TV REVIEWS: FTN Reviews The Flash Season 9 Episode 10: A New World Part One

So here we are…in the final arc of the final season of The Flash…and…meh? Seriously, I don’t know what to make of “A New World Part One” or the things that it’s teasing. We should be on the edge of our seats trying to figure out how everything is going to end…and I’m not, because once again, the season is more about retreading ground and making it clear that certain things aren’t going to change versus having life-threatening stakes. Arrow did magnificently with Oliver’s “last adventure” because it tied directly into Crisis on Infinite Earths, then the potential future-style spinoff, and then the grand finale where a true “happy ending” was given (more or less.) But with The Flash…we’re not getting that, and it’s hard to see them course-correcting based on what happened in this episode.

In “A New World Part One,” the crux is that Barry was taken back to the year 2000 on the exact day that his mother died. He doesn’t know how it happened or who sent him there, and all attempts to get out of this period fail. Things only get worse when he finds out that both Thawne and the Negative Speed Force are there for different reasons. Thawne to kill kid Barry, and the Negative Speed Force to kill adult Barry.

On the surface, this would be interesting…but it was anything but. While it was great seeing the OG Reverse Flash again…you knew he was going to fail from the outset. The moment Barry said that Thawne’s plan was to kill his child self I was like, “Wait, that’s not going to happen, not a chance.” Sure enough, I was right, and all that was added to that day was Barry’s closure. I’ll get to that later. As for the Negative Speed Force, if that is what it really is…I’m honestly not sold, it was as basic a villain as you could get. It apparently has the power to pull Barry out of time, which Thawne could never do, and yet it can’t even kill Barry with its own power? Furthermore, knocking the blue crystal (which many feel is the link to Cobalt Blue, hence why I’m not convinced it’s the Negative Speed Force) away to stop everything? That’s it? There has to be more to this. There has to be. There NEEDS to be!!!

Ironically, the only positive from this episode in the large scale was Barry’s closure about his parent’s death. I wasn’t sold at first, because they were REALLY trying to make it clear that he wasn’t going to get away from his folks in the past, but him saying “what he would say to his parents” to them was nice. As was his chat with Thawne about how he can finally let things go because he was the one who saved himself so long ago (which we all knew, but it hit harder here) and he owed it all to Eobard because in his attempt to “make him suffer,” he got to spend one more day with his parents. It was a nice twist to their relationship, and I can see why they wanted to give Barry that kind of “ending” to his parents so that he can move on as he’s about to be a parent.

That being said, there was so much out of place or out of context here that it’s almost ludicrous that it’s being done in the FINAL SEASON. Such as Allegra getting a super suit NOW instead of in other seasons when she was fighting LOTS MORE. And do we even need to talk about that dumb outfit? Seriously, what the heck, Chester? Also, Snow’s 4th wall-breaking letter writing? Where the heck did that come from?

As for Thawne, his promise about tormenting Flash throughout eternity rang hollow because of what he does after he becomes Wells…and we know his fate. And technically, it wasn’t the same Thawne! And then the “recreation” scene with “Dr. Gilmore” was just like, “really?”

In the end, “A New World Part One” did anything but create a new world, and only raised questions about what the finale is going to be like…and not in the good way.

2.5/5