TV Show Review: The Flash

Title: The Flash
Author: DC Comics
Release Date: 2014
Genre: action, adventure, superheroes, science fiction
My Rating: *****
Stacy's Rating: *****
Official Rating: TV-PG (I propose a PG-13 rating)
Age Group: 14+

Summary
Harrison Wells built a particle accelerator because, well, he's brilliant.
And Barry Allen's role model.
But let's back up. Barry Allen is an orphan adopted by a police detective after his father apparently murdered his mother (Barry believes differently). The 10 year old whose mother died is now in his twenties and working as a forensic scientist--a very good forensic scientist who, in his spare time, still tries to prove his father innocent.
Alright. Forward now.
Wells' big scientific thing explodes. That same night, Barry is hit by lightening and goes into a coma. Nine months later, he wakes up with abs and the ability to run super super fast.
Cool.
But he also discovers his first love (who he never actually approached on the topic) is dating someone else and apparently does not return his affections.
Bummer.
It keeps going! Barry discovers other people have been changed by that explosion too and now they have powers. Unfortunately, he's having a really hard time finding anyone who doesn't want to use their powers to do evil.
It's a known fact that selfish people get more selfish when big sci-fi explosions happen. And nice people like Barry?
They become superheroes.

Word of Warning
Please note that while I am not reviewing specific episodes (for the most part), I am commenting on trends the show carries. I will also do my best to comment on any problems that really stand out, even if they were only in one episode.
All these problems are very spread out over two seasons. I would like to point out that the second season is more violent, a little darker (though really, you can't be the happy go lucky  hero in a city with a vortex to another world with super villains for every long), and more intense. Not so much that I need to change the rating from season 1 to 2.

General:

• Comic book violence. Relatively non-graphic. Few deaths. When they do die, it's generally very heartbreaking.
•  Dead parents. Both Barry and Iris have death mothers.
• Injuries. Blood, broken bones, etc. While painful, these clear up pretty quickly (super fast healing and all that).
• There's a running joke that Barry can't get drunk, and this seems to be a disappointment to everyone.
• Very mild swearing. So much so that Stacy had to remind me it was there.
• One character often makes rather veiled inappropriate comments. One or two are more obvious than the rest.
• Kisses here and there.

Specific:

• A mother is kicked out of her house and daughter's life due to a drug problem that puts the daughter in danger more than once. This is all in the past and is only verbally related.
• At a low point, Barry breaks a bad guy out of jail, threatens him, and then leaves him to be caught and sentenced more harshly than before.
• A man shoots himself to save the city. Heroic, but still suicide.
• Barry watches his mother die in a horrible tear-inducing scene.
• Barry's romantic relationship gets a little too physical in two episodes. Passionate kissing and, in one scene, both characters lose their shirts while kissing passionately on the couch. This is ended rather abruptly (but by chance, not because someone was actually thinking).
• A female character gets very drunk and undresses down to her underwear in front of a male character. While this is awful (and her "did you take a peek at my goods?" comment is worse), this is also one of my favorite scenes because the male character does everything right.
• It's implied that a woman and her fiance are living together.
• A few really big violent moments: a man's head is smashed against a wall and a huge blood smear is left (season 2); people's heads get blown of by implanted bombs, we see only the stumps (season 2); an innocent girl blows up off screen after dying (season 1).

My Thoughts
If there's one thing I do when life gets crazy and I'm super busy with homework and work, it's to watch The Flash. While I may be a few days ahead of Stacy, she's usually right on my trail.
Do remember we're both full time students. I have two jobs, Stacy has one really big one. And we have various other things going on in our lives.
So when we say this is a really good show, and we make sure to stay up to date on it, you should know that it is, in fact, fantastic.

DC seems to have a dark brooding side (think Batman and Arrow) and a lighter side (think Superman). Well, the Flash falls on this lighter side. This isn't to say that horrible things are made small, or that good moral points are not made. The opposite, in fact. They're there, they're just not shrouded by all the other messy things.

Stacy says: Watch it. It's awesome. Also, it's addicting. So expect to lose half your life to Netflix. But you won't regret it.

I agree.