The Flash season 7 mid season review. More of the same?

New ideas?

After six exhilarating seasons of DC's The Flash, season 7 finally landed this year after a long delay due to covid.

We are already ten episodes in and there is a theme emerging, meta-humans all with a motiv to destroy Central City. Ok that's usually the narrative but you see the pattern emerging. I have to say I've lost count of the amount of times the villian has been simply talked out of destroying Central City. This after a build up of many episodes where the threat level was severe, and all it took was a matter of words. This always seems to be the cheap way out, especially if it's repeatably used to that affect.

Talking about villians we know that Reverse Flash was the original villian, known obviously for his speed. Then we had Zoom in season two, and Savitar in season three. Clifford Davoe (The Thinker) was actually a fresh change up in season four, as he had no speed powers, just a super enhanced brain. 

I feel like they will always come back to speed villians every so often, as it gives the protagonist an equal chance against The Flash in terms of a balanced fight. They usually just have some poor backstory that you have to accept as their reasons for being fast. Time remnants, future and past versions of themselves and all other kinds of anomaly exist in the multi-verse so you don't really overthink their reasons for using their powers for evil, rather than good. 

I like that The Flash explores the comic villians and we get a great mixture of mostly strange individuals each with their own agenda. I do feel like we are in need of a new, badass villian to really take season 7 off. It still doesn't feel like we've seen the main protagonist yet, and I hope it takes off soon with Team Flash being pushed all the way. 

In season 7 so far, i feel that some important characters have lost their way slightly, with their importance to Team Flash non relevant as the city is faced with more and more meta-humans. Joe in particular seems to have less screen time, when you consider his significance to Barry, and how he was always a second father to him, he just seems to be more of a pop up character. Cecile and her ability to read minds was a useful tool, but I feel they've utilized this to the max and her mind reading isn't as frequent as it was (thank god). 

The lack of a Harrison Wells is a huge miss, and I don't think The Flash will be the same once he and Cisco leave for good. Harrison Wells (Tom Cavanagh) and Cisco Ramon (Carlos Valdez) are two of the series original cast who have been in it from the start. The ommision of these two will hurt fans and im not sure if it will ever be the same without them. I do like Chester and I feel he brings fresh humour and something new, which is always important, but I think for certain actors/ characters you really take to them and they become the glue of the series. No matter what happens now, The Flash won't be the same without these two great characters.

Going back to season seven so far, one character I'm not too keen on is Nora aka The Speedforce. I don't like this story where they are born from Barry Allen creating the artificial Speedforce, and they are his 'children'. 

We are only a few episodes away from Cisco leaving, and having lost Harrison Wells I'm really not looking forward to any future Flash episodes without these two.

As I've said, I don't feel like season seven has really got underway, and it almost feels like Nora and the Speedforce is a build up to something bigger. This is what I'm hoping for at least.