The Flash has things I hate in a network show: men with square jaws and women with coltish figures, their average age suggesting recent graduation from the Mouseketeers; and childhood flashbacks requiring child actors to emoting loss, grief, and rage.
And yet…
The lead is disarmingly clumsy and charming while his supporting cast is intelligently characterised, subtly acted, and sharply defined. And those flashbacks… they gave me a lump in the throat, goddammit.
There's honesty in the writing that's connecting with me. Where Arrow is all shadowed clenched jaws and adrenalised high drama, The Flash, with the lightest of touches from the its makers, seems to have really captured lightning in a bottle.
