Is The Flash New Tonight, April 4?

There’s no Flash tonight, but we have a sneak peek at the next episode! Expect darkness, more Killer Frost, and maybe answers about Savitar.

Let’s be honest: this season of The Flash has been a bit of a mess. It’s had some terrific episodes (e.g. “Attack on Gorilla City”) and fun moments (remember “run, Jesse, run”?). But much of the time, it feels like we’re running in circles. Nine episodes after Barry first saw Savitar kill Iris, the team is no closer to defeating their adversary, or even knowing who he is.

Can The Flash redeem itself?

Unfortunately, we won’t know for a few weeks. Like its fellow CW superhero shows Supergirl and Arrow, The Flash is on hiatus until the end of April. In the meantime, maybe the trailer for the next episode, “The Once and Future Flash”, will ramp up your excitement. You can watch it below:

So, the quest to save Iris continues – without, apparently, Iris. At the end of last week’s episode, “Abra Kadabra,” Barry decided that in order to save his fiancée, he has to learn more about the events surrounding her death, which means traveling to the future. Frankly, this seemed like the obvious solution from the get-go, but I guess time-travel is supposed to be risky or something. (Despite all the time the show has spent explaining the technicalities of time-travel, its effects are still unclear; Flashpoint aside, Barry’s temporal adventures seem fairly harmless.)

Anyway, a future-set episode sounds fun, at least in theory. In actuality, it looks bleak. The “The Once and Future Flash” trailer hints at a dystopian world, where Team Flash is in disarray. Iris is dead. Caitlin has gone full Killer Frost. Someone is in a wheelchair. Barry has a terrible haircut.

It raises several questions. Will we finally learn who Savitar is? The Flash has been dragging out this mystery for an awfully long time. It’s frustrating because 1) we went through the same thing with Zoom last season with disappointing results and 2) there’s no point. Why does Savitar need a secret identity? Why can’t a scary, godlike speedster just be a scary, godlike speedster?

Also, is there any reason Iris can’t go to the future with Barry? The show seems determined to keep its central couple apart, which might be tolerable if we didn’t have to endure two seasons of contrived angst for them to get together. Then, there’s the fact that Iris remains utterly passive, despite being the one whose life is on the line. This storyline should’ve been a prime opportunity to explore her struggle to accept/resist fate, but instead, we get more Barry being a control freak; Iris is just collateral.

But hey, maybe “The Once and Future Flash” will surprise us.

The Flash returns April 25. It airs at 8 p.m. EST on The CW.