QUICKIE -- CW's The Flash - Season 3 Finale "Finish Line"

All roads have led to this point. Will Savitar succeed at his plans to break Barry Allen's will and make him into the villain that Savitar desires or will Barry be able to save his future self?

Or will viewers just facepalm their way through this episode from start to finish...? I guess we'll find out in this review, shall we?

Plot: 

It is revealed that H.R. swapped places with Iris, leading to his death. Savitar kidnaps Cisco and forces him to rebuild the Bazooka into an intradimensional quantum splicer so that Savitar could create fragments of himself to be dispersed throughout time and protect himself from the paradox. Barry tries to convince Savitar that he could be saved. Savitar returns to S.T.A.R. Labs, destroys it with the stone and orders Caitlin to kill Cisco, but Gypsy interferes. Savitar and Caitlin open a portal into the Speed Force; the Black Flash appears and attacks Savitar, but Caitlin destroys him with her powers. Savitar attempts to execute his plan, but it's revealed that Cisco actually modified the Bazooka into a skeleton key to free Jay from the Speed Force prison. Barry, Wally and Jay engage Savitar, while Cisco and Gypsy face off against Caitlin. Cisco convinces Caitlin to become benevolent. Barry phases through and destroys Savitar's suit before Savitar is shot by Iris, erasing him from existence. As Team Flash mourns H.R., Caitlin decides not to use Julian's cure, leaving the team in order to find her own purpose. A massive storm appears over Central City, created by the empty Speed Force prison, which has become unstable since it now has no occupant. Barry explains that he needs to accept his punishment for creating Flashpoint and enters the Speed Force prison himself, entrusting Central City to Wally and the team.

The Verdict:

This fucking show, man...

Hands down, the worst season and worst season finale for this series to date. The more I watch these CW DC-based shows, I wonder why do I even bother keeping up with this crap. Morbid curiosity always seems to win out as I wanted to see this train wreck to the end.

RIP H.R., thanks for being the Red Shirt for The Flash TV series... Pretty sure they'll have another replacement for you by the end of the Season 4 premiere.

The episode starts off with Joe West and Barry Allen reeling from the death of Iris West at the hands of Savitar, until she's revealed to be H.R. using one of his image disguising devices to swap his and Iris' identities. While I can respect that H.R. was allowed to have a hero's departure to close this final chapter of the novel that was his life this season, I felt that the shock was completely undermined by the fact that Team Flash was more relieved that H.R. died instead of Iris. The only person that seemed to care about his noble sacrifice was Tracy and that was swept underneath the rub the second they pulled Harry's leg to talk her into helping out Savitar.

Speaking of Savitar... This had to be the biggest dropped opportunity on this show to date. What could have been a great way to end this season with the hero coming face to face with the darkness within that could transform him into the villain of the future, they played the wuss out card and lamed it out. I couldn't fathom the depths of stupidity in the writing on this episode. It was to the point where it was blowing my mind on how low the writing went in this finale. Okay, Savitar knows and remembers everything Barry knows in present day, so what was stopping him from turning around and killing Iris once H.R. revealed himself of the swap or any point after that? If Savitar truly valued his existence, he could have killed Iris, Joe, Julian, and the rest of Team Flash right in front of Barry in the middle of STAR Labs when he brought him there and there would have been absolutely NOTHING that he could have done about it except cry about it like the whiny bitch that they've made Barry Allen in this show. Reaching his humanity is one thing, but his desperation to exist should have won over, especially with time against him as it was only a matter of time before the Black Racer/Hunter Solomon would come and erase him from reality like Eobard Thawne/Reverse Flash during the Legends of Tomorrow Season 2 Finale.

Speaking of Hunter... That was straight up bullshit that Killer Frost was able to kill him like that so easily. I literally threw my hands up into the air when I saw that shit. While we're on the subject of Caitlin Snow/Killer Frost, I want to say that she was criminally robbed of the glory that should have been hers during this season. Season 3 barely scratched the surface of what she could have accomplished and shown off onscreen as Killer Frost and barely showed all of the layers of darkness that Caitlin has been bottling up and living with until this point. Instead, she's reduced to being Savitar's mere sidekick and lackey and we still have no idea on why she wanted to work for him in the first place. She could have disposed of Savitar herself any of those hundred and one times he took his armor off and took the center stage as the main villain of this season. Instead, we're robbed of the opportunity of possibly seeing how much further could she descend in this road as a villain for an impromptu redemption for her character as she aided Cisco, Gypsy, and Barry Allen against Savitar in the final battle.

To say that Barry had so much damn help here, that was a damn shame that for one almost all of those losers were pretty much unless and didn't make any real difference AND the fact that Iris West herself was the one who had to save Barry when it was all said and done. Iris of all people... Ugh, shouldn't Emo Barry/Savitar have had enough time to react and throw that bullet right back her? The thing I didn't get was that why didn't Barry phase through Savitar's armor in the first place during their first few encounters? It just seemed odd that they threw that strategy against the wall when Barry's future counterpart even said nothing he did worked.

There's just SOOO much shit here that doesn't make sense in the least:

Hell, where the fuck did Savitar get the damn armor from in the first damn place!!??

Why did Caitlin Snow/Killer Frost agree to work with Savitar anyway? What did he have to offer that made her so devoted to his cause? After all that has happened to her you would think that she would be against more tampering with the timeline...

You would think that would wrap things up and everything would be happily ever after, but nope, all of these Flash finales have a clusterfuck cliffhanger to set up the next season. In this case, the Speed Force is wrecking the city because there's not a prisoner within it to stabilize it and Barry Allen steps up more than willing to finally accept his "punishment" for tampering with the timeline by creating Flashpoint.

You got to be out of your fucking mind to expect me to buy into them keeping Barry Allen out of this show outside of maybe 1-2 episodes. Four to Five tops if they are pushing it. From the lack of screen time and effort to develop his character further this season, I cannot see them running with Wally West as the titular hero for long. Maybe Cisco steps up big time and we get to see him in action a lot more from here on out, but the CW currently has a hard sell on making me (or anyone for that matter) care on Season 4, despite their promises of no more evil speedsters as the main villain of the season.

Watch It or Don't Bother?

Don't even get me started on how much time fuckery went on in this season, let alone this finale that should fuck shit up going forward no matter what...  (Laughs) No wonder Rip Hunter doesn't want his old job back.

If you watched this train wreck of a season this far, you might as well see how it ends. For everyone else, stay far, far, away and spare yourself the headache. This show has so much potential for great things, but the lazy and ass-backwards writing hinders it from truly being great. It's the same thing that I had a problem with the entirety of Legends of Tomorrow Season Two and Supergirl Season Two where there's an interesting, new concept introduced to kick off the season but everything that follows leads up to a lackluster and unsatisfactory conclusion.