The sixth season of the American television series The Flash, which is based on the DC Comics character Barry Allen / Flash, premiered on The CW on October 8, 2019, and consisted of 19 episodes. The season follows Barry, a crime scene investigator with superhuman speed who fights criminals, including others who have also gained superhuman abilities. It is set in the Arrowverse, sharing continuity with the other television series of the universe, and is a spin-off of Arrow. The season is produced by Berlanti Productions, Warner Bros. Television, and DC Entertainment, with Eric Wallace serving as showrunner.
The season was ordered in January 2019, and was originally planned to have 22 episodes. Filming began that July, and ceased in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic so the last two episodes were not filmed, and another could not complete filming, bringing the season down to 19 episodes. Grant Gustin stars as Barry, with principal cast members Candice Patton, Danielle Panabaker, Carlos Valdes, Hartley Sawyer, Danielle Nicolet, Tom Cavanagh, and Jesse L. Martin also returning from previous seasons, while LaMonica Garrett was promoted to series regular from his guest status in season five. They are joined by new cast member Efrat Dor.
At first I was only going to rant on the last half of this season, but I'm going to lump in a few comments and remarks on the first half too before the Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover that turned the entire Arrowverse upside down.
Killer Frost Forced To The Sidelines
Caitlin Snow and Killer Frost's duality was one of the best inclusions to the show following Caitlin's struggles with her own metahuman powers over the last few seasons. Frost gave Danielle Panabaker another angle to approach Caitlin's character while at the same time allowed her to play multiple roles on the same show. While I was glad that they retired the recurring joke from the previous season(s) of figuring out various means to upset/piss off Caitlin to make her transform into Frost, I was concerned that Caitlin was getting pushed to the sidelines more than she should. The problem with Season 6 was the fact that both Caitlin AND Frost were getting regulated to the sidelines. Caitlin and Frost had a prominent role in the first half of the season while Team Flash dealt with the threat of Bloodwork/Ramsey Rosso. She had a connection to Rosso as a former colleague and confidant to his research. I thought her involvement in that storyline was fine.
What followed after that was pretty underwhelming as Frost was regulated to the sidelines for the remainder of the season, despite the fact that Barry Allen stressed heavily that he wanted her to continue following in his footsteps as a heroine for Central City in the result that he would perish during the events of Crisis. Ralph would get a bigger role in the latter half of the season with his investigation into his (Sue) "Dearbon" case while Frost/Caitlin wouldn't be brought up for much of the season outside of Caitlin's expertise on medical matters. She would be sidelined with an injury following Team Flash's encounter with the new Dr. Light (post-Crisis) that would require her to go with Frost/Caitlin's mother for proper treatment. From the way that this was done, it seems like she's being written out of the remainder of this story arc. I could be wrong, but I hate to see Caitlin Snow nor Frost be taken away from the limelight.
Sue Dearbon & Ralph Dibny's Budding Romance
In the comics continuity, Sue ends up being Ralph's wife. In 2004, she became a flashpoint for discussions of women in comics when a highly controversial storyline was published (set in the post-Zero Hour continuity) in which she is murdered and revealed to have been raped by Doctor Light in the past.
While I'm sure that the CW will steer FAR away from that controversial storyline, especially when Dr. Light has had an extremely minor role in the Arrowverse continuity and has been gender-swapped to be depicted as female in all of her appearances in this continuity, it's up in the air on what the CW will do with this character following Hartley Sawyer's firing for his racist, misogynist tweets coming to surface. She was framed for the murder of Eva McCulloch's husband, even though that was the real reason why she joined the Black Hole organization in the first place.
I loved Hartley Sawyer and Natalie Dreyfuss' on-screen chemistry together as these characters, but I don't fault CW's decision to fire Sawyer amidst of the #SpeakingOut movement. He shat in that bed and now he has to lay in it. Dreyfuss shouldn't be punished for his fuck up. I think they should recast Ralph's role for the next season (much like they are going to have to do for Batwoman following Ruby Rose's departure) and continue with whatever plans they have in stone for this character. Sue Dearbon was a joy in every episode that she was in over this season and one of the VERY few bright spots in an extremely lackluster season.
I have my fingers crossed that the CW finds a solution to this problem that wouldn't cause all of the hard work they put into establishing Sue Dearbon's character into the Arrowverse be for nothing.
No More Of This CGI-Bullshit Please...
The fight against Bloodwork was fucking embarrassing in this season. If it weren't for the Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover event, I think I would have stopped watching at that point. That's not saying the ordeal with Eva McCulloch was much better...
All that I'm saying... or rather asking is to show as much love and compassion to crafting this narrative as what Geoff Johns and his team working on Stargirl.
Given the circumstances from how this season ended, it's painfully obvious that Bloodwork will appear again in Season 7. I'm fine with that too since we finally have not one but two of the main antagonists for this season not being evil speedsters, despite the fact that Godspeed has a constant presence in this season. He's not going away either, so you know he's going to have a hand to play in the next season, along with Reverse Flash/Eobard Thawne.
The Iris West Problem
Let's be honest here. This isn't an unique problem for Season 6. It has been a glaring problem more and more as this series continues to roll on.
Unlike the vast majority hate that Iris West and her actress, Candice Patton, get on social media, I don't necessarily hate Candice Patton as a person. I just hate how her on-screen character is presented on this show with a passion. Time and time again, I would joke with friends about who the hell is she humping backstage among the writers to land Iris West these positions of power and lengthy amounts of screen time over the main cast - hell, even more than the one the show is named after The Flash himself in most occasions this season! That was the name of the problem for Season 6 here. This was essentially The Iris West Show instead of The Flash. The fact was hammered home even more when Barry Allen was losing his connection to the Speed Force in the latter half of the season following his actions during Crisis on Infinite Earths.
I'm fine with Iris having her old side adventures with her budding independent journalism outfit - Team Citizen, but when it takes up majority of the main plot for the course of the season, that's when it became a problem. The writers were painting the picture as if Iris' independent journalist project was the equivalent of the Daily Planet for Superman and she was literally Lois Lane. To be fair, Lois Lane is a bad ass in her own right, but some of the stuff they've had Iris West doing here was undermining what the hero of this show was capable of in more situations than not.
This was amplified even more when Iris was portrayed to be competent than the actual scientists and doctors on Team Flash. Barry Allen himself even came off as a colossal dumb ass over the course of the last half of this season when he couldn't tell the difference between his actual wife and Mirror Iris until it was too late. I can't blame all of that on Candice Patton either as she's not the one writing this crap where Barry is regulated to the sidelines or just standing around, feeling sorry for himself since he's losing his powers and not doing much of anything. It creates a lot of boring and lackluster television, especially when the narrative is dwelling too hard into this Iris story. Eva McCulloch made for an interesting
Oh my FUCKING God, this sequence got so many eye rolls from me. I get that Barry's at the end of his tether when it comes to his reserves on his powers but he couldn't beat this T-1000 knockoff? Between getting powers last season and a sequence like this where she flat out beats up the titular hero in a convincing manner has to have Candice Patton feeling herself to the moon and back.
I swear, I'm so fucking done with this show if they are setting Iris up to permanently gain some sort of powers from her extended duration in the Mirror Dimension and have her beat Eva McCulloch/Mirror Master (or rather Mistress?) in Season 7. That's where it seems like the direction for this show is going for the next season, but with Season 6 ending prematurely, I'm guessing we're going to get some sort of a resolution in those terms since the last few episodes were cut off during this season order since the cast and crew couldn't resume filming once the coronavirus pandemic grew widespread around the world. Between Iris' group of females brought together as Team Citizen and Eva McCulloch's Black Hole organization lackeys, it seems like we're heading towards a girl fight of sorts to end this conflict properly, especially if it means that both The Flash and Frost are sidelined for the remainder of this story arc. Cisco Ramon already gave up his powers in the previous season, so don't forget about that too along with the fact that Barry's plans to use Nora's notes to build his own artificial Speed Force seemed to get thrown to the wayside by the end of this season. I thought that plan should have taken priority over everything else, especially with Barry wanting to ensure the safety of all of his loved ones.
My only knock against Candice Patton though is the fact that while Hartley Sawyer's firing was deserved and swiftly executed, but absolutely nothing came under fire for the accusations against her back in December by JR Smith's wife, Shirley "Jewel" Harris, for trying to steal her husband. JR Smith would then give her a shout out on Instagram for Valentine's Day of this year as well with the incident never really getting much media attention. While I applaud Candice Patton for standing up for proper representation of black women in media and what not on television, I can't give her a pass for this shady behavior. Some role model for all of the positive shit that you're trying to sell when you're doing dirt behind closed doors, y'know? Shame on the CW for completely ignoring and sweeping this ordeal under the rug too. In Candice Patton's defense though, JR Smith claims that he has been separated from his wife for months now, so there's that.
For The Flash Season 7, the only thing I want is more of The Flash that we know and love and less of The Flash playing second fiddle for what has been essentially The Iris West Show for this entire season. Is that too much to ask?
