets said:

And then they said he was locked away but that SF Nora was able to take away his memory of Flash being Barry. Why not try to erase the Godspeed memories again since he seemed to be a decent human being before?

I suppose it would be considered unethical to erase someone's personalities like that.  But I suppose it could also be considered unethical to erase someone's memories.  Anyway, all's well that ends well.  Too bad Barry couldn't give August one of his speeches to turn him good, since he seemed to have a nice person buried under there somewhere.  Unlike some of the other villains who were given this treatment, and their reform seem to come out of left field.

[Trini]

7 hours ago, rmontro said:

I shouldn't say this, but I'm not a fan of "renewal of vows" ceremonies on TV shows.  I don't see what it does to advance the story, it's just a cheap way to fill time.  I know Barry is the Paragon of Love, but this kind of schmaltz could give you diabetes.

Well, to have a well rounded character he's got to have moments and milestones outside of superhero stuff. And one could argue it advances Barry & Iris' love story, which has always been part of the show. The showrunner talks about why he included it in this interview.

For anyone interested, Jordan Fisher's cover of "1949" is available from Water Tower Music; here's the youtube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEU7cCd_roA

 

Edited July 23, 2021 by Trini

[Starry]

I didn't care for the singing but the vow renewal was badly needed because Barry and Iris didn't get a wedding. If both their ceremonies hadn't been ruined in the most offensive way I don't think people would have asked for a vow renewal and the writers wouldn't have come up with the idea either. I am sure many would argue that it's "shipper nonsense" that doesn't advance the plot and that villains interrupting a wedding is what should happen in a superhero story but I like seeing the humanity in my characters. The human element has been sacrificed at the altar of plot too many times before so I am not going to begrudge them for this kind of filler content that doesn't relegate the characters to unrelatable plot devices. By this logic Barry and Cisco shouldn't have sung karaoke in the WestAllen loft either because what did that do for the story?

[tennisgurl]

Considering what an absolute mess this season was until the very end, I thought this finale was pretty good. The action was mostly fun, if on the goofy side when we got to the Lightsaber fight and Godspeed going all Palpatine with his lightning and cackling, and all of the family stuff was really sweet, especially the vow renewal. After Barry and Iris got screwed out of their first wedding by interdimensional Nazis and their second wedding by toxic shipping wars, I am glad that they finally got their big moment with most of their friends and family with them. Would have been nice to see Wally and Jenna, but actor availability and all that. This season was a real mess for most of it, only doing some course correcting near the end with the arrival of Nora and Bart, some of which was beyond the shows control with the shut downs and behind the scenes drama, but some of it was just plain bad writing, like the speed force family, which started out with so much promise but ended up being one of the shows more insulting stupid arcs. Until the kids showed up, the whole season felt really disjointed, with tons of random subplots all clogging up screen time, obnoxious stories like the Frost trial and stupidly pointless ones like Kramer and Joe's little excursion, we just had nothing to centralize the show until the kids zipped in. When the kids showed up to fight Godspeed, things finally all came together with a decent (if underdeveloped) villain and the return of the West-Allen family as the focus of the main plot, which was actually all really good, and it makes me sad that the season took so long to finally get to the good parts. The second part of the season saved this from being one of the worst seasons, particularly the last few episodes, but the first half was so bad that it really hurt the season overall, giving us some of its worst episodes in quite some time. Hopefully next season will move off the momentum of the end of the season and we can get back on track again, because the last arc with the kids really has been good. 

It was awesome seeing all of the speedsters lining up to fight together and seeing all of their individual moves, it was a pretty good final fight, even if the Godspeed robots had a bad case of "wait for the heroes to be ready to fight" syndrome, especially Iris getting a temporary Speedforce power up. In general everything with the extended West-Allen clan was really good, Bart and Nora work so well with everyone else, they have such instant chemistry with each other and their parents, and having Jay around was a lot of fun. His scene with Bart convincing him not to run after his dad was a good look into the future relationship that will be so important to Bart, and I hope that Jay can stay around a bit. Having Cisco show up again was nice as well, it makes sense that he would come back again for this recent crisis, even though I had yet another one of those "sure would be nice to have powers right now, huh?" moments that I always have with him when he and Frost were almost overwhelmed by Godspeeds. I also kind of laughed at Nora being all happy to see the Speedforce, l wonder if Barry and Iris told her about that awkward time when she went nuts, almost killed her mom, and got WAY too into eyeliner, but I guess that's all water under the bridge.  I wish that we had more time to build up this big battle though, it didn't feel nearly as epic as the show wanted it to be, and I wish that August had more of a build up as a Big Bad. The actor is pretty good, he sold both the innocent nice guy version of him and the cackling supervillain version, I'm sad that he ended up being overwhelmed by his evil side. He isn't dead though, so maybe he can still be reached by a classic Barry hope speech sometime down the line, even if he becomes Bart's Thawne in the future, we have long since established that anyone can become a good guy here with pretty minimal effort, no matter how many innocent people and loved ones they kill. 

Speaking of Thawne, he returns again because no one is allowed to kill Barry except for him, which does seem quite in character. I loved when Barry rubbed the fact that he's faster than him in his face, but I am so annoyed that Barry just let him run off yet again. Cant they just give them an excuse not to go after him, or have him get caught and put in prison before he breaks out again? It seems pretty irresponsible as a hero to just let this murderous psychopath run loose on the populace. There are options other than letting these villains do whatever they want, turn them good, or kill them, just letting him do whatever he wants because no one wants to kill him doesn't seem very heroic. 

Joe and Kramer continue to be on a totally different show utterly unconnected to the rest of the show, which is especially annoying when Joe is separated from a plot that so involves his family. Instead of interacting with his grandkids, he's stuck in this random boring subplot with this random boring side character who I do not care about at all. I really hope next season the show does something about all these boring subplots, just trim these things and get it over with. 

The row renewal was so sweet, Bart really inherited his families pipes! The speeches that Iris and Barry gave each other were adorable, and we even got a big kiss to finish us out, and without a big cliffhanger to end on where Barry or Iris is in danger or have been separated from each other! I would have liked an explanation as to why Iris was dipping in and out of the timeline, but I am happy with how we ended this season. 

[Trini]

On re-watch, I'm still disappointed they only revealed the real Godspeed in this very last episode. I thought the actor was good, and he did the best with what they gave him. He should have had a better story; there are so many holes. They never explained how he could steal speed and make clones - all while having only 'artificial speed'. They left the door open for him to return/escape; but I'm not sure if I want to see him again when I don't trust the writer's to have a better story.

The Flash Family team up was a really great scene. I loved that everyone had their own special attacks, and Barry & Iris fighting back-to-back was awesome! If there has to be a Team Flash, that should be it - just speedsters. (Hopefully Wally can make another appearance sooner than later.)

So clearly, Wallace only added Kramer so that Joe would have his own separate storyline, because she had like three stories overall that were not cohesive, and pretty much amounted to nothing in the end. And we never even found out if Joe got his job back.

This is more of a season 7 critique; but it was disappointing this show couldn't do a better (network mandated) BLM story with so many Black characters and characters in law enforcement. Topical real-life issues are not in the show's wheelhouse, but one would think that they'd be able to pull it together for a one- or two-episode plot with a Black showrunner.

It doesn't make sense that Reverse Flash keeps coming back with with Wells' face. You have Universal Wells -or whatever- now since y'all can't let go of Cavanagh, just let Matt Letscher come back and make the role his own.

I was glad to see Cisco again, especially to officiate the vow renewal. But seeing him in that ugly MechaVibe outfit just makes me sad again about him giving up his powers and a way better supersuit.

The vow renewal was really sweet, and I just loved seeing everyone dressed up and together for a happy occasion! Barry & Iris' vows were really nice affirmations of their love, which I appreciated because they spent so much of the past two seasons apart or with sci-fi DRAMA.

It doesn't save the rest of the season, but I'm glad it ended on a happy note, without a cliffhanger.

There was a lot of nonsense and Covid awkwardness this season, some good ideas but bad executions. But the show still has its moments of greatness, and I still like most of the characters and actors, so I'll be back for Season 8 - but with low expectations.