The Flash Season 2: 8 Ups And 2 Downs From 'The Race Of His Life'

10. Ups...

Grant Gustin's Performance

Whereas it maybe took Stephen Amell a good few months to really get into the skin of Oliver Queen, Grant Gustin hit the ground running as Barry Allen. Even though he’s regularly encapsulated the definitive Barry, his performance here was the former Glee actor’s best turn as the Scarlet Speedster to date.

As soon as The Race of His Life opens, we picked up the ball where the previous episode left off, with Henry Allen killed by Zoom, but it’s Gustin’s anguish-etched face that really hit home what was happening and set the tone for what lay ahead.

The emotion on show from Gustin here was phenomenal and got the Season 2 finale off to a hard-hitting start for the Sultan of Speed and for those watching at home.

Gustin would display a whole variety of emotions as the finale went on, and he deserves a hell of a lot of credit for the fantastic job he did here.

Authored by Andrew Pollard

Senior Writer

Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main day job, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks/Saints, Jamie Hayter, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg. Where his beloved Wrexham AFC is concerned, Andrew is co-host of the Fearless in Devotion podcast, which won the Club Podcast of the Year gong at the 2024 FSA Awards.

Posted On: 28th May 2016

In this post:

The-Flash