The Flash (2014 series)

The Flash is a 2014 live-action CW television series. As of 2019 it has five seasons and 113 episodes.

Barry Allen was just 11 years old when his mother was killed in a bizarre and terrifying incident and his father was falsely convicted of the murder. With his life changed forever by the tragedy, Barry was taken in and raised by Detective Joe West, the father of Barry's best friend, Iris. Now, Barry has become a brilliant, driven and endearingly geeky CSI investigator, whose determination to uncover the truth about his mother's strange death leads him to follow up on every unexplained urban legend and scientific advancement that comes along. Barry's latest obsession is a cutting edge particle accelerator, created by visionary physicist Harrison Wells and his S.T.A.R. Labs team, who claim that this invention will bring about unimaginable advancements in power and medicine. However, something goes horribly wrong during the public unveiling, and when the devastating explosion causes a freak storm, many lives are lost and Barry is struck by lightning. After nine months in a coma, Barry awakens to find his life has changed once again - the accident has given him the power of super speed, granting him the ability to move through Central City like an unseen guardian angel. Though initially excited by his newfound powers, Barry is shocked to discover he is not the only "meta-human" who was created in the wake of the accelerator explosion - and not everyone is using their new powers for good. In the months since the accident, the city has seen a sharp increase in missing people, unexplained deaths and other strange phenomena. Barry now has a renewed purpose - using his gift of speed to protect the innocent, while never giving up on his quest to solve his mother's murder and clear his father's name. For now, only a few close friends and associates know that Barry is literally the fastest man alive, but it won't be long before the world learns what Barry Allen has become... The Flash.

Tropes

• Action Girl — Lisa Snart
• Adorkable — Barry Allen and Cisco Ramon
• Badass Normal — Joe West
• Brainy Brunette — Barry Allen, Caitlin Snow, Cisco Ramon, Harry Wells and Hartley Rathaway.
• Cute Bookworm — Caitlin Snow
• Five-Man Band — At the start of the series it was these five people:
  • The Hero — Barry Allen/The Flash
  • The Lancer — Cisco Ramon/Vibe
  • The Chick/The Medic — Caitlin Snow/Frost and sometimes the villain Killer Frost
  • The Smart Guy/The Mentor — "Harrison Wells" (actually Eobard Thawne/Reverse-Flash) in the first season, followed by various Wells incarnations from the multiverse, most prominently Harry Wells from Earth-2
  • Team Dad — Joe West, police detective and the team's law-enforcement liaison
  • Sixth Ranger — Iris West becomes this gradually as she finds out Barry's Secret Identity
• Freak Lab Accident — Barry, although it turns out not to have been an accident after all, Cisco Ramon and Ronnie Raymond
• Good Thing You Can Heal — Caitlin often has this reaction to Barry's severe injuries on missions
• Heroic BSOD — 1st: Barry can't save his mother's life even though he goes back in time and has to live with that choice, resulting in him distancing himself from everyone in his life for 6 months. 2nd: his father's murdered right in front of him by Zoom and he does save his mother and lives in an Alternate Reality for 3 months.
• Hot Scientist — Caitlin Snow, Barry Allen, Cisco Ramon, Hartley Rathaway, Harry Wells, Eowells Thawne, Ray Palmer and Felicity Smoak.
• Hot Scoop — Linda Park
• "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight — Barry, when he comes up against Caitlin who's been taken over by Killer Frost in Season 3.
• Identity Impersonator — Among many, the villain "Everyman" shape-shifts into Barry Allen and promptly kisses Caitlin Snow
• Not Blood Siblings — Barry marries his adoptive sister, Iris.
• Power Nullifier — Team Flash manage to create a way to siphon off Barry's powers completely and give them to their enemy, Zoom, under duress
• Reckless Sidekick — Wally West at the start of his tenure, although he eventually pares down the impulsiveness a bit
• Rogues Gallery — Leonard Snart/Captain Cold, Mick Rory/Heatwave, Lisa Snart/Golden Glider, Eobard Thawne/Reverse-Flash, Hunter Zolomon/Zoom, Earth-2 Linda Park/Dr. Light, Gorilla Grodd, King Shark
• Science Hero — Caitlin Snow, Cisco Ramon and, mostly in the beginning of the series, Barry Allen.
• Secret Identity — Barry Allen, Cisco Ramon and Caitlin Snow, mainly, although Barry seems to play fast and loose with revealing his identity
• Show, Don't Tell — When starting the show, the narrative tells the audience that Barry is in love with Iris, that she's amazing, that they're best friends and have been forever. Iris also has expository lines in the Pilot stating this. However, Barry's character growth and arc, as well as his relationships, are developed with almost every other character but Iris. Iris herself is not afforded character development, which leads to their relationship being merely told in the narrative, rather than unfolding on the show nor even being shown as one of Barry's most important relationships.
• Superman Stays Out of Gotham: For the most part, Oliver and Kate don't show up in Central City.
• Three Amigos — Barry, Cisco and Caitlin were established as this when the series began, but it has been disintegrated over the last few seasons.
• Trauma Conga Line — Barry's mother dies when he's 11, his father's wrongfully imprisoned for the murder. Dark. He gets adopted by Joe West, who is a great surrogate father. Light. Then, Barry finds out who murdered his mother, has to let him go and loses two of his friends in the process. After all this, he gets his father out of prison only for him to be murdered by another villain. Barry snaps and creates Flashpoint, only to realise he has to return to the real world where his fiancée is targeted by another villain, which results in the death of another friend. Good times.
• Where Does He Get All Those Wonderful Toys? — Cisco always has a million technical marvels lying around that are both improbable and relevant to exactly the situation the team is facing. Sometimes, he even makes wonders in a very short amount of time.
• You Can't Fight Fate — The newspaper with the 2024 headline with a byline that reads Iris West-Allen is Iris and Barry's reasoning for starting to date in Season 2. All of Season 3 is about this trope, both with regards to Savitar and Killer Frost. The early part of the sixth season, dealing with Barry's long-foreshadowed disappearance/death in the Crisis on Infinite Earths, is also about this trope.