Narm / The Flash (2014)

• General:
  • In general, any time in the series when characters express doubt about whether or not "Barry could run that fast." In the early episodes of the show it is somewhat understandable, but we see him outrun actual lightning to save Wells in an early episode. From then on, we often hear of "Mach-2" or "Mach-3" as being some amazingly high limit for Barry, which makes no sense when Barry has already traveled at a notable fraction of the speed of light.
    • In later seasons, Barry's insistence on trying to keep Barry Allen and the Flash as separate identities to people who are working closely with Team Flash. Barry, Cisco and Caitlin will approach someone to ask for help or to offer assistance, and then The Flash (in full costume), Cisco and Caitlin will meet with the same person in STAR Labs 30 minutes later. Considering it almost approaches Running Gag levels how frequently he reveals his identity as a way to gain someone's trust, it can feel quite silly to have him maintain the facade for several episodes at a time.
  • The CG Barry Allen running at speed can get pretty goofy.
  • Some of Barry's costume redesigns look incredibly goofy, specifically, there are a few costumes where the cowl is bulkier, which just makes Barry's head look odd. At one time, the chin strap was also removed, which is more comic accurate and works within the medium, but when applied to a real human, just gives off the illusion that the wearer has a double chin.
    • In a similar vein, some of Thawne's later suits have definitely raised eyebrows, despite being much more comic accurate. The beloved original costume admittedly took a lot of liberties with the design, and had the benefit of being obscured by the vibrating face and red eyes, which offset a lot of the inherent silliness in the costume. It, like Barry's costume, was also made of a darker, more textured leathery material, whereas the newer, more comic accurate suits look far more like regular spandex, and as a result, much more cheap-looking.
  • Barry's habit of engaging in friendly banter with almost every one of his enemies, rather than just grabbing them at super-speed immediately. It was understandable in his first one or two seasons as a rookie superhero, but the fact that he's still doing it in later seasons, after countless examples of times when his opponents use that time to escape, falls squarely into this trope.
  • Even as late as Season 8, there will be moments when Barry is "too slow" to catch a bad guy/do whatever he needs to do. While this is at least somewhat understandable in terms of racing other speedsters, the fact that he was able to outrace lightning fairly early in Season 1 means that it feels pretty weird for him to be too slow to do just about anything, or to have to struggle to reach Mach 2 or 3 in later seasons when lightning goes much faster than that.
• Season 1:
  • When Multiplex gives a group beatdown to Barry, you don't even have to be paying attention to notice that at least one of his clones was literally punching thin air. Not even punching, more like slowly swinging his forearm.
  • The Kid Barry flashbacks can cross into this, largely due to the weak dialogue the kid actors are given and how the scenes play out. The flashback where Tony bullies Barry in "The Flash Is Born" is especially silly. All Tony does is push Barry, causing him to stumble backwards into the wall, and Barry is down. Tony claims he gave Barry a "beating," but that hardly seems like a beating at all.
  • "Flash vs. Arrow" has an interesting splitting the difference with Roy G. Bivolo. He keeps that cringe-inducing name, but they draw the line at calling him the Rainbow Raider, turning it into Caitlin's pitiful attempt at giving him a supervillain name.
  • In "Fallout," Ronnie gives a critical message in Morse Code in a completely serious voice, "Tap, tap. Tap, tap. Tap..." and so on. It's as silly as it sounds.
  • The show generally does a good job at giving little nudges and such to the counterparts some characters have in the comics (and may turn out like in the future). But Caitlin saying that Ronnie thought they were so different that they were "like fire and ice" is just a little too narmy to hear.
  • Eddie's shouting Joe's name when Mardon pulls Joe out of a window by controlling the wind in "Out of Time." It lasts too long and his weird pronunciation make it impossible to take seriously.
  • By just the end of the first season, the idea that the Flash is Barry's secret identity is a complete joke, with an exponentially increasing number of people learning about it until Joe is literally calling him "Barry" in front of criminals they just took down. And yet they still insist that Iris is apparently the one person in the entire world who can't possibly know, acting like it would kill her on the spot.
  • The ending scene of the episode "Who is Harrison Wells?" loses its drama for non-fans of Battlestar Galactica (2003) when, upon seeing the future newspaper feed, Cisco mutters, "What the frak?" Those not familiar with the sci-fi series don't recognize that Cisco is just being a geek per usual.
  • Iris asking the meaning of the radar dots representing Barry and Grodd probably worked on paper. Unfortunately, the effects guys decided to make the dots clearly labelled on the screen, giving the impression that she can't read.
  • The much-advertised return of Firestorm and Arrow in "Rogue Air" ends up having no set-up in the episode itself, followed by their immediate departure. They just walk off and leave, barely saying goodbye, as if they never showed up (and really not helped by Ronnie's skip to catch up to Oliver, looking like the Amell boys were splitting a cab or something). It feels like a Deus ex Machina or an Ass Pull, only far more silly because this was the one moment they advertised the episode by the most.
  • The finale of Season One features the inexplicable use of Caitlin as The Watson to explain what singularities are, instead of non-scientists like Iris or Joe. And that's assuming they even needed one at all, given the kind of people who'd be watching a show like this in the first place. Especially when another contemporary DC movie Man Of Steel has the General quickly whipping "like a black hole?" when they suggested creating a singularity against Zod's ship with Clark's pod.
• Season 2:
  • The "Flash signal" is fine as a little reference. The average viewer will immediately notice that the thing, by all logic, should have projected a Reverse-Flash symbol onto the clouds...
  • Captain Cold's gun being able to freeze laser beams is a breach of science so blatant that it even stands out on this show. Until you actually look up the science and find that it IS possible...
  • Snart's dad killing one of his cronies by blowing his head up should be horrifying, but the guy getting his head blown up just sounds kind of bored about the whole thing.
  • Almost every scene with Francine. Her actress just overacts so hard that it becomes hard to take her seriously.
  • "Legends of Today" has so much plot to chew through that Kendra's introduction to both the Flash and Arrow teams is treated absurdly casually. First Cisco rather unbelievably blows Barry's identity to her, then with just a single edit she's in Star Labs with the whole team, and then all of Team Arrow apparently has no problem with her knowing all about them too.
  • At the end of "Potential Energy" Eobard Thawne arrives in our present and asks Gideon "Where the hell am I?" But Gideon apparently has a sense of drama and says nothing at all as the music flares up, while Thawne just keeps staring at his hand.
  • "Trajectory" has Team Flash coming to the realization that "Jay Garrick" is Zoom, after Barry shatters the display case with the helmet for Cisco to "vibe," when he could have opened it normally instead (the dramatic music that plays during this scene and Cisco dropping the helmet in slow motion after instead of putting it down certainly doesn't help). But how does the episode ultimately end? With Barry suddenly speeding away, running miles without hesitation to a faraway cliff, and then angrily ripping his mask off to scream his lungs out. It's as over-dramatic and ridiculous as it sounds. The fact that it's nearly identical to a joke from The Big Bang Theory doesn't help. Even worse, beyond their first few episodes Barry and Jay didn't really have much to do with each other on a personal level, yet Barry is reacting like he's been stabbed in the back by his oldest and closest friend.
  • The origin story of Zoom, in which Hunter's father is wearing his old war helmet for no reason as all as he abuses and murders his wife, followed by a downright Dickensian scene where Hunter is dropped off at an orphanage with the social worker sneering, "He's all alone."
    • From the same episode, Zoom has to ask how the team figured out his identity, when you'd think the biggest risk of exposing it he ever took would stick in his mind.
  • The "villain" Griffin Grey comes off slightly less intimidating when you find out that he shares a similar name to Grey Griffin the famous voice actress, rendering anytime the characters call out his name unintentionally humorous.
  • Zoom having flashbacks in every single conversation he has with Caitlin feels like a running gag after a while.
  • Henry's reveal that Garrick was his mother's maiden name. It's clearly setting up something for later, and is better than whatever that is being a complete Ass Pull, but it still comes off as a very contrived line, stretching belief that Barry wouldn't already know this tidbit.
  • The ending of "Rupture". The team tries to give The Flash his speed back, only to apparently kill him instead. They react with well-acted, mostly silent horror. But then Zoom shows up, takes a look around, and in his creepy villain voice, tells us what we just saw:
  Zoom: You thought you could give The Flash his speed back? Well done. You killed him instead.
  • Greg Finley a.k.a. Tony Woodward trying to walk like a zombie after the character's short-lived resurrection looks nothing but incredibly stupid.
  • When Black Siren, Laurel Lance's Earth-2 villainous counterpart, shows up, Wells asks the team if they know her. Caitlin replies that they "loved her." Which, would be a reasonable response from True Companions...except for the fact that, save for Cisco, none of Team Flash had a direct conversation with her on-screen. Hell, Caitlin in particular never shared a scene with Laurel period, so her delivering the line is particularly odd.
• Season 3:
  • In "Attack on Gorilla City" Solovar uses Mind Control telepathy and speaks through Cisco. This is supposed to have a psychological intimidation effect of seeing a friend being possessed, but Carlos Valdes' attempt at impersonating a deep gorilla voice makes the whole scene either amusing or cringeworthy. While Tom Cavanagh does a somewhat better job as Harry Wells being controlled by Grodd, it's ruined by the fact that Grodd had no reason to use Harry since he shows up right outside the prison door to say the final line. It really doesn't help that the obvious real reason Grodd and Solovar use the humans to speak is because of a case of Real Life Writes the Plot, as the show only has enough budget for a limited amount of CGI gorilla shots.
  • The climatic scene in "The Wrath of Savitar" is hard to take seriously when Barry just stands afar dumbstruck instead of preventing Wally from getting absorbed into the Speed Force. Even if Barry couldn't save Wally due to Rule of Drama, fans agree that Barry should've been shown trying to do something instead of standing around.
  • Malcolm Merlyn, a previously-established vile villain from Arrow and a member of the Legion of Doom on Legends of Tomorrow, plays a singing bartender in "Duet" despite Kara never having encountered him face to face before. It also really doesn't help that Barry has to awkwardly explains who he is to Kara for anyone confused as to who the character is. Granted, part of this reaction also comes from those who have had limited exposure to the rest of John Barrowman's body of work; Barrowman was well-known for his work in music and theater, with Merlyn being a stark departure from most of his other roles.
  • Barry's hair in the bad future. It's just too silly looking to take seriously.
  • The Arc Fatigue of Savitar's identity reaches its apex of silliness when an episode's final scene has a whole minute-long sequence of him stepping out of his armor, the music dramatically swelling, and then we still don't see who it is.
• Season 4:
  • The overuse of #feminism, which was seen as preachy and out of place by some. Making matters worse, in light of Andrew Kreisberg's harassment and assault accusations and subsequent firing, the message comes across as disingenuous, too.
  • In the first episode featuring Amunet, she apparently carries around a bucket of metal pieces she needs in order to use her powers. This results in scenes where she slowly reaches over to the bucket, then slowly draws the metal out of it to form a metal gauntlet, and then is finally ready to attack, all while her opponent just stands there watching. Most of the time her opponent could have taken her out easily long before she was ready. Wisely, later episodes with Amunet in it omit the bucket entirely.
  • Every single thing about the Fiddler's awful attempt at a Southern accent.
  • The fact that the Fiddler forgets about the fact that she doesn't need her fiddle to channel her powers (established earlier in that same episode) and so just dramatically stands there crying while Thinker approaches and takes over her body makes the whole scene hard to take seriously.
• Season 5:
  • Every single second of Chris Klein's "Rahr, I'm a big scary monster!" performance as Cicada. He's seriously on the level of a goofy dad playing with his kids, and a flashback to when he was just a regular guy shows that Klein is perfectly capable of a more nuanced performance, so it just comes off like he's being this silly on purpose for some reason.
• Season 6:
  • As Bloodwork, Sendhil Ramamurthy is given a distorted voice to play up the chilling effect. However, when he assumes his giant mutated behemoth form he still has the same voice he had as a human, which comes off as jarring and oddly amusing.
• Season 7:
  • Having not one, but many villains being defeated with a speech pleading for their kindness is more laughable than dramatically impactful.
  • It was one thing for Iris to hold hands with Eva (who shared the same powerset at the time) to give her the power boost to wipe out her mirror duplicate army. But the writers laying on The Power of Love so thick that Barry joined in so they could actually use care bear stare to destroy said army is so cheesy it's laughable.
  • Chester's You Are Better Than You Think You Are speech to the villain in episode 6 feels a bit like this, given how frequent those kind of speeches are in this show.
  • The Speed Force, a larger-than-life, fundamental force powering the very universe, that has so far been portrayed as mostly dealing in Blue-and-Orange Morality, acting like a regular human has been met with this response by some fans.
  • Chillblaine's Shirtless Scene. Given how little he was involved in the bar fight, it made no sense for him to take off and change his shirt other than Mr Fan Service for Frost (and maybe some viewers). Not to mention the on the nose song "Hot in Here" by Nelly makes it all the sillier.
  • While Barry and Iris technically did give birth to the new Forces, the "children" allegory being taken so far to the point that Joe lectures Barry to treat the new Forces and their hosts as his actual children (and the other Forces calling them Mom and Dad, despite the fact that they're all roughly the same age) also has shades of this.
  • While Cisco wanting to do more with his life than work at STAR Labs is very understandable, the fact that it is his greatest fear, as opposed to seeing his loved ones die, or reliving his brother's death, or being killed by Thawne, can tip into this.
  • The lightsaber battle in the season finale for a lot of folks. While speedsters being able to throw lightning was generally accepted, many feel that the idea of speedsters somehow being able to "shape" lightning into butterflies or swords is just too ridiculous even for a comic book show.
• Season 8:
  • The classic STAR Labs hallway You Are Better Than You Think You Are speeches are getting really wearying to the viewers, as they've gone from a few a season at first to practically once an episode.
  • Bart breaks down crying because he messed up the timeline and thinks this means he isn't worthy to be the Flash. Hoo boy...
  • In the same episode, the timeline is apparently fragile enough that moving someone out of the way of a bullet, rather than moving the bullet itself, is enough to cause a major change.
  • The mourning scene at the end of episode 13 can feel overly dramatic and weepy, similar to Stein's death scene back in the "Crisis on Earth-X."
• Season 9:
  • The fact that Team Flash shows more grief over Mark's death than Caitlin's feels more than a little off.
  • Jenna barely reacting at all to a window exploding right in front of her makes her acting feel very wooden.
  • Red Death's Villainous Breakdown(s), with it being impossible to take Javicia Leslie seriously with her screaming her head off like a child over every setback.
  • The sad music that plays while Iris talks to Allegra about her fears of Barry disappearing. While the dialogue itself is reasonable, it feels very unlikely at this point that the writers would actually not let him live out the rest of his life with his family, so the music comes across as overdone.
  • Khione's pacifistic, idealistic speech in the final episode about how nature is all about balance and cooperation. While it's true in a broad, general sense, as anyone who knows anything about the natural world will tell you, nature is also all about animals fighting, killing, and eating each other.