The Flash (The CW)

"To understand what I'm about to tell you, you need to do something. You need to believe the impossible. Can you do that? Good. You see that red blur? That's me. That too! There I am again. My name is Barry Allen. I am the fastest man alive. My story is pretty simple: my whole life, I have been running..."

- Barry Allen

The Flash is an American TV series, a modern re-imagining of the DC Comics series, The Flash. The series premiered on October 7, 2014, airing at 8 pm.

Originally, the twentieth episode of 's second season,, was going to act as a backdoor pilot and was it popular enough the series would be green-lit. However, after executives from The CW saw and, Barry's premiere episodes on , they made the call to order the series straight to pilot. On May 8, 2014, The Flash was picked up to series. On October 21, 2014, The Flash was green-lighted for a full season by the CW, extending from 13 episodes to 23. The Flash was renewed for a second season on January 11, 2015. On March 11, 2016, The CW renewed The Flash for a third season. The Flash was renewed for a fourth season on January 8, 2017. On April 2, 2018, the series was renewed for a fifth season, which premiered in the 2018–19 season. The Flash was renewed for a sixth season on January 31, 2019, which premiered during the 2019-2020 season. The Flash was renewed for a seventh season on January 8, 2020.

Grant Gustin portrays Barry Allen/The Flash in the eponymous lead role. The series is written by Greg Berlanti, Todd Helbing, and Geoff Johns.

Introduction
In Season 1, the intro features a voice-over of Barry Allen where he briefly describes the hardships that he faced in the past. Barry states that he will use his new powers to fight crime and find the one who killed his mother to bring justice for his father. In Season 2, Barry states how he must now use his powers to stop the new threats that have been brought into the world after finding his mother's murderer.

Season 3 featured two different intros. The first half sees Barry facing the ultimate consequence from when he went back in time to save his mother, which in turn created a new timeline, leaving him facing threats from that timeline who are manifesting powers in the 'real' world. The second version was introduced in and tells us Barry attempts to save Iris from being killed by Savitar right after he witnessed her death in the future. Season 4 mentions the new threats Team Flash have created after they brought Barry out of the Speed Force. Season 5 mentions Nora West-Allen traveling back to the past to meet Barry and the new threats created from that.

The "Blood and Truth" half of Season 6 had no intro at all. But the second half was different; it had music playing, but no dialogue given during the introduction and showed a montage of each main character and the series as a whole.

Season 1

 * "My name is Barry Allen and I am the fastest man alive. When I was a child, I saw my mother killed by something impossible. My father went to prison for her murder. Then an accident made me the impossible. To the outside world, I'm an ordinary forensic scientist. But secretly, I use my speed to fight crime and find others like me. And one day, I'll find who killed my mother and get justice for my father. I am The Flash.

Season 2

 * "My name is Barry Allen and I am the fastest man alive. To the outside world, I am an ordinary forensic scientist. But secretly, with the help of my friends at S.T.A.R. Labs, I fight crime and find other meta-humans like me. I hunted down the man who killed my mother. But in doing so, I opened up our world to new threats, and I am the only one fast enough to stop them. I am The Flash."

Season 3

 * "My name is Barry Allen and I am the fastest man alive. To the outside world, I'm an ordinary forensic scientist. But secretly, with the help of my friends at S.T.A.R. Labs, I fight crime and find other meta-humans like me. After defeating Zoom and saving the multiverse, I ran back in time and created the alternate timeline Flashpoint. I restored the timeline to how it was, only to find things weren't as I left them. I brought new threats to our world, and I'm the only one fast enough to stop them. I am The Flash."

Midseason variant

 * "My name is Barry Allen and I am the fastest man alive. To the outside world, I'm an ordinary forensic scientist, but secretly, with the help of my friends at S.T.A.R. Labs, I fight crime and find other meta-humans like me. In an attempt to stop the evil speedster Savitar, I was accidentally thrust into the future, and I saw him murder the woman I love. But I won't let that happen. I'm going to do everything in my power to change the future, and I'm the only one fast enough to keep her alive. I am The Flash."

Season 4

 * "My name is Barry Allen and I am the fastest man alive. To the outside world, I am an ordinary forensic scientist. But secretly, with the help of my friends at S.T.A.R. Labs, I fight crime and find other meta-humans like me. But I became lost in time. It took everything in my friends’ power to bring me back. And in doing so, our world was opened up to new threats, and I'm the only one fast enough to stop them. I am The Flash."

Season 5

 * "My name is Barry Allen and I am the fastest man alive. To the outside world, I am an ordinary forensic scientist. But secretly, with the help of my friends at S.T.A.R. Labs, I fight crime and find other meta-humans like me. But when my daughter came back from the future to help, she changed the present, and now our world is more dangerous than ever and I'm the only one fast enough to save it. I am the Flash."

Main cast

 * Grant Gustin as Barry Allen/The Flash
 * Candice Patton as Iris West-Allen
 * Danielle Panabaker as Caitlin Snow/Killer Frost
 * Rick Cosnett as Eddie Thawne (season 1; special guest seasons 2–3)
 * Carlos Valdes as Cisco Ramon/Vibe
 * Tom Cavanagh as Eobard Thawne/Reverse-Flash (seasons 1–2 and 4–present), Harrison "Harry" Wells (season 2–present) , Harrison "H.R." Wells (season 3) , Harrison Sherloque Wells (season 5–present) , and Harrison Nash Wells/Pariah (season 6-present)
 * Jesse L. Martin as Joe West
 * Keiynan Lonsdale as Wally West/Kid Flash (seasons 2–4; special guest season 5 and 6)
 * Neil Sandilands as Clifford DeVoe/The Thinker (season 4)
 * Hartley Sawyer as Ralph Dibny/Elongated Man (seasons 5–6; recurring season 4)
 * Danielle Nicolet as Cecile Horton (season 5–present; guest season 1; recurring seasons 3–4)
 * Jessica Parker Kennedy as Nora West-Allen/XS (season 5; special appearance season 4)
 * Chris Klein as Orlin Dwyer/Cicada (season 5)
 * LaMonica Garrett as Mar Novu/The Monitor (season 6; guest season 5)
 * Efrat Dor as Eva McCulloch (season 6-present)
 * Brandon McKnight as Chester P. Runk (season 7; recurring season 6)
 * Kayla Compton as Allegra Garcia (season 7; recurring season 6)

Trivia

 * The Flash has had one supplemental comic book series,, one supplemental internet blog, , and two supplemental web series, and . As well, The Flash has had several supplementary books.
 * Grant Gustin had confirmed that elements of the "The Trial of The Flash" comic, where Barry is incarcerated for manslaughter when he accidentally kills Eobard Thawne, would be used in the future after the appearance of Barry in a prison outfit appeared in season 1, hinting at the eventual adaptation of the story with Clifford DeVoe in season 4. However, he falsely indicated it would probably get its own season.
 * Grant Gustin and Candice Patton are the only cast members to have appeared in every episode of the series.
 * However, Barry Allen is the only character to have appeared in every episode, as Candice Patton only portrayed Iris West-Allen's Mirrorverse counterpart in.
 * Below is a list of the episodes that marked the first time the original series regulars did not appear:
 * Rick Cosnett -
 * Tom Cavanagh - (although he appeared through archive footage near the end, meaning  was the first episode to not feature him in any capacity)
 * Jesse L. Martin -
 * Carlos Valdes -
 * Danielle Panabaker -
 * The Flash has the second to least number of series regulars of all the multi-season Arrowverse shows with only 17 to date behind with 21,  with 19,  with 18, ahead of  with 8, and  with 7.
 * The Flash is tied with Black Lightning and Batwoman with having the highest number of remaining series regulars from its first season with 6 out of 7 original cast members still on the show. has 3 out of 10,  has 3 out of 7 and  has 3 out of 6.
 * Season 6 is the first season to not have an opening monologue in any episode.