Series The Flash: While Season 1 was amazing, Season 2 has been bad.
I enjoyed Season 1 of The Flash. While it did have some glaring flaws (Iris West being Locked Out of the Loop until episode 21 being one of them), it was an enjoyable Season.
Season 2 is when things got worse. There were a lot of problems with the Second Season of the show=
Shift in tone: The Flash is suppose to be a lighthearted show compared to its parent show, Arrow. Because it neared the darkness of Arrow, things were not as enjoyable.
Repetition of plot points: Season 2 just repeating every major plot point of Season 1- the main bad guy is a villainous speedster who replaces a good person, takes his name and then proceeds to pose as the hero's mentor with the purpose of making him faster so he can take his speed. Another plot point being repeated is that the hero's love interest is actively being Locked Out of the Loop.
Pacing: Not unlike Arrow Season 3, this was a problem for this season. Things were dragged out for way to long-
1. We should have known the identity of Zoom in Episode 9 of Season 2 instead of Episode 15. If we did, it would have been on par with Season 1 Episode 9.
2. Wally West should have known Barry's secret identity in Episode 18. If he found out then, I think it would have increased his gratefulness towards Barry (the dude's a speedster and he went so far as to give up his speed to save him) and we could have had more significant bonding between them.
3. On a related note, we should have had signs of Wally having super speed in the Season finale and along with that we should have seen signs of Wally donning the mantle of Kid Flash in Season finale as well instead of dragging it out for another season.
4. The biggest example of bad pacing is the identity of the iron masked prisoner that Zoom was hold hostage. We should have known his identity ' 'earlier' ' than the season finale. Dragging out the reveal till the final episode did not help matters.
Decisions made by the showrunners. There were some decisions made by the people running the show that I felt was akin to shooting oneself in the foot:
1. Killing off Henry Allen. Season 1 was all about clearing his name and getting him out of prison. Having him die in penultimate episode of the Season rendered 75% of Season 1 moot.
2. The above decision does not even hold a torch to what Barry does in the Season 2 finale: He goes back in time to save his mom thus rendering both Seasons 1 and 2 moot at once. This one infuriates me. If the writers wanted Flashpoint to come from this, they should have had Barry save his mom in the Season 1 finale so we could have Flashpoint in the beginning of Season 2 (it would be better than the trash got we got for Season 2).
Those are the things that I think made The Flash Season 2 a bad season compared to Season 1. Hopefully in Season 3, the show that I fell in love with returns.
Series Season 3 is rather mediocre
The past seasons are not perfect, but are much better than this mess.
There is too much romantic melodrama about Barry and Iris. The chapters focused too much in that Barry proposed marriage to Iris in a hasty way or that Barry's sense of modesty doesn't let him have sex with Iris in front of Joe (I'm not kidding). This is supposed to be a superhero series, not a telenovela; come on, even telenovelas would have done better things. What makes one of these subplots infuriating is that a ring of discord wasn't in the Futureshadowing because Iris gave it to Joe.
This season mishandled many characters.
H.R. was mistreated as a disposable character; noble as his Heroic Sacrifice was, it was just an excuse to spare Iris and bring back Harry. The characters do show some respect for him, but his disposable status was very obvious. Tracy was reduced to a love interest for H.R. and was only used in the last chapters. The New Rogues just have Mirror Master and the Top, who aren't menacing enough and were sidelined as I said. The Husks were mishandled, especially Clariss, who could have been used to fill Savitar's prison.
Savitar is a big offender, as he lacks the appeal Thawne and Zoom had. Design and acting aside, there are no good qualities on him. His plan is clearly doomed to fail from the first second, as the timeline would change. He gives too much of a pointless focus to Iris. He should have been far more menacing than that. In the goal of breaking Barry, he should have sought to hurt his friends more. And they just had to weaken him so Team Flash could defeat him. Thawne and Zoom aren't the best characters ever, but they were far more effective as villains, as they were a bigger menace for the team and the world overall, not just a super menace for ONE character.
The episodes with Gorilla Grodd were too preachy for their own good. It had just Iris and Harry constantly saying that you should not kill, but be merciful. Lethal force has been used before and they don't bat an eye. Another problem is that in the fight against Solovar, Cisco and Caitlin tell Barry what to do as if he was a dumb. Doing so tarnishes credibility for the hero. As of Season 3, they could give him ideas, not make him too dependent on Mission Control.
The Savitar subplot dragged too much. Revealing his identity earlier would have been more impacting. This was worsened by giving too much focus on just one character who wasn't going to be killed anyway.
I will say some good things. The newcomers in general were likeable, excluding the so-called New Rogues, Edward Clariss and Savitar. The effects were cooler than in past seasons.