The Flash Season 3 is a hit or miss experience. After disregarding everything he knew and every bit of advice he’d gotten over Season 2, Barry (Grant Gustin) traveled back in time and saved his mother, throwing the timeline into complete turmoil. It was a bold move and as Season 3 opens, Barry’s been living with his now complete family for three months in the new Flashpoint timeline and it’s an opportunity for all the performers to put unique spins on familiar characters.

Flashpoint doesn’t last long though, and after Barry’s inevitable attempt to fix the timeline, we discover that it isn’t that easy. While most things go back to normal, there are still minor – and not-so-minor – differences to the new Flash universe.

Actually, for both Flash and Arrow, but that’s another review.

In addition, there’s also another Speedster Big Bad with the “Speed God” Savitar and his henchman, Doctor Alchemy causing all sorts of trouble. Along the way we also get a three-part crossover with Arrow, Supergirl, and the Legends of Tomorrow as they fight off a surprisingly underwritten alien invasion (unfortunately, we just get the Flash chapter here), a two-part Grodd story that is as unfortunately predictable as it could possibly be, and a musical Supergirl team-up episode that is adorable, and a nice change of pace from the overall doom and gloom and depression of this season overall.

The first two seasons of The Flash, while not the smartest show on television, were pretty consistently fun. Barry’s relationships with Cisco (Carlos Valdes), Caitlin (Danielle Panabaker), Joe (Jesse L. Martin), Iris (Candice Patton), and whichever version of Harrison Wells (Tom Cavanagh) shows up are the heart of the show. Sure, the writers took their time giving Iris anything to really do on the show, but by the time we’ve spent two seasons with them, she and Barry have developed a nice chemistry.

Just about all the characters chemistries are upset by the new status quo and it’s downright tedious after just a few episodes. Nobody gets along, but everybody ultimately comes together again and again as Gustin spends most of the season pouting and being sad. The crossovers and the Grodd event help to add some life to what is a tired and repetitive season, but even those aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.

Luckily, the show starts to right itself in the back half of the season. In fact, the final five episodes or so do a lot of really strong work tying plotlines together, providing key moments for all the actors to shine – including some surprise guests – and building up to another impressive season finale that threatens to shake things up dramatically as Season Four gets underway here in a couple of months.

If you’re like me and gave up, or are thinking of giving up on Season Three early on, you should really stick with it.

Bonus Features

Villain School: The Flash Rogues – This is a short but sweet look at a few of the Flash villains who are showing up in Season 3 – The Rival, Mirror Master, and Doctor Alchemy – with a little bit of background on their characters. It’s a little light on actual info.

Allied: The Invasion Complex (The Flash) – A behind the scenes look at the Flash Chapter in the big three-part Invasion crossover. There’s not a lot of interesting info, just some standard making-of back patting. Everybody seems to really enjoy working together.

Rise of Gorilla City – Any Grodd episodes are always fan favorites, and this season the ante is considerably upped as not only does the Flash gang have to deal with the psychic gorilla, but also an entire city of apes ready to invade Central City in a fun two-parter. This is a cool glimpse into the design and making of the episodes with a hint at a possible Grodd vs King Shark episode in Season Four!

The Flash: Hitting the Fast Note – A short overview of the making of the musical episode, “Duet,” which features a second team-up between Flash and Supergirl this season. While I’m not a big fan of the musical episode, the amount of work that went into it is impressive. I’d forgotten (did I ever know?) that Grant Gustin and Melissa Benoist were both on Glee. Turns out the Music Meister, Darren Criss, is also an alum.

The Flash: “I’m Your Super Friend” – A music video featuring both episode and behind the scenes footage for the musical number. Cute and catchy, if you like that sort of thing.

Harmony in a Flash & Synchronicity in a Flash – Both of these featurettes go into a lot more detail about the making of the musical episode, with extensive interviews with composer Blake Neely, the co-composers, and the orchestra musicians who performed the score. Excerpts of this are cut into the more general “Hitting the Fast Note” feature above.

The amount of work that went into this is mind-boggling, especially when you consider that Neely scores all the CW superhero shows and this was fit in with his normal monthly workload. Crazy!

The Flash: 2016 Comic-Con Panel – I used to think that getting into these panels at San Diego Comic-Con would be a fantastic fan experience, but after having sat through one and now watching even more on these home video releases, I have to say, they’re a bit of a drag. This one is no different. Boring as hell. There is a bit of a thrill when you’re there in person, but watching a recording is just dreadful.

A Flash in Time: Time Travel in the Flash Universe – This is a short feature about time and the concepts of time travel. It starts out with some of the most pretentious voice-over work I’ve heard in ages but does get a little more interesting when talking to Phil Cousineau (editor of The Hero’s Journey) about mythology and professor of theoretical physics at UCLA, Dr. Zvi Bern about Einstein and physics.

There’s also a look at the comic history of The Flash, with particular attention to the multiple realities of the DC universe and Flash writer Geoff Johns talks about coming up with “Flashpoint” – the inspiration for this third season.

A Conversation with Andrew Kreisberg and Kevin Smith – Kevin Smith loves directing these CW shows. He goes into some detail on the differences and similarities of working on both The Flash and Supergirl.

Gag Reel – Ugh.

Deleted Scenes – The deleted scenes, as with all the features above are scattered across all four discs of this collection. They’re deleted scenes.

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