While the finale of TED LASSO doesn't drop for a couple days yet, I think it's safe to say that the way of May 24-31, 2023 will go down as one of the all time greatest weeks of finales ever. We've had THE FLASH, MARVELOUS MRS. MAISEL and SUCCESSION already, and each of them wonderful in different ways.
I love love love finales. And one of the things I find fascinating about this current set is that in a sense they all approach the idea of the finale differently, with different goals and techniques So this week (and probably next) I'm going to dive into them, one by one.
We start with THE FLASH, which finished a 9-season run on May 24th with the end of a four-parter entitled "A New World" which brings back season one regular Eddie Thawne. Returning to the beginning in some way is a classic finale move. But THE FLASH takes that idea to a whole other level.
Eddie began the series as Iris' boyfriend and Joe's partner. But he's also pretty much screwed from the beginning. Barry and Iris are absolutely the couple of destiny for the series, and it doesn't take very long for Barry, who has only just woken from a coma, to screw things up for Eddie.
And on top of that, he discovers that his distant descendant Eobard Thawne is the series' evil supervillain the Reverse Flash. Seriously, this guy is just screwed. This kind of character who normally would be a pretty good guy except he's only there to get in the way of the main characters and therefore is actually cast as an antagonist is a major TV trope; it's the patsy, really. Or, if you will, The Eddie.
In the end, the writers try to redeem what they've done to him by giving him the final heroic turn of the season. Seeing Eobard about to kill Barry, Eddie kills himself, stopping him from ever existing, which is a pretty damn heroic thing to do.
Except even in this regard he ends up being a failure and a writers' patsy. Because Eobard comes back. Like, a lot. The Reverse-Flash is the main antagonist of the entire show.
This isn't a question that lingers over the characters or the series. We barely hear about Eddie, actually. But it is a pretty shitty way to have left the character. And so in the final four episodes, they bring Eddie back. And honestly, he's pretty messed up after he learns what's gone on, and tempted to go full evil.
But then in the finale, he once again sacrifices his pain to be the better person. But this time it doesn't result in his death. I'm not exactly sure what life in the Negative Speed Force universe looks like but it is a life. And he has finally confronted and let go of what he's lost.
So the finale becomes a way of righting a wrong, fixing an injustice.
There's another sort of "fix" here, too. Unlike its predecessor ARROW, which was a series about a very dark character slowly coming to trust and come to the light, THE FLASH presents from the start as a hopeful show, a guy who not only gets the power to do the impossible but who believes in the impossible, namely that he can prove that his father did not kill his mother. It's such a beautiful storyline.
But the thing is, his mother is still a murder victim. And the killer turns out to be the man he believes to be his friend and mentor (who then terrorizes others that he loves). And now he has powers that enable him to potentially change all that. Each of these details make the show much, much more complicated and sad. And intriguingly, in some ways the show became more about a guy who struggled against the darkness of what he had experienced. Which has a tremendous real world resonance, and personal dramatic stakes for Barry for sure, but threatened at times to overwhelm the show's foundations.
In the finale, we get this incredible moment where Barry says all this as he's trying to figure out what to do about Eddie and concluding his only real solution is to murder him. And while he's said versions of this before, there's a sense of him being overwhelmed by it all that really hits hard. It's perfect for the finale.
And his mission, as given to him by Caitlin's new identity Khione, is to believe in the impossible once again. So again, we're returning to the beginning, but this time for inspiration. And out of it we get not only the resolution of the Eddie story line, but something radically new: Barry sharing his power with three brand new speedsters. It's a bit of fan service for those who know the Flash comics, but it's also a great "fix" on what has been Barry's fundamental character problem, a belief that it's all up to him.
The series actually ends with us watching Barry run. And it's the first time in a very long time that we see Barry smiling as he does it. He's happy. It's a great end.
