WARNING: This article contains major spoilers for Season 6 of The Flash.
On Season 6 of The Flash, Barry Allen and his team have been dealing with two very different kinds of threats. On one hand, Ramsey Rosso has been this half-season's main villain as he's rapidly evolved into Bloodwork, a new villain whose full powers have yet to be revealed. On the other hand, the series is dealing with the looming threat of "Crisis on Infinite Earths," a cataclysmic event where Barry is destined to sacrifice himself to save the multiverse.
As Team Flash has been trying to contain and defeat the rising villainy of Bloodwork, they were also attempting to prepare for a life without Barry. Now, the oncoming crisis is nearly here. But before Barry can deal with that, he found himself taken over by Bloodwork, and transformed into the Negative Flash.
While the Flash's transformation has all the makings of a fantastic story, the timing of it zaps any dramatic tension it could have had.
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At the end of "The Last Temptation of Barry Allen, Pt. 1," Barry fell victim to Bloodwork's power and was taken over by the supervillain. With Ramsey's dark blood infecting him, the superhero transformed into the Negative Flash, With his hands, teeth, logo and lightning had been taken over by black, he now obeyed Bloodwork's commands.
While the CW series offered a new spin on Barry's negative transformation that's differed from the comics that inspired it, the result was relatively the same. The Negative Flash arrived, which promised a compelling turn in the series' overall story that could have easily taken multiple episodes to resolve. Unfortunately, the impending "Crisis on Infinite Earths," which is set to kick-off on Sunday, Dec. 8, essentially removed all tension from Barry's transformation.
Photos and trailers have been building up hype for the crossover for weeks, and they've all shown that Barry is no longer in his Negative state. For an event of this magnitude, the Flash was always going to appear in his most heroic form, and that certainty is what makes the transformation into Negative Flash was ill-timed. What could have been a shocking fall for Barry turned into little more than a brief detour considering he was always going to be back to his usual self in "Crisis on Infinite Earths."
The Negative Flash storyline would have benefitted from a much longer arc on the television show, whether it happened earlier in its run or even later on after "Crisis," assuming that Barry somehow survives the cosmic event. If The Flash can slow down long enough, Negative Flash could still be an exciting story that deserves to be told in full.
Airing Tuesdays at 8 p.m. on The CW, The Flash stars Grant Gustin, Candice Patton, Carlos Valdes, Danielle Panabaker, Tom Cavanagh, Jesse L. Martin, Danielle Nicolet and Hartley Sawyer.