15 'The Flash' Episodes That Can Be Called Masterpieces, Ranked
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No, nobody thinks that The Flash is a perfect show. However, there are some phenomenal episodes within its long, 9-season run—some can even be considered masterpieces. While, for the most part, the show was only considered masterful in its first few seasons, there are still a couple of Season 3 and onward episodes that are masterpieces.
Regardless of the season an episode originates from, these entries in The Flash saga are incredible in one way or another—or all of the ways, really—and are worth noting, even three years post-finale. The high-flying, fast-paced action and wonderful storytelling are nonstop... in these episodes, at least.
15 "Elseworlds, Part 1"
Season 5, Episode 9
The CW "Arrowverse" loved doing crossover episodes, and as the universe grew and more characters got involved, they got to go bigger and bigger. One of the best came in the form of the "Elseworlds" event, spanning across The Flash, Arrow, and Supergirl—the first part airing on the Scarlet Speedster's show. The Flash Season 5, Episode 9, "Elseworlds, Part 1" is a great introduction episode for the crossover event, and has so much fun with the premise.
When Barry and Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell) wake up as each other—they keep their own bodies, but they're known as each other now—and the rest of the world believes they've been like that forever, something has clearly gone wrong, and they need to come together to figure it out. Supergirl (Melissa Benoist) gets involved, also being incredibly confused. Seeing this premise come to life, with great performances from the three protagonists, makes for such a fun episode.
14 "Infantino Street"
Season 3, Episode 22
The Flash Season 3, Episode 22, "Infantino Street" is a great, living and breathing example of why Season 3 is so much better than people have ever given it credit for. The way this 22nd entry in the season brings the culmination of the tension regarding Iris West's (Candice Patton) potential future death to a head is excellent.
Early on in Season 3, Barry Allen (Grant Gustin) sees a vision from the future that depicts the villain of the season, Savitar (Tobin Bell and Grant Gustin), murdering the love of his life in front of his future self. From that moment on, the conflict of the season became about how to prevent Iris from meeting her terrifying end. This episode is where it comes down to the final hour, and Barry must team up with Captain Cold (Wentworth Miller) to steal a piece of technology to save Iris on the night she's supposed to die.
13 "Escape from Earth-2"
Season 2, Episode 14
After such a successful first season, the team behind The Flash had to work super hard to make sure they didn't drop the ball on Season 2. With such high expectations from audiences, they decided they were going to jump into the world of the multiverse. With an all-new Harrison Wells—"Harry"—from a parallel Earth, it was only a matter of time before Team Flash themselves went to "Earth-2."
They finally do so in The Flash Season 2, Episode 13, "Welcome to Earth-2," but when things go awry, they need to leave in the episode directly after: The Flash Season 1, Episode 14, "Escape from Earth-2." There are some awesome multiversal doppelgänger interactions here, and the stakes are high as they discover more and more about Zoom (Tony Todd) and what the truth behind him might be.
12 "Who Is Harrison Wells?"
Season 1, Episode 19
The mystery of who Harrison Wells (Tom Cavanagh) truly is may be one of the best mysteries to watch unfold in this show. While the audience finds out who he really is in "The Man in the Yellow Suit," the Flash team doesn't. Barry and co. actually discover this secret in Season 1's "Who Is Harrison Wells?"—exactly ten episodes later.
Watching them as they get closer and closer to the truth, with Wells scheming in the background—adding tension that he will discover their investigation and strike—is so engaging. The tension is massive and intense, and that makes for a plot that is unforgettable, which is needed for such an important moment in the great superhero show.
11 "I Know Who You Are"
Season 3, Episode 20
Despite the flak that Season 3 gets—especially the flak it got upon first release—it's far better than people give it credit for, especially in hindsight of the other seasons to come after. One of the best entries in Season 3 is, without a doubt, "I Know Who You Are." This is primarily because of the stellar emotional drama within it between the likes of Team Flash and their ride-or-die friend-turned-enemy, Caitlyn Snow (Danielle Panabaker), now known as Killer Frost.
The kind of emotional drama found within this episode makes it so compelling from start to finish. By this point in the series, Caitlyn has become family to not just the rest of Team Flash, but the audience, as well. So, when she goes bad, it's genuinely heartbreaking, especially when both Barry and the viewer can see the good still within her. The real highlight of this episode, though, is none other than the gigantic reveal of Savitar's identity... a temporal clone of Barry Allen himself.
10 "Flash Back"
Season 2, Episode 17
Time travel has been important to the character of The Flash since the very beginning. This is true for the first season of the CW show, too. Barry is dead-set on determining the secret to upping his speed via the methods of his nemesis, Eobard Thawne, aka The Reverse Flash. However, this causes some serious problems, not just for Barry, but for all of his friends in the past timeline.
When he goes back, the speedster accidentally gains the attention of a Time Wraith, protectors of the timeline that have a nasty, ghostly figure. Watching as Barry tries to blend in and be his last self, while Eobard slowly figures out who he really is, is so entertaining and genuinely adds to the tension of the episode.
9 "Rogue Air"
Season 1, Episode 22
Penultimate episodes can be pretty hit or miss on television, and, boy, did The Flash find a hitter in Season 1's "Rogue Air." Barry tries to save the metahumans they've imprisoned in the Particle Accelerator over the course of the season when Eobard Thawne—disguised as Harrison Wells—decides to turn it on again. However, as per usual, the plan doesn't go the way he hoped.
It's the finale of this episode that really causes it to stand out, though, as it's the big battle against Reverse Flash, who is facing not just Flash, but Arrow and Firestorm (Robbie Amell), as well. This 3-v-1 fight is abundantly exciting and proves just how powerful Reverse Flash actually is, which adds to the stakes of the season finale to come.
Collider Exclusive · 8 Questions · 2 Minutes Which Superhero Team Should You Join? Avengers · X-Men · Teen Titans · The Boys
Every team is a personality test with a uniform. One saves the world and argues about it the whole way home. One has been fighting for the right to exist since the day it formed. One is still working out who it is while the fighting happens. And one has no powers at all, plus no intention of playing fair. Eight questions decide where you actually belong.
🛡️Avengers(Marvel Studios)
🧬X-Men(Marvel)
🐦Teen Titans(DC)
💊The Boys(Prime Video)
01
What kind of power would you actually want? The power matters less than what you would be willing to do with it.
02
Why join a team at all? Nobody puts on the suit for the reason they say out loud.
03
How do you feel about the people in charge? Every team has a chain of command. Very few of them survive contact.
04
What is your role inside a group? Every roster needs the same handful of people to function.
05
How do you win a fight you should lose? This is the scene the entire film gets built around.
06
What is this work costing you? Nobody does this for free. The bill just arrives differently for everyone.
07
How should the world see your team? Half of this job is public relations, and everybody knows it.
08
The offer arrives. What makes you say yes? Eight questions in, this is the one that decides your team.
Recruitment Is Complete Your Team Is…
Four teams, four completely different reasons to put yourself in danger for strangers. This is the roster you actually belong on, what they would want from you, and what it would cost you to stay.
The Avengers
You belong where the stakes are largest and the personalities are loudest. This is a team of people who are all used to being the most important person in the room, which is exactly why it works and exactly why it keeps nearly falling apart.
- The Avengers are not friends who became a team. They are a team that slowly and reluctantly became friends, and you would recognise every stage of that process.
- You can hold your own among big egos without needing to win every exchange, which is the real entry requirement here.
- The arguing is part of the method. This group does its best thinking mid-disagreement, usually at volume, usually in a very expensive building.
- When the sky opens, they are who shows up. You would want to be standing in that line.
The X-Men
You have never had the luxury of being thanked for this. The X-Men protect a world that has never once been comfortable with them existing, and something in you understands exactly why they keep doing it anyway.
- This is the only team on the list whose central conflict is not a villain. It is being wanted gone by the same people they keep saving.
- You know what it is to be the outsider in a room and to decide, anyway, that you will not make yourself smaller so everyone else is comfortable.
- The X-Men are the most genuine found family in comics. People arrive with nowhere else to go and are never once asked to explain themselves.
- You would not be joining for the glory. There has never been any.
The Teen Titans
You do not want colleagues, you want your people. The Titans are the team where the friendship came first and the world-saving turned up afterwards as an inconvenient side effect.
- Every Titan is somebody's sidekick who decided to stop being one. That decision, not the villain of the week, is what the team is actually about.
- You would be joining people who are all working themselves out at the same time as you, which is far less lonely than being the only one.
- The Titans lose regularly. Then they eat together and come back better, which is a more honest model of growing up than any other team here manages.
- The tower would be loud, chaotic, and the first place that ever felt like yours.
The Boys
You are not asking who to trust. You worked out the answer a while ago and it was nobody in a cape. This is where you go once you have decided the people in charge need watching, and that nobody else is going to do it.
- The Boys have no powers, no mandate and no funding. What they have is leverage, patience, and a very high tolerance for consequences.
- You are the person in the room who notices the thing everybody else has quietly agreed not to mention.
- This is not a heroic team and it has never pretended otherwise. It is a group of damaged people doing necessary work in ways nobody would call clean.
- You would not sleep well. You would keep going anyway.
8 "Enter Zoom"
Season 2, Episode 6
Aside from Reverse Flash, none other than the terrifying Zoom is by far the fan favorite villain of the series. His brutality, horrifying visage, deep voice, and the fact that he is always a step ahead of the team make him a force unlike any other that owns every scene he is in. No other episode shows this better than "Enter Zoom," where Barry and the evil speedster have their first confrontation.
Zoom not only shows that he read straight through the team's plan from earlier in the episode, but he whoops Barry's butt so badly that he ends up breaking his back and parading his paralyzed body across the city. This episode features some of the best character writing for a villain in the entire show, and it's a huge reason that people fell in love with him so quickly.
7 "The Once and Future Flash"
Season 3, Episode 19
Another absolute banger from Season 3 is "The Once and Future Flash," which features Barry Allen heading not to the past this time, but to the future, in hopes of discovering how the team beats Savitar. When he gets there, though, he discovers a world unlike anything he could've imagined—one that ended in his worst nightmare: Iris West, the love of his life, dying at the hands of the armored villain.
When he finds this dark future, he has to get his future self—a man completely broken and lost—to come back and help him out, reigniting hope back into his heart. Together, they team up to take on Mirror Master (Grey Damon) and The Top (Ashley Rickards), and it is such a fun moment, especially as fans get to see the cool costume that Future Flash has equipped. The story itself is a great commentary on what loss and grief can do to even the strongest of souls as they grow, and it genuinely can be very moving.
6 "The Trap"
Season 1, Episode 20
While all of Season 1 of The Flash is great, it's the latter half of the season that really kicks things into gear and features its most memorable episodes, especially when the truth behind Harrison Wells' true identity is revealed. This secret really begins to come to a head in "The Trap," as the team tries to set a trap for Wells, using Cisco Ramon (Carlos Valdes) as bait.
The tension in this episode is beyond high, being nail-biting at every turn. By this point, audiences have already seen the brutality that Wells has and the very little issue he has with holding back. They watched as he murdered Cisco in the alternate timeline (before Barry changed the past), so using him as bait here is heart-pumping.
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