The second season of the American television series "The Flash", which is based on the DC Comics character Barry Allen / Flash, sees Barry recognized as a hero in Central City after saving the city, only to face a new threat from a parallel universe in the form of the speedster Zoom, who seeks to eliminate everyone connected to the Speed Force throughout the multiverse. It is set in the Arrowverse, sharing continuity with the other television series of the universe, and is a spin-off of "Arrow". The season was produced by Berlanti Productions, Warner Bros. Television, and DC Entertainment, with Andrew Kreisberg, Gabrielle Stanton, Aaron Helbing, and Todd Helbing serving as showrunners.
The season was ordered in January 2015, and filmed from that July to the following April in Vancouver. Grant Gustin stars as Barry, alongside principal cast members Candice Patton, Danielle Panabaker, Carlos Valdes, Tom Cavanagh, and Jesse L. Martin also returning from the first season, and are joined by Keiynan Lonsdale. This season also introduces characters from "Legends of Tomorrow", which was being developed as a spin-off.
The season ran for 23 episodes and premiered on October 6, 2015, airing on The CW until May 24, 2016. The premiere was watched by 3.58 million viewers, down from the first-season premiere but average for the series. The second season of "The Flash" received universal acclaim from critics, being viewed as an improvement over the first season, and finished as the 112th ranked show, slightly up from season one, with an average viewership of 4.25 million. The series was renewed for a third season on March 11, 2016.
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Episodes.
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Cast and characters.
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Main.
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Production.
Development.
On January 11, 2015, "The Flash" was renewed for a second season. With the commencement of production on the season, former "Arrow" and "Ugly Betty" writer Gabrielle Stanton was promoted to executive producer and showrunner; after having served as consulting producer and writer on the first season's finale "Fast Enough". However, it was later reported that series co-creator Andrew Kreisberg would be returning to sole showrunner duties at an unspecified time. That time was later proved to be at the start of 2016, "Potential Energy", when Stanton was no longer credited as being involved with the show. Aaron and Todd Helbing also served as the season's showrunners.
Casting.
Main cast members Grant Gustin, Candice Patton, Danielle Panabaker, Carlos Valdes and Jesse L. Martin return from the first season as Barry Allen / The Flash, Iris West, Caitlin Snow, Cisco Ramon / Vibe and Joe West, respectively. Tom Cavanagh, who portrayed Eobard Thawne impersonating Harrison Wells in season one, also returned as a regular, playing Wells' Earth-2 doppelgänger. Rick Cosnett, a main cast member from season one, did not return as a regular because his character, Eddie Thawne, died in the season one finale. He instead returned as a guest star in the season premiere "The Man Who Saved Central City" in a dream sequence, and later in the episode "Flash Back", where Barry travels back to a time when Eddie was still alive. In August 2015, Keiynan Lonsdale was cast as Wally West, the unknown son of Joe, and Iris' brother. Gustin, Patton, Panabaker, Valdes and Martin also portray the Earth-2 versions of their characters in the episode "Welcome to Earth-2", while Cavanagh portrays Thawne impersonating the Earth-1 Wells in "The Man Who Saved Central City" and "Flash Back".
Discussing the casting of Lonsdale, Kreisberg stated, "Just like when we met Grant [Gustin] for the first time, we instantly knew Keiynan embodied all the heart and courage of a hero. We are so excited to be bringing this much-beloved character onto the show." It was always intended for Wally to be the son of Joe and brother of Iris, which differs from the character's comic history, as the producers disliked second seasons of television series that would introduce cousins of characters that were never previously mentioned, feeling it was "weird". Lonsdale originally auditioned for "Legends of Tomorrow" to portray Jefferson "Jax" Jackson.
Shantel VanSanten appeared in a recurring role as Barry's love interest Patty Spivot. VanSanten's character departed after the mid season premiere. The reason was initially reported as being due to scheduling conflicts with "Shooter;" VanSanten later revealed in an interview that she was set to return but "one of the showrunners at the time took a personal disliking to her".
In July 2015, it was announced that Teddy Sears would recur in the role of Jay Garrick, the Flash of Earth-2. However, later in the season it was revealed that his character was actually Hunter Zolomon / Zoom posing as Jay. Ryan Handley portrayed Zoom in costume prior to this revelation, while Tony Todd voiced Zoom.
Design.
Maya Mani replaced Colleen Atwood as the costume designer for the second season and made slight changes to the Flash costume, such as changing the color of his chest emblem from red to white, being faithful to the Flash costume from the comics. Gustin stated that, around the time of filming the season's ninth episode, "we stopped gluing the mask to my face and switched to a mask that just slipped on and off with a zipper". While Zoom's costume in the comics is a verbatim replica of Eobard Thawne's yellow-and-red Reverse-Flash costume, the costume seen in the TV series is entirely in black. Kreisberg compared Zoom's appearance to that of the Marvel Comics character Venom, saying, "The Zoom outfit is much more organic than the Reverse-Flash suit. In a way, it's hard to tell if it is a suit or alive... There's no skin showing, for all you know there's a robot underneath, or dark energy."
Filming.
Production on the season began on July 7, 2015, in Vancouver, British Columbia, and concluded on April 18, 2016.
Music.
Composer Blake Neely returned as the primary composer for the second season. The soundtrack for the second season was released digitally on July 22, 2016 and in CD format on July 26, 2016. Neely also composed a theme when Gustin as Barry appeared on the eighteenth episode of "Supergirl", "Worlds Finest". The theme was titled "World's Finest" when it was released on the "Supergirl: Season 1" soundtrack.
All music composed by Blake Neely.
Arrowverse tie-ins.
In October 2015, "Arrow" showrunner Wendy Mericle revealed that the producers of the Arrowverse had begun having someone track all the characters and plots used by each series, in order to make sure everything lines up, though Aaron Helbing noted in April 2016 that "sometimes the schedules don't line up exactly...and that stuff is out of our control", such as when Barry is shown using his abilities on "Arrow" that month, while not having them the same week on "The Flash".
The second season of "The Flash" began to explore the concept of the multiverse, by introducing Earth-2, which features doppelgängers of the inhabitants in the Arrowverse (or Earth-1). In "Welcome to Earth-2" of "The Flash", glimpses of the multiverse are seen, including an image of "Supergirl" star Melissa Benoist as Supergirl and an image of John Wesley Shipp as the Flash from the 1990 television series, implying that those two television series exist on alternate Earths to the Arrowverse.
The second annual two-way crossover with "Arrow" aired on December 1 and 2, 2015, where the Flash and the Green Arrow team up to take on Vandal Savage, who is looking for Kendra Saunders and Carter Hall, the reincarnations of Hawkgirl and Hawkman. Though "Legends of Tomorrow" did not have an episode as part of the 2015–16 crossover, the "Arrow" and "The Flash" episodes from this event did set up a number of characters who star and recur in that series. Casper Crump, Falk Hentschel and Peter Francis James debut in the crossover, as Vandal Savage, Carter Hall / Hawkman, and Dr. Aldus Boardman, respectively. Screen Rant's Alice Walker discussed how the annual "Arrow/The Flash" crossover suffered from also trying to set up Legends, which was "too much to ask from the already crowded storylines and ended up feeling like an exercise in synchronicity, with producers planting more seeds than they could reap. The crossover event was no longer a fun way to contrast the two shows; it now had to serve the much larger purpose of setting up an entirely new world."
Crossover with "Supergirl".
In February 2016, it was announced that Gustin would appear on the eighteenth episode of "Supergirl", with Berlanti and Kreisberg, also "Supergirl" executive producers, thanking "the fans and journalists who have kept asking for this to happen. It is our pleasure and hope to create an episode worthy of everyone's enthusiasm and support." While no plot details on the episodes were released at the time, Ross A. Lincoln of "Deadline Hollywood" noted that "the in-universe reason" for the crossover was due to Barry's ability to travel to various dimensions, thus implying that "Supergirl" exists on an alternate Earth to the Arrowverse in a multiverse. "Welcome to Earth-2" confirmed this, showing an image of Benoist as Supergirl during a sequence where characters travel through that multiverse. The Earth that the series inhabits has been informally referred to as "Earth-CBS" by Marc Guggenheim, one of the creators of "Arrow".
In "Worlds Finest", which aired on CBS on March 28, 2016, "Supergirl" is established as being in an alternate universe where the Flash helps Kara fight the Silver Banshee and Livewire in exchange for her help in returning home. The episode title was inspired by the "World's Finest Comics" series, in which Superman would team up with various other DC superheroes, including the Flash. The events of this episode take place between two moments in the eighteenth episode of "The Flash" season two, "Versus Zoom", which aired on April 19, 2016, in which Barry enters and exits a breach while wearing the tachyon device seen in this episode. The crossover required "a lot more logistical trickery" than the usual Arrowverse crossovers due to Gustin filming "The Flash" in Vancouver alongside "Arrow" and "Legends of Tomorrow", while "Supergirl" is produced in Los Angeles. The producers chose to use the Flash as the character to crossover, due to his ability to travel between various Earths, and because it was "a little more fun at first to bring the veteran from that show to the chemistry of a new show." Berlanti stated that "in a perfect world", the crossover would have featured both Gustin and Amell's Green Arrow, "but logistically that would have been a nightmare to try and do both shows. We had to facilitate one." Gustin was optimistic that the crossover in 2016 would allow another crossover the following year with the rest of the Arrowverse shows.
The crossover episode received excellent reviews. Cliff Wheatley of IGN gave the episode an 8.6/10, stating "After the grim 'n' gritty "", "Supergirl"'s "Worlds Finest" offered a fun, upbeat palette cleanser and one of the series' strongest episodes to date. Instead of the usual "beatdown" introduction, Supergirl and the Flash went straight to being superfriends, which was refreshing. Not only did Barry Allen fit perfectly in Kara's world, but actors Grant Gustin and Melissa Benoist had fantastic chemistry together onscreen. While the city's turnaround on Supergirl's Red K incident was a little sudden, overall, "Worlds Finest" was delightful." Stacy Glanzman of TV Fanatic gave the episode a 5.0 out of 5 stars.
Marketing.
"The Flash" surged 1,378% in buzz (highest year over year growth in conversation) from last year for its second season.
Release.
Broadcast.
The season premiered on The CW on October 6, 2015, and ran until May 24, 2016.
Home media.
The season began streaming on Netflix on October 4, 2016, and was released on Blu-ray and DVD in Region 1 on September 6, 2016.
Copyright infringement.
The second season of "The Flash" was the fourth most-torrented television show of 2016.
Reception.
Ratings.
The second season finished as the 112th ranked show, with an average viewership of 4.25 million.
Critical response.
The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 94% approval rating for the second season with an average rating of 7.84/10, based on 24 reviews. The website's consensus reads, "With distinctive visuals and a terrific cast, "The Flash" remains one of the strongest comic book shows on television." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the season a score of 81 out of 100, based on 4 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".
Reviewing for Collider, Dave Trumbore gave the season premiere a rating of 4 stars out