THE FLASH “Into the Void” Review

The Flash — “Into The Void” — Image Number: FLA601b_0020r.jpg — Pictured: Carlos Valdes as Cisco Ramon — Photo: Jeff Weddell/The CW — © 2019 The CW Network, LLC. All rights reserved

The Flash “Into the Void” Review

By Justin Carter

It’s the middle of October, which means it’s time for the Arrowverse shows to come out of their various caves and step into the spotlight for another eight months of television. With the arguable exception of Arrow, The Flash is in an interesting position this year thanks to its position as one of the central building blocks to the upcoming Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover. But rather than get bogged down in franchise management, as was the case for much of its second season’s earlier run, the show uses its sixth season premiere to get into the swing of things and set up everyone’s story for the season. 

The show has kicked off each season with a villain to start things strong, and “Into the Void” is no exception. Thanks to a live streamer named Chester cobbling together technology, black holes have started popping up in Central City, eventually revealed to be Chester’s own consciousness linked to the aforementioned holes. It’s interesting to just watch Team Flash try and fight a threat less physical than their normal MO, and it’s worth it all for the final showdown where Cisco plays Queen’s “Flash” as Barry speeds into the black hole, in what’s easily the best needle drop moment in the whole enterprise. 

In between all the black hole madness, the various members of Team Flash are some degree of “not okay,” with Barry and Iris ignoring the fact that they both had their daughter die in their arms just a few months ago. It’s a very interesting thing to see what is essentially two superhero parents going through grief as defined by the superhero cycle of death, with Iris wanting to keep Nora’s jacket until her eventual return and both of them knowing that she’ll come back as a Nora, but not the one who risked breaking time for them. 

Meanwhile, Caitlin and Cisco both have to start learning how to live new lives, sort of. Now that he lacks his superpowers, Cisco’s got to deal with his choice to be a regular guy, in a very short moment where he complains that he can’t just teleport to his date instantly like he used to. Caitlin comes to the realization that Killer Frost needs to…get a life, basically, and actually have one beyond just fighting bad guys and delivering one liners. There’s something interesting being planted here for the both of them that could provide nice side stories for the season. 

Thanks to everything from the last season, the Crisis is set to occur for Team Flash on Dec. 10, which is also when the show’s portion of the crossover will air. The Monitor shows up to make it quite clear that Barry will die to save billions, but the bulk of the episode is devoted to setting up the new villain for the season, Bloodwork, a relatively new villain to the Flash mythos. Heroes’ Sendhil Ramamurthy has the goal of playing Ramsey Rosso, an old friend of Caitlin’s who uses dark matter to fight the disease that just killed his mom. Reports have suggested he’ll only be around for the first half before the show moves on to a new baddie, so if he ends up being a bloody mess, at least he won’t take up the whole season. 

Additional Notes

• Ralph is the only one who got to have an actual summer vacation, which meant dressing up like James Bond and trying to track down Sue Dearbon. 
• Of course there’s another Book of Ralph, and of course he’s going to try and be Killer Frost’s life coach. (On that note: how do we feel about KF’s new costume? I thought it was fine.)
• In case you haven’t heard: a lot of people are coming to Crisis, one of them being Ryan Choi, aka the Atom II, played by Supernatural alum Osric Chau. 
• Regarding Batwoman and Supergirl’s premieres (I’ve yet to fully see Black Lightning’s), I thought they were both fine and am interested in seeing where they go.