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Blu-ray Review: The Flash: The Complete Second Season

Review of The Flash Season 2 complete season Blu-ray set, now available

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The Complete Second Season of The Flash arrived on Blu-ray and DVD earlier this week and may be one of the most extras-packed sets in the history of the medium.

Here’s our review. Disclaimer: This Blu-ray set was provided to us by Warner Bros. Home Entertainment; opinions here are solely our own.

FLASH_S2_BD_3D_SKEW_FNLThe Episodes: Spread across four discs, the set includes all 23 Season Two episodes and the episode of Arrow that was part of the November crossover (sadly, the episode of Supergirl featuring Grant Gustin was not included). While the season itself wasn’t as consistent as the first, there are some wonderful stories within, from the season premiere to a cool Dr. Light story, the introduction of Wally West, a trip to Earth-2, a Rogue team-up, and more. Most excitingly, The Flash Season 2 introduced the audience to Earth-Two… a world that is different from the one we know, with different characters and situations.

I cannot stress enough times how much of an asset Grant Gustin is as Barry Allen. Barry makes mistakes – a lot of them, actually – but he’s played with such charisma and goodness by Grant that you still can’t help but root for him. Really, this whole cast elevates the material on what is already a good show to begin with.

I do admit I wasn’t as invested in this year’s “Big Bad” Zoom as I was with Harrison Wells/Eobard Thawne in Season 1, but that’s not the fault of the actor who is revealed to be behind the mask (spoilers removed to protect the innocent and the unspoiled). It is just that I felt such depth in the character that Tom Cavanagh played; a character who you just didn’t want to be bad. I will say, watching these episodes again and knowing now how the Zoom story would pan out, I’m noticing a lot of subtleties in the performance of [spoiler] that make it a lot more fun.

Still, The Flash might be the best comic book based show on broadcast television, and if you watch both this season and Season 1, you’ll certainly understand why.

The Extras: Warner Bros. Home Entertainment went all out here. I do question the inclusion of some of the features, as they seemed to have been created during Season 1 or the pre-production of the show, but hey, any Flash is good Flash. One of those dated features is Grant Gustin’s screen test with Emily Bett Rickards, which takes you back all the way to Arrow Season 2. In total, there are 23 bonus features spread over the 4 discs, and that’s not even counting the deleted scenes.

About those deleted scenes, by the way: While occasionally these clips are extraneous, with The Flash they were all quite good. It makes me wish The CW could just drop a “Dare to Defy” trailer out of the mix so we could get longer episodes so scenes like these could be included in. I think my favorite, of course, is a deleted clip from the premiere between Barry and his father, but there’s good stuff all around.

The bonus features feature interviews with a lot of talents behind and in front of the camera, including the amazing VFX work by Armen Kevorkian, but to be honest, there are two that stand out more than anything else.

One is the blooper reel. Usually, these are not funny, and involve people making weird faces and a blahblahblah tongue move to the camera, which stopped being humorous after the 2nd DVD or Blu-ray to include the reels. But The Flash… they went all out. For starters, the gag reel begins with opening credits in the style of the original 1990 Flash TV show starring John Wesley Shipp, complete with the theme song. It’s amazing. But secondly, this cast is full of such likable, funny people that there’s no way it is not enjoyable.

The other great feature – clocking in at almost an hour – is called “Chasing Flash,” about the journey of Kevin Smith as the director of “The Runaway Dinosaur.” Bonus points for emulating the Chasing Amy logo in the design for that one, but more than that, it’s just really in-depth, with interviews with many producers and cast members. I’ve been a big fan of Kevin Smith’s since Mallrats and I think I could watch this feature 37 times. It’s that good.

The set also comes with a redemption code to download the first three episodes of The Flash Season 3 when they become available… for free.

Packaging & Design: The cover art is great, though I wish the individual discs were more colorful, which they rarely seem to be with Blu-ray.

Is It Worth It? Even though you can watch the episodes on Netflix soon enough? Absolutely. Warner Bros. seems to realize that if they still want people to buy Blu-rays, they need to have good reasons, and this is full of good reasons.

Order The Flash: The Complete Second Season on Blu-ray at a discounted price and support FlashTVNews!

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Flash Missing: Vanishes In Crisis, April 25, 2024

The “Flash Missing: Vanishes in Crisis” headline in the Flash TV series pilot was dated April 25, 2024.

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While events of the series would ultimately speed up the timeline, Flash fans surely remember the final moments of the pilot episode of the Grant Gustin-led series where we see a Central City Citizen newspaper graphic announcing “Flash Missing, Vanishes In Crisis.” The date of that article? April 25, 2024.

Which happens to be… today.

When The Flash premiered in 2014, one might have expected that April 25, 2024 might be the right time for the final episode of a 10-year run… of course, as we saw, the Crisis happened a few years earlier, The Flash ended in 2023 instead, and it all might have been a good thing, considering how strikes and pandemics got in the show’s way. Still, it’s fun to think about, and it’s fun to remember that fantastic rush we had after the end of watching such an excellent premiere. And hey – not only did we get nine seasons of the show, but we also had a bad Flash movie that the series was far superior to, even in its worst moments. Win-win!

Ride the lightning, everyone.

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The John Wesley Shipp Flash 1990 Series Blu-ray Release Announced!

The Flash TV series starring John Wesley Shipp is coming to Blu-ray on June 14.

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Some very exciting news came today courtesy of the Warner Archive… the 1990 Flash TV series starring John Wesley Shipp is coming to Blu-ray!

The six-disc set is expected to release on June 14 from the Warner Archive Collection and it will contain the entire first season with new 2024 1080p HD masters from 4K scans of the original camera negatives. Here’s how the set is described; the box art can be seen below. Currently, a pre-order link is not yet up for the set, but keep your eyes open! Hopefully, this means we’ll get remasters on other classic series in the future.

Who-o-o-o-osh! The origins and exploits of the crimefighting DC Comics superhero come your way in this 22-episode live-action series, from the 1990-91 television season. John Wesley Shipp portrays Barry Allen, a police crime technologist endowed with sudden talents after a fluke lab accident. He pledges to use his new powers for good, powers that include ultra-speed reflexes and the ability to vibrate his molecules so rapidly he can pass through solid walls. Amanda Pays is medical researcher Tina McGee, who monitors Allen’s accelerated metabolism and guards his secret identity. The Tricksters, Captain Cold, the Ghost, mad inventors: Central City is rife with criminals. Now there’s a hero to keep pace with them. He’s called The Flash. And in our era of instant communications, he’s more in step with the times than ever.

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Virtue: The CW Developing Cecile-Focused Flash Spinoff [APRIL FOOL 2024]

The CW is plotting a spinoff for a major character from The Flash.

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DISCLAIMER: This was the FlashTVNews April Fool’s post of 2024. The “news” in this article is not true or factual.

The seal has been broken and Earth-Prime may not be dead after all.

Late tonight, Deadline Weekly revealed that Warner Bros. Television and writers associated with The Flash have landed a deal for Virtue, a series focused on the Cecile character from The Flash as played by Danielle Nicolet. Nicolet is expected to reprise her role in the series, which will take place several years after the events of the Flash finale.

Jesse L. Martin is not expected to be a part of the series as he has prior commitments to The Irrational on NBC. Intel from the studio reveals that some characters fans have been itching to see again — such as Chester, Allegra, Khione, Chillblaine, and Arrow’s Raisa the Maid — might show up in some capacity. In keeping with the current CW lineup, the new show will pair Cecile Horton with a cop to solve crimes — but, of course, that cop will sadly not be Joe.

The official logline for Virtue suggests that Cecile will be a single mother who balances her superpowers and law background with solving crimes and being a mom. She will also reconnect with her daughter Joanie from whom she has been estranged for several years, and it’s expected that the Joanie character may be recast. Many thought The CW was out of the superhero business, but the producers’ pitch showed that her mental-based powers could make the show easier and more affordable to produce on a TV budget. It is expected that some of Cecile’s “level up” powers from Season 9 of The Flash will be toned down, and it is said that another reason Virtue has an advantage is that it doesn’t conflict with James Gunn’s ideas for the upcoming DC Studios movie universe.

No specific writers have been named for Virtue so far, aside from the notion that they worked on The Flash. Additionally, the Deadline Weekly article confirms that neither Grant Gustin nor Candice Patton are expected to show up on the series.

We will keep people updated on Virtue here at FlashTVNews under a special “Virtue TV News” icon; though if you’d like to visit our dedicated Twitter feed for the project, you can find it here.

Please read this article before sharing on other websites.

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