The Flash – It’s My Party and I’ll Die If I Want To review S9
Well, this was easily the best episode of The Flash in several seasons. Looks like Green Arrow saved this season…or at least for one week.
It was a little frustrating watching this episode play out and realizing this final season of The Flash could have played out like this one. A greatest hits collection of episode with fan favorite heroes and villains returning for one last ride.
Instead, we got Dreamer, Batwoman and a new iteration of Frost/Caitlin that no one wanted. But at least for one week the Flash creative team did right by the fans of The Flash. And the Arrowverse in general.
The episode gets the eye-rolling clueless bits out the way early as Team Flash throws a surprise party for Barry and manages to forget to invite Joe, Cisco, Jay Garrick, one of the 38 Wells, Hartley, Ray Palmer, Sue & Ralph, Black Lightning, Kara, The Legends, the rest of the Anti-Rogues or even Dreamer and Ryan Wilder since they just kicked it with Team Flash …
Surprisingly, I’m not missing Kihone at all.
Diggle and Wally are here though. This show really missed Wally, who was a great early addition to the series and Diggle is an always welcome presence on any Arrowverse show. Diggle’s got a gift for Barry — Oliver’s old bow. Hilariously Diggle is one of the first people to offer condolences for Caitlin’s death. It affected us all Digs.
Chester makes Allegra a device to keep her identity safe, which feels like a gift about two seasons too late. With four episodes left, I can’t work up any excitement over Allegra maybe being outed as a hero. Kramer and Cecile doing karaoke to Spice Girls was certainly a choice.
Wally is projecting into other time lines in his continued search for enlightenment. Maybe on one of those timelines The Flash’s final season has been one awesome episode after another. During Barry’s toast, everyone realizes their drinks are spiked and pass out. With the exception of the speedsters Barry and Wally, whose speed allowed them to quickly recover from the toxic substance.
It’s a little gift from Barry’s old pal Bloodwork.
This is actually a good thing as Bloodwork was the last good villain this show had in its last credible story arc in the absolutely fantastic buildup to Crisis on Infinite Earths. That was the last time The Flash was consistently good with a string of great, emotional episodes featuring a non-speedster villain who legit delivered on his potential.
Since Chester was in Chester P. Runk mode as the DJ, he wasn’t drinking and Bloodwork sics the others, now converted into his blood zombies, after him. Why though?
has now tapped into her powers and freezes the water of all the blood zombies.
Bloodwork is focused on corrupting Wally this time since Wally has unknowingly been tapping into various worlds in the Multiverse and not alternate timelines. Yeah, semantics, but it’s fine. Wally isn’t buying Bloodwork’s pitch and mentions Jessie Quick. Speaking of another great character who is badly missed…
Bloodwork can relate to losing a mother like Wally and says with his help, Bloodwork create a Multiverse where no one has to watch their loved ones die. Make sure to swing by Tatooine while you’re at it!
Sendhil Ramamurthy killed it this episode. He was the main reason Bloodwork was such an effective villain as they didn’t rush his origin, gave him a compelling reason for his increasing desperation before he snapped and turned heel. This time, Ramamurthy just dives into being an unapologetic villain. Bloodwork puts Barry on a TV show with a teleprompter ending with That’s a Flash Fact! And an winking appearance from Caitlin — a nice way to work in Danielle Pannebaker, who directed this episode.
Now corrupted by Bloodwork, Wally does the vibrating hand trick and kills Barry, who awakens on the island — yep, that island — and is greeted by Oliver. Good grief I missed Oliver/Stephen Amell!
MORE:
- McFarlane Toys reveals DC Multiverse Captain Atom figure
- DC Comics reviews 4/25/23 – Green Arrow #1, Action Comics #1054
- The Black Demon review
- WWE Action Figure Reviews
It’s hard to overstate how enjoyable it was to see Amell back as Oliver Queen. He’d expressed some dissatisfaction with how Oliver died in Crisis so it was cool to see him get a proper Arrowverse send off.
The premise of stopping Bloodwork from infecting the rest of the Multiverse with a corrupted Wally’s help is a good one. Maybe even final series arc good if it included the other Arrowverse characters.
Here’s some news. Oliver brought back Moira, Tommy and Lance (which one? Quentin or Laurel?). He didn’t bring his dad back as it would have upended too much of the timeline. For whatever reason, Oliver bringing back Tommy made me smile. He’d been killed off in the series way too early and it always felt like the writers kept trying to find ways to bring him back.
I wonder if Oliver also considered bringing back Ronnie, Professor Stein or Captain Cold since he’d worked alongside them as well. Barry is in full on doubt mode and since not even The Spectre Arrow can bring back Jesse L. Martin while he’s working on a NBC pilot, it’s up to Oliver to provide the pep talk. It’s a good one though as Oliver reminds Brry that he is a guiding light well worth his sacrifice.
Now that Barry is ready, Oliver brings him back to life and tags along since a threat to the Multiverse is actually something that can allow him to travel back to Earth-Prime. Geesh, why couldn’t we have figured this loophole out earlier??? The commercial break using the Arrow break graphic was a nice touch.
Barry theorizes a massive ultraviolet pulse could stop Bloodwork. If any moment called for Allegra, this was it. Instead, the writers zoom through a regular season’s worth of buildup to speed to Kihone mastering freeze powers that were just teased a few episodes back to put Bloodwork’s Team Flash zombies in suspended animation. She does free one person — no, not Allegra — Diggle. I mean I’m not gonna complain, but Diggle really doesn’t make as much sense here.
Bloodwork calls in an army of swat goons to go after Green Arrow. This is a totally transparent effort just to show GA kicking tail again and I’m all here for it.
While Flash helps Wally break free of Bloodwork’s control, Diggle helps Oliver finally giving Diggle the farewell to his brother he was cheated of during Crisis. This was a much-needed reunion.
Just to seal it for us, Oliver utters the catchphrase before shooting a magic arrow to cleanse the infected Multiverse. Does it need to make sense? Nope, not in this case. See what a little obnoxious fan service will do?
Post battle, Oliver hangs around a little longer to celebrate. Maybe he could bring the rest of the guest list to the party? Diggle and Oliver get another nice moment. This episode felt like that Book of Boba Fett one where Mandalorian came in and completely stole the season from the main character.
The stinger scene features Barry and Oliver hanging out in a nod to the various team-ups the two had over the years. Amell and Grant Gustin always were a great pairing and were the heart of the Arrowverse. They really could have let this scene be the final one of the series and it would have been perfect.
We’ve still got four more episodes left and the next one at least seems like it could be interesting with the tease of Reverse Flash ver. 2 showing up. Yes, he was killed and no it doesn’t matter. Hopefully this marks the start of a strong closing stretch to the season. At least for one episode the old Flash magic was back.
Rating: 9.5 out of 10
Photo Credit: The CW