REVIEW: ‘The Flash,’ Season Six, Episode 19 – “Success is Assured”

The Flash, the CW’s series about the Scarlet Speedster, concludes its sixth season early with “Success is Assured.”  After teaming up with Pied Piper to defeat Godspeed last week, Barry Allen (Grant Gustin) and the rest of Team Flash try to protect Carver from Eva’s wrath.  Meanwhile, Iris (Candice Patton) still searches for a way to find Singh (Patrick Sabongui) and escape the Mirrorverse.

While this episode was not written or intended to be the finale for Season 6, it actually does a great job at bringing together various story threads and characters naturally. For the core story, we have Barry trying to find Eva (Efrat Dor) in order to save Iris, while Nash (Tom Cavanagh) and Allegra (Kayla Compton) work on their friendship and take on the meta-assassins. Meanwhile,  Ralph (Hartley Sawyer) gets to meet up once again with Sue (Natalie Dreyfuss) and finds out that she’s now back with her parents and seemingly ‘safe’ from Black Hole. It’s interesting how all these plot threads seamlessly come together for this overarching Mirror Master storyline, which is all down to the fantastic writing this season. It all feels organic and never out of place, and despite having many characters all at once – the episode never feels overbearing. 

After taking somewhat of a break from it last week, “Success is Assured” is rooted deep in the Mirror Master storyline as we see Eva finally don her villainous outfit. It’s a fantastic design that doesn’t look ridiculous on-screen, yet still has that ‘comic-book’ vibe. Eva is a fantastic villain and it’s so interesting to watch her plan come to fruition. We know that she’s incredibly smart and incredibly powerful, but the writing does a good job to remind us that this wasn’t always the case. Iris’ current predicament is ironically a reflection of what Eva has gone through and proves how this accident must have severely warped her mind.

At this point in the season, Team Flash would usually be squarely focused on defeating the big-bad and while that’s still the case, it was nice to hear Barry mention the fact he still has other cases as a CSI to keep track of. It’s a small detail, sure, but it reminds us that he still has a job outside of being the Flash and takes it as seriously. While we don’t get to see much of Iris and Kamilla (Victoria Park) this episode, their predicament helps to answer questions about the Mirroverse and its effects on the inhabitants who dwell there. This not only adds tension with regards to getting Iris and Kamilla out of there ASAP but explains Eva’s state of mind. 

The strange thing about “Success is Assured” is that while it’s clearly not supposed to be the finale, it did genuinely feel like it had the potential to be one. Of course, the episode can’t wrap up all these story threads in one neat bow (not due to any of the creatives obviously), but it does contain that energetic pace, great editing, and fun cliffhangers that will keep the audience hooked until next season. The fight between Team Flash and the Meta-Assassins is an example of this, featuring comic-book-like panel transitions and relaying so much of the fun you get when reading the source material. But the show also manages to have a serious tone too, featuring a rather gruesome death and big stakes for our main hero.

We also say goodbye to Killer Frost (Danielle Panabaker), who was due to leave the show with this episode anyway due to being heavily pregnant at the time. It’s unfortunate that we couldn’t spend more time with the character this season, but I hope that the writers continue to deliver on that Frost/Ralph friendship that was such a delight to watch. We also get reintroduced to Caitlin’s mother, which itself sets up an interesting storyline for Season 7.

Overall, “Success is Assured” is legitimately a great episode with stakes, fun sequences and brilliant cliffhangers that are bound to drive the audience crazy for answers. Which, at the end of the day, can only be a good thing – we’re invested in this story and these characters and want to know what happens next. It’s also the best finales for The Flash since Season 3, which is a high compliment for an episode that wasn’t even supposed to be one.

The MVP of this season has to be Candice Patton, who has consistently knocked it out of the park. Not only did we see Iris finally get to be a kick-ass journalist in charge of The Central City Citizen this season, but we also saw another side to the character with the introduction of Mirror-Iris.

Also, shoutout to Natalie Dreyfuss for introducing Sue and being such a fun introduction to the series. I can’t wait to see Sue and Ralph’s relationship to flourish over the years.

The Flash is now on hiatus until Season 7 – so stay safe, wash those hands, and the show will be back in a flash!