The Flash won’t be back until Tuesday, April 16, but tonight following the episode “Time Bomb” The CW aired a promotional trailer for the next episode which is called “Godspeed!”
And yes, it seems that Flash comic book villain Godspeed is involved.
Barry Allen (Grant Gustin) lived a normal life as a perpetually tardy C.S.I. in the Central City Police department. He was adopted by his best friend, Iris West’s (Candice Patton) father, Detective Joe West (Jesse L. Martin) after Barry’s mother was murdered. Barry’s life was forever changed the night the S.T.A.R. Labs Particle Accelerator exploded, creating a dark matter lightning storm that struck Barry, bestowing him with super-speed and making him the fastest man alive. But Barry wasn’t the only person who was given extraordinary abilities that night. The dark matter also created meta-humans, many of whom have wreaked havoc with their powers on the city. Barry teamed up with his friends at S.T.A.R Labs, Caitlin Snow (Danielle Panabaker), Cisco Ramon (Carlos Valdes), and Dr. Harrison Wells (Tom Cavanaugh), Barry began a journey as The Flash to protect the people of Central City from these powerful new threats – one of them being The Reverse Flash, the man responsible for his mother’s murder.
When the Flash faces off and defeats the Reverse Flash it causes a singularity to open in Central City that allowed portals on alternate Earths to open. An evil speedster from Earth-2 named, Zoom, took full advantage of terrorizing Central City. In Team Flash’s quest to defeat Zoom, they team up with Harry Wells – the Earth-2 doppelganger of Barry’s former mentor. Cisco Ramon also discovers that he was also effected by the Particle Accelerator, thus beginning his journey as Vibe. After Zoom kills Barry’s father, Henry, and threatens to destroy the multiverse Barry faces off with Zoom in the race of his life and ultimately defeats him. But it’s not enough for Barry… still broken and angered by his past and the loss of both his parents, Barry races back in time saving his mother from her untimely death ultimately resetting the timeline and erasing his life as The Flash.
In this new timeline, Barry had a happy life with his parents, however, it was shortly lived once he realized that his memories of the old timeline were disappearing – soon he wouldn’t even remember he was The Flash. Barry runs to the future, resetting the timeline, only to discover things are not what they once were. Caitlin now has ice powers, Cisco’s brother has tragically died, and there is a new CSI, Julian Albert (Tom Felton) working in Barry’s lab. It isn’t long before Barry realizes that in resetting the timeline it allowed a new threat to appear in Central City – another evil speedster Savitar. Savitar begins to create new meta-humans, which include making Wally West (Keiynon Lonsdale) a speedster. The team enlists the help of H.R. Wells (Tom Cavanagh) from Earth-19 for his genius mind only to discover that he is a fraud. In the chaos of dealing with Savitar, Barry finally sees that what will truly make him happy is being with Iris. The two begin to start a life together as a happy couple that is quickly interrupted when Barry visits the future to see that Savitar kills Iris. Now with the premonition that Savitar will murder the woman he loves, Barry and the rest of Team Flash work together to defeat this evil speedster and save Iris’ life. However, their celebration is short lived when the Speed Force opens to claim Barry, a penance for creating the new timeline, forcing him to say goodbye to Iris and vanish into the Speed Force.
Since Barry vanished into the Speed Force, Iris has stepped up as the leader of Team Flash. When a new threat demands the return of The Flash, the team unites to pull Barry from the Speed Force and defeat this threat. Finally reunited, Barry and Iris are finally able to marry before their closest friends. However, Barry soon realizes his return was an essential part of a villainous plan, orchestrated by the intellectually enhanced meta-human, The Thinker (Neil Sandilands), alongside his wife Marlize DeVoe (Kim Engelbrecht). The Thinker used Barry’s return to cover an unsuspecting public bus with dark matter, creating new meta-humans, including Ralph Dibny (Hartley Sawyer) a discredited Detective, who Barry is determined to turn into a hero. Just as Barry successfully turns Ralph into that respectable hero, The Thinker tragically kills him, making the villain stronger than ever. With everyone on the planet in danger, Barry races into the mind of The Thinker for the ultimate battle of the fastest mind alive versus the fastest man alive. Barry and Team Flash defeat The Thinker, and find a way to bring Ralph back from the grave. Although, when the Flash speeds to stop the final attack on Central City, to his surprise, a new mysterious speedster aids him. In the end, Barry and Iris finally have a chance to enjoy the simple newlywed life, until they’re visited by Nora West-Allen (Jessica Parker Kennedy), their daughter from the future. She’s made a big mistake a needs her parents’ help.
When Barry and Iris meet Nora, their lives are flipped upside down, and her arrival brings to light the legacy every member of Team Flash will leave years from now, causing many to question who they are today. While Nora idolizes Barry and his legacy as The Flash, she carries with her a mysterious grudge towards Iris. Team Flash rallies to find a way to help Nora return to her time, only to discover her presence has changed the timeline and brought the early arrival of the most ruthless, vicious, and relentless villain Team Flash has ever faced: Cicada.
1990 Flash actor John Wesley Shipp, who later played Henry Allen and Jay Garrick and reprised his original role in crossovers, is currently rewatching his classic series as it was recently released to Blu-ray.
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!
“Watching series straight through for first time in 34 years,” the actor posted on Twitter/X. “Now in blu-ray – Man! I can see so much more. It’s cool, like watching somebody else, discovering things I didn’t know were there.”
The six-disc set was released on June 14 from the Warner Archive Collection and it featured 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. 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.
New CW Entertainment President Brad Schwartz today threw some shade at The Flash when propping up one of The CW’s better new performers, Wild Cards, when doing an interview with Deadline.
“You’ll probably be hearing more announcements from us very soon,” he said. “That show did great. It grew 10% versus what The Flash did in the same spot the year before. So, here we are beating shows that everyone’s very romantic about. We’d very much like to renew that one.”
Obviously, this is to show that Canadian imports perform better than more expensive fare… but might it be considered that The Flash was a show in its ninth season – a time when new audiences might not be interested in jumping on to series? Or, perhaps that portions of The Flash fandom had moved on, with no interest in The Cecile Show? Finally, The Flash Season 9 mostly aired at a time where producers and/or cast were unable to promote it, during the 2023 strikes, which makes the comparison very unfair.
Wild Cards is a fun series, but there’s no reason to denigrate The Flash or the superhero shows that made The CW great. Hopefully this was just a wild misunderstanding of his quote. The fact of the matter is: Sometimes more expensive fare is worth investing in. Especially considering how Schwartz hypes up the new season of Superman & Lois, that should be known to the new people in charge of The CW.
A major cast member from The Flash will be appearing in the series finale of Superman & Lois.
No, it’s not Grant Gustin, sadly… the actor in question is Tom Cavanagh, the actor who brought us infinite Wells variants. Cavanagh revealed this recently at a convention, where he talked about how he usually enjoyed directing season finales for the show, but was unable to in this case because Gregory Smith had already signed on to direct the Superman & Lois finale.
Superman & Lois showrunner Todd Helbing, who had also worked with Cavanagh before on The Flash and recruited him to direct the series’ 100th episode among others, instead suggested he has a role in the finale.
No word yet on what that role might be. As Superman & Lois is at a different spot in the multiverse, it doesn’t necessarily even have to be a version of Harrison Wells or Eobard Thawne. It could serve as a good closer, though, to the Arrowverse in general, as Superman & Lois is the last gasp for that world on The CW. In any event, you can see video of Cavanagh speaking about this (and more) at our Superman & Lois portal, KryptonSite.
The final season of Superman & Lois premieres this Fall on The CW.