The Flash Pilot Spoilers

Warning: there are SPOILERS below. Do not read this if you have not seen the pilot and want to be surprised. The opinions and theories made are my own based on what I have seen and the conclusions I've drawn.

 

I had heard about the leak of The Flash pilot about 2 weeks ago and have been taking drastic measures to avoid reading anything about it until the premiere this fall. However, I happened to stumble across the pilot online and just couldn't resist watching it! So here is my opinion of the series as well as few spoilers/surprises/theories about what I think we'll see in the series.

First, let me say that I love Grant Gustin as an actor. Granted, I'm most familiar with him from his Glee roll as Sebastian. That boy has a serious set of pipes and I really wish that they would have featured him more both as a singer and foil to the Kurt/Blaine dynamic. However, Glee's loss is The Flash's gain. He's not who I would have chosen as Barry Allen, but after seeing him on Arrow, I quickly changed my mind. I've always been of the mindset that the Flash should be more lean than muscular and I think Grant has the frame for the role.

I love that we are also getting the 90's Flash actor, John Wesley Shipp, as Barry's dad. For the slightly older kids (ie - my generation) this is a nice homage to the old, if campy series. (I just pray that Mark Hamill doesn't return as the Trickster in that horrific costume). Of the rest of the cast we have Iris West and her dad who act as Barry's surrogate family after his mother's death and father's incarceration. At the moment, there is the predictable love triangle preventing Barry and Iris from hooking-up at the start. Understandable since she is practically his sister... Outside of the West family we also have a cast who, unlike DC's past CW series Arrow and Smallville, are in the know about Barry's secret identity from day one.

This is where things get interesting. Of our three STAR Labs cast members, two  of them have roots grounded in the cannon universe. Cisco Ramon, better known as Vibe, and Caitlin Snow, the latest incarnation of Killer Frost, are both directly involved with Barry and his Flash activities. Will we see them in their superhero/villain personas later in the series? My guess would be yes, otherwise why use such obvious names? The real mystery for me is the identity of Harrison Wells, played by Tom Cavanagh. The wheelchair-bound owner of STAR Labs reveals at the end that he 1) is fully capable of walking and 2) is in possession of future tech and info. My original thought after seeing the extended trailer was that he'd be revealed to be the "yellow blur" (aka- Professor Zoom) that Barry saw in his youth. However, in the pilot we meet Detective West's newest partner Eddie Thawne (and Professor Zoom's name in comics is Eobard Thawne) making me think that I'm wrong. So could Harrison be a time-traveling villain like Chronos, with an surname like Wells (who wrote the Time Machine if you're not aware) it's a possibility.

There are a few other nods to the series that people have been hyping over. There's the "Grodd" sign on a destroyed cage meaning we'll possibly see a visit from the notorious gorilla villain. There's also the bevy of hints mentioned in the future newspaper from a Wayne-Queen merger (hinting at a Batman appearance), the Flash's disappearance during a "Crisis," and the  mysterious "red skies" (a possible hint at Darkseid or Apokalypse).

I think that this is going to be a great series and, since it will be running in tandem with Arrow, we have the potential for some amazing arcs and crossovers. This is a series I'll be sure to tune in for each and every week.