The Flash season 9 finale had the nearly impossible task of wrapping up the series while also doing justice to a long-awaited villain and honoring beloved characters. But Barry Allen is all about believing in the impossible, and the actors' sincerity ultimately helps the story succeed. The truncated final season stumbled after a strong start due to its reliance on interludes rather than a cohesive series arc, but Grant Gustin's last run as Barry Allen still manages to be a sweet homage to the things and people that made the CW show so iconic in the first place.
Available To Stream On Netflix
“A New World, Part Four,” which was written by showrunner Eric Wallace and Sam Chalsen and directed by Vanessa Parise, opens with Barry's unforgettable voiceover and drops viewers back into what purports to be the team's biggest battle yet. Though the finale also serves as the end of the Arrowverse as a whole, the episode wisely scales back the participants to The Flash's main characters — though Carlos Valdes' absence as Cisco Ramon is sorely felt. Nevertheless, Rick Cosnett's return as Eddie Thawne continues to make way for callbacks to the show's glory days, and the finale capitalizes on those emotional beats more than once. Candice Patton and Jesse L. Martin also get some beautiful moments, reminding audiences that Iris and Joe's father-daughter bond was once a cornerstone of the series.
On the other hand, The Flash's series finale is still slowed down by its unnecessarily large supporting cast that never really gelled together. It's hard to build excitement for a showdown between Eddie and characters like Mark Blaine, who never justified his continued presence on the show. While the actual battles in “A New World, Part Four” have fun CG elements and act as a showcase for various lightning colors and power sets, they lack the intensity of previous Big Bad standoffs. Even Chester and Allegra's romantic bliss feels unearned, despite the seasons-long slow burn it took to bring them together. The Flash never understood how to give the present its due, failing to build up characters so that they could stand on their own two feet without the leads.
As for the leads themselves, Iris West-Allen is once again robbed of the opportunity to be at the center of proceedings, but Patton makes the most of her hospital scenes. She and Gustin still sparkle in their moments together, and the emotions of welcoming a newborn to the world are keenly expressed by both of them. The impending birth of Nora West-Allen simultaneously represents a respite from the timeline-focused chaos around Barry while also reinforcing that his family is the reason he fights, triumphantly reconnecting the show with its roots in the process. In fact, most of the episode's best scenes take place near Iris' hospital bed — proving once more that The Flash's strength has always been its character dynamics, which unfortunately fell by the wayside in later seasons.
To the show's credit, however, “A New World, Part Four” does hit some decent notes with both Cecile Horton (Danielle Nicolet) and Danielle Panabaker's latest Snow sister, Khione. Both characters have previously been problematic in terms of how the series chose to employ them, but they close out their stories with a sense of satisfaction. Cecile in particular has been a difficult character to understand once The Flash began treating her as the newest team member rather than as the established matriarch, but her relationship with Joe finally gets spotlighted in a way that makes sense in this episode.
Overall, The Flash may be going out with more of a whimper than a bang, but the season 9 finale successfully uses its available resources to craft a heartfelt farewell to Barry Allen and his crew. Between the touching moments of Barry and Iris reflecting on everything they've been through to much-appreciated appearances from guest star staples such as Jay Garrick, the Arrowverse's swan song is much more sweet than bitter. Regardless of the reception the last few seasons received, the series finale serves as a testament to how Gustin captured so many hearts as the Scarlet Speedster.