The Flash is down to its penultimate episode, poised to wrap up the series and the entire Arrowverse that unified The CW's DCTV programming for a decade. The third installment of the concluding storyline, titled "A New World," sets up its final confrontation with a time travel trip to 2049. However, like the episode preceding it, The Flash's usual bad habits continue to make this end run an uneven mess and squander the storyline's potential.
Barry Allen and the Negative Speed Force Crystal are transported to 2049 as the Negative Speed Force continues to search for an avatar to destroy Barry and rewrite the timeline. Barry is joined by Eddie Thawne, who has been mysteriously resurrected in the future and is upset by the life he threw away in an unsuccessful bid to stop the Reverse-Flash from existing. When the Negative Speed Force possesses someone close to Barry, it's up to two different timelines' Team Flash to save the day, with the fate of reality hanging in the balance.
"A New World, Part Three" has the benefit of featuring Grant Gustin more often than Season 9's Episode 11, helping provide a focus that its counterpart lacked. Similarly, it's always nice seeing Jessica Parker Kennedy as Nora West-Allen, and she handles the character's Negative Speed Force-fueled heel turn well. Barry and Nora's race across Central City stands as the best action scene of this story arc, as well as a heightening of the stakes to set the stage for the grand finale.
Where The Flash has struggled the most consistently in its later seasons has been whenever it veers into melodrama, taking itself far too seriously and confusing loud performances for solidly emotional ones. This comes into play in "A New World, Part Three," with Cecile Horton unhappy with her future self's family life and Eddie's heel turn. If the over-emoting didn't make the melodrama painfully apparent, the minor key cover of "I Guess That's Why They Call It the Blues" in the final scene makes it feel like an unintentional parody.
During Eddie's heel turn, the series' four-part storyline begins to implode on itself, rushing Eddie's transformation into a villain despite having four episodes of real estate to do so. Where the first part of "A New World" stands among the season's best episodes, the second installment is a complete waste, and this episode rushes Eddie into breaking bad. This makes his heroic sacrifice from the first season seem hollow, trying to instill a sense of sympathy with middling results.
For a show starring the Fastest Man Alive, The Flash has a nasty tendency to spin its wheels rather than build towards bigger payoffs for its overarching narratives, and that problem is resurfacing here at the end of the road. "A New World, Part Three" isn't the weakest installment in the series' concluding storyline, but it does struggle to set the stage for a satisfying, cohesive series finale for The Flash. Hopefully, it can stick the landing, but it certainly has been a rough road, especially in these last couple of episodes.
Developed for television by Greg Berlanti, Andrew Kreisberg, and Geoff Johns, The Flash airs Wednesdays at 8 pm ET/PT on The CW, with episodes available to stream the following day on The CW App.