Spoiler warning for anything related to THE FLASH Season 4 Premiere.

Season 4 of THE FLASH is back, and Barry Allen is reborn! That’s right he’s reborn in a nod to DC’s Reborn comics, but that’s not the only thing new with THE FLASH. Joe and Cecile are moving in together. Iris is no longer the damsel in distress. Cisco rescues Barry from the speed force, and Caitlin has the most exciting storyline after to Barry’s.

Recap & Highlights

The Season 4 premiere of THE FLASH, The Flash Reborn, picks up six months after Barry enters the speed force. Wally, Cisco, Iris, and Joe act as Team Flash, or Team Kid Flash/Vibe, in Barry’s absence and it’s clear they still need him. Meta-humans escape Star Labs, Caitlin Snow is missing, and the flying Samurai beats up Wally and Cisco.

The Samurai gives Cisco and Wally an ultimatum to bring The Flash back or else he’ll destroy Central City. This gives Cisco a reason to vibe Caitlin and get Team Flash together to rescue Barry from the speed force. Meanwhile, still resisting grief after Barry’s absence, Iris rejects the idea of rescuing Barry because of the instability of the speed force.

Cisco decides to rescue Barry anyway in a recreation of Barry’s training montage from Season 1. At first, it appears as they’ve failed, but Joe gets news that someone finds Barry outside of Central City. Even though Team Flash has Barry back, he’s not his usual self. Barry speaks in incoherent sentences, and no one can understand him. Meanwhile, Kid Flash uses Barry’s suit to fool the flying Samurai, but the Samurai easily defeats him again.

Iris then hatches a plan to snap Barry out of speed force mode and get him to defeat the Flying Samurai. She offers herself up as bait and Barry senses she’s in trouble, and he saves her defeating the Samurai returning to his usual self. The premiere ends with the reveal that The Thinker was behind the Samurai attack as he plots his next move for The Flash.

Iris & Caitlyn Finally Steal Some Spotlight

For the most part, almost every character on THE FLASH has something going for them outside of the main storyline. Joe and Cecile are moving in together, and that may spell wedding bells in their future. We get Badass Iris in Season 4 which is a fresh break from the sometimes annoying damsel in distress. Caitlin draws similarities to the Hulk, and Barry drops some easter eggs in his post-speed force gibberish.

One of the most well-received character changes in the season premiere was Iris’. All of last season Iris was a helpless bystander, but this season she finally has stronger character qualities. She’s the leader of Team Flash in Barry’s absence, and she devises a bold plan to fix Barry after he returns from the speed force. It’s a proactive change for a character that was almost always out of the loop and helpless.

As for Caitlin, her legend continues to grow as she pulls a Bruce Banner at the end of the premiere. It’s a continuation of Caitlin’s storyline from last season where she struggles suppressing Killer Frost. Her transformation into her Killer Frost draws a lot of parallels to the Hulk and Bruce Banner when Caitlin loses control when she gets angry. It will be fun to see how the show will play with that and explain what she’s been up to away from Team Flash.

Missed Opportunity For Wally West & Cisco

What didn’t work in the Season 4 premiere was how the show used Wally and Cisco. For both characters, it felt like there wasn’t any growth for them since the end of Season 3. This hurts their relevance as they start to fall into the lovable sidekick troupe.

For Wally, there is a lot that the show can do for the character besides being Barry’s sidekick. In the premiere, it was pretty clear that Wally struggles with putting away metahumans. Iris even tells him that more meta-humans are escaping Star Labs than Wally and Cisco are capturing.

The Samurai is giving Wally a beat down or him ironically speaking Japanese are bad storylines. By the look of Wally’s role in the season premiere, he may not have a significant role in THE FLASH at all this season. This is probably why we see Kid Flash make a brief cameo in LEGENDS OF TOMORROW. We may see Wally throughout the ARROWVERSE in a role better used for the character.

As for Cisco, the season premiere didn’t do anything for him either. Cisco brought Caitlin back to Team Flash and rescued Barry from the speed force. Other than that Cisco didn’t have a storyline of his own laid out for him this season. However, don’t count out a storyline for THE FLASH’s comedic soul yet. Danny Trejo is going to play Breacher, Gyspy’s father, later this season and that’s a storyline perfect for Cisco’s character. So while things are looking grim for Wally this season, there’s hope for Cisco.

What to Expect After THE FLASH Season 4 Premiere

The Season 4 premiere is titled “The Flash Reborn” because it summarizes Barry Allen’s rebirth. In a way, The Flash Reborn parallels Season 3’s Flashpoint as a reset for the characters. In the way Flashpoint resets Cisco, Caitlin, and Iris’ storylines, The Flash Reborn resets Barry. However, we don’t know how much Barry has changed since his time in the speed force yet.

During Barry’s ranting, he says two things that indicate he may have traveled back and forth through time. He says, “I’m not like you Oliver” which is a line he says in a past season. Barry also says, “We’re going to need more diapers” which is an easter egg and reference to the future when Barry and Iris have the Tornado Twins. The time travel Barry experienced in the speed force is sure to be a recurring occurrence during the rest of Season 4. It will be interesting to see how Barry handles it.

Clifford DeVoe also known as The Thinker arrives this season as the main villain. The Thinker is already ten steps ahead of Team Flash as its revealed in the final moments of the premiere. He sent the Samurai to Central City to lure out The Flash, and he’s already plotting his next steps.

It will be interesting if the show decides to do the Injustice Society with The Thinker and all of the leftover villains from Season 3. Even though all of the original members haven’t appeared on the show, a version of it on THE FLASH will be something to watch for in Season 4.

THE FLASH airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on The CW.