After rewatching The CW's The Flash, I think I know why the quality of the Arrowverse series dropped, and there is one culprit. The Flash had a nine-season run on The CW from 2014 to 2023, showcasing the hero's journey of Grant Gustin's Barry Allen alongside several crossovers with some DC mainstays like Green Arrow and Supergirl. The first three seasons of The Flash are considered by many as the show's peak, with some even claiming that they represent the golden era of the series due to its strong storytelling and compelling main villains (Reverse Flash, Zoom, and Savitar). However, it went downhill beginning in Season 4 due to a wrong decision by the show's creative team.
Following the three-season run of showcasing high-stakes antagonists who felt like dark mirrors to Barry Allen due to all of them being evil speedsters, The Flash Season 4 delivered a massive shift by breaking this formula, introducing a non-speedster villain in the form of Clifford DeVoe (aka the Thinker).
Admittedly, The Flash broke the trend because they felt that the fans were getting tired of the repetitive speedster villain trope. However, this move backfired drastically because it somewhat exposed the show's weakness by pushing a non-speedster villain like the Thinker to the forefront.
While The Flash Season 4 did embrace creativity by thinking outside the box in terms of incorporating metahuman villains and allowing the Thinker to steal their powers throughout the season, it felt repetitive, and it didn't save the lackluster final battle that derailed the fourth chapter's momentum. This was on top of the fact that there were no personal stakes because there was no established rivalry or emotional connection to Barry and the rest of Team Flash.
Still, there were some saving graces, such as Barry Allen's prison storyline and the Crisis on Earth-X storyline (which many consider the best Arrowverse crossover).
After Season 4 dropped the ball, the trend continued in Season 5 when The Flash introduced Cicada as the main villain, who is another non-speedster big bad. The return of Reverse Flash, the introduction of Nora West-Allen, and the inclusion of time travel didn't save the fifth season at all, despite introducing these fresh elements.
Cicada lacked the charisma that the likes of Reverse Flash and Zoom had in the first two seasons, and it also didn't help that the midseason twist introduced another Cicada, making things more confusing for casual viewers.
While Season 5 tried to course-correct the mistakes of the previous season by raising the stakes due to the connection to the Flash family legacy and Eobard Thawn's master manipulation, it still couldn't escape the pitfalls that consistently became a problem in Season 4.
Both Seasons 4 and 5 suffered from the villain-of-the-week fatigue, and sidelining Barry in favor of giving other members of Team Flash a chance at the spotlight felt forced.
Many fans of the show agreed that The Flash dropped off in quality around Season 6 and 7. For example, Grant Gustin disliked a key sequence in Season 7 where the speedsters wielded a lightsaber formed from lightning, but The CW still refused to remove the scene.
While the COVID-19 pandemic was partly to blame, the lack of consistency and villain choice that began in Season 4 was the beginning of the end of the series, leading to less compelling stories in future seasons.
The Flash Wasted Its Final Season (& It Should've Saved the Show)
The Flash Season 9 had a lot of potential to save the show, mainly due to it being the final season. However, it failed to recapture the magic of the first three seasons since it leaned too hard on nostalgia rather than giving Grant Gustin's Barry Allen a perfect send-off.
Aside from highlighting a central villain, Season 9 introduced several key threats, such as Red Death, Bloodwork, notable rogues, and Cobalt Blue. It felt rushed and underwhelming because there were so many things going on in the plot.
It also didn't help that the final battle brought back the main speedster villains of The Flash, only for them to be dispatched quickly by Team Flash, making it less believable and anticlimactic from a fan standpoint.
Still, there were strong episodes, such as the full circle moment of Barry going back in time to save his past self during the day Reverse Flash killed his mom, Nora, and Oliver Queen's one-day comeback, but it didn't exactly save the season.
