The Flash Season 2: 8 Ups And 2 Downs From 'The Last Dinosaur'

2. Downs...

The Flash Barry Speed Force
The CW

Back So Soon?

Sure, there’s a good and fair argument to be made that The Flash would’ve struggled if it didn’t feature its titular hero for a few episodes, particularly with the season finale now only a fortnight away, but it still felt a little too soon to be reacquainted with Barry Allen so quickly after he’d apparently died during the closing moments of the previous episode.

So often in these superhero shows, and often in modern TV in general, it seems that a good, stretched-out mystery is solved within a matter of minutes. For example, the mid-season finale of Arrow’s third season saw Oliver Queen ran through with Ra’s al Ghul’s blade and kicked off a cliff to his death. The Emerald Archer was dead! Shocking stuff, right? Well it was, until Ollie was alive and well by the very next episode.

Here in The Flash, it would’ve been nice to have at least kept Barry out of the action for a solid amount of time in order to hit home the consequences of what happened during last week’s finale or to at least keep some sort of intrigue. Instead, within the show’s opening moments it was revealed that Barry is definitely alive and that he was just somewhere else, which was soon revealed to be actually in the Speed Force.

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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.