Review: The Flash Season 3 Sprints Out of the Gate

This is a non-spoiler review. No plot information will be shared here, other than in very general terms, that is not already widely known thanks to pre-season interviews and other press.

At the end of season two of The Flash, the world changed.

After the season finale last spring, it was immediatley clear what the trajectory of the show was going to be: Flashpoint! Comic book fans remembered the five-issue miniseries (complete with an entire publishing line of tie-in stories, most of which were quite good), a fundamentally altered DC Universe, and a powerless Barry Allen at the center of, hoping to get his powers back, solve the riddle of what had changed the universe, and get everything back to normal.

As an adaptation of the comics, "Flashpoint" -- the season three premiere of The Flash -- is very, very dissimilar. So much so that it's entirely possible that calling it "Flashpoint" was a misstep: Fans who go in looking for seismic changes are going to be disappointed.

People with little knowledge of Flashpoint won't, though, as it's a solid hour of TV full of wonderful character beats.

It's not a perfect episode, but it certainly addresses a concern that plagued some of last season: a monolithic fixation with a single big bad and plodding pacing meant to keep that story moving along. In the season premiere, there are three speedsters, but it's really the story that you're running to keep up with.

Series stars Grant Gustin and Candice Patton are phenomenal this episode. Keiynan Lonsdale feels like he finally "fits" into the cast in a way that he never completely did in season two, and the Flashpoint versions of Cisco and Caitlin provide ample comic relief...but also play an important story role, so that their jokes and asides never feel wasted.

More than ever, Jesse L. Martin is a huge asset to the show. He takes a storyline that a lesser actor could easily have gone way too big and broad with, and finds the perfect level to make the audience feel for Joe. He doesn't get a ton of time, and a lot of what he's doing almost feels like shorthand, but Martin's performance feels fully realized in a way that helps shore up the foundation of the alternate timeline.

The fight scenes are not the show's best, but they serve a very particular purpose and they serve that purpose pretty well. It's difficult to get into what that means without spoiling anything from the episode, but once you've seen the big set piece -- the big fight with The Rival that represents the episode's climax -- you'll understand.

As was often the case in the second season of The Flash, it's the fantastic cast that elevates the material, delivering an eminently watchable show. There's a lot going on in the plot of the premiere -- necessary, as you might expect, to set up the whole of the Flashpoint timeline, Wally as Kid Flash, and the mystery of The Rival -- but ultimately the thing that feels the most urgent is the relationship between Barry and Iris. It drives the episode in an unexpected and exciting way, and while most of what we see is still very superhero-centric, it feels as though the writers have recognized some of what fans have seen as weaknesses in Iris's prior depictions and given her specific and important roles to play on both the superheroics side and in her personal life and work.

There's even a bit of an unexpected through line that runs through Supergirl and The Flash, addressing the importance of good reporters and the roles they can have in shaping the world around them. It's unlikely that the connection was intentional, but watching the two premieres within hours of one another, it certainly felt like it.

Ultimately, the episode is the story of Barry's slow realization that he needs to "fix" Flashpoint. As Gustin told us during an interview at Comic Con, the ever-indecisive Barry Allen, having finally made the biggest decision of his life, is going to turn it around and try to save the day again.

But can he? And if he does, will it really be as simple as hitting the reset button, or will there be consequences? These are questions for later episodes, but they're not entirely absent from the premiere, thanks in no small part to Matthew Letscher's Reverse-Flash, who rants and raves at Barry, providing insight not unlike what you would hear from a seasoned comic book reader who understands better than The Flash himself does what the ramifications of changing the timestream could be.

The Flash comes out of the gate fast, and this first episode looks great. The question is whether they can keep up a sprint or whether it might have been wiser to pace themselves. It's a question that won't be answered until we've seen at least a handful of episodes, though, so for now: look forward to October 4 and the very enjoyable "Flashpoint."