8 Ways To Fix The Flash In Season 4

2) Let Barry Be A Hero

It sounds like a stupid question, but is Barry Allen really much of a hero?

Yes, we see Barry dispatch the villain-of-the-week all the time. When it comes to the season-long story arcs, however, Barry’s role is usually more ambiguous. For instance, it wasn’t Barry who stopped Reverse-Flash and saved Central City at the end of season 1, but rather Eddie Thawne and Robbie Raymond. Season 2 did see Barry beat Zoom in a race to save the Multiverse, but even that success has now been dampened by the fact that he used a Time Remnant to do it – which season 3 has revealed are shadow versions of Barry who resent how the Flash uses them.

Ah, season 3. The whole season has been about breaking down Barry’s role as a hero: first he ruined many of his friends’ lives with Flashpoint and now it’s been revealed that he is Savitar, or rather, it’s one of his Time Remnants. While this is an interesting storyline, by this point we just want Barry to be portrayed as a true hero, without the added baggage that he’s actually the cause of his own problems.

1) Lighten Up

The biggest problem with season 3 of The Flash has to be its increasingly glum tone. A knock-on effect of Barry being the cause of all his own problems this year – not to mention the ongoing trauma of the deaths of his parents – has caused him to become a much more brooding character. It’s not just him, though. Even generally funny characters like Cisco have had some depressing story arcs (his brief hatred of Barry for ‘killing’ his brother Dante).

Episodes like “Duet” – the musical crossover with Supergirl – and recent comedic memory-loss episode “Cause and Effect” have been two of the most fun to watch of this year due to their lighthearted tone. It’s not that we think the show should cut back on the drama, just that the writers should remember that, first and foremost, The Flash should be a real treat to watch. Again, season 1 understood this best as the general fun of watching the Flash save the city was nicely counterbalanced, rather than undercut, by the darker, more emotional stuff (the tragedy of Barry’s mother’s death at the hands of Reverse-Flash).

If Barry manages to save Iris at the end of this season, then hopefully we could be in for a brighter, more fun-loving Barry Allen, which should have a knock-on effect for the ethos of the entire show. Fingers crossed that the fun gets put back into The Flash in season 4.