The Flash premiere

When Barry Allen was just a child, he witnessed the unexplainable murder of his mother. She was trapped in the middle of a yellow-red blur of lightning and presumably suffocated. In the middle of the lightning Barry saw a man in yellow. Sadly, nobody believed Barry's story, his father was blamed for her death, and the boy lived with his childhood friend Iris and her police detective father Joe West ever since.

Years later, determined to find an explanation for those events, Barry works with the police as a forensics analyst under Joe. He's good at his job, but can't quite get where he needs to be on time. Based on a cow patty and tire tracks left at the scene of a hit and run, he figures out the type of vehicle it was and the farm it came from. With some arm-twisting from Iris, Joe is convinced this is enough to let Barry leave early so they can both go the unveiling of a Particle Accelerator at STAR Labs, while Joe and his partner follow up on the leads. We're also introduced to another police officer, Eddie Thawne; he's a good cop but a bit on the smug side.

Barry returns to work in his lab, while it's raining outside. Joe has tracked down the assailants from before, and his partner is shot while they try to get away in a plane. Suddenly, there's an explosion at the particle accelerator in the city explodes, sending a shockwave through the city and blowing up the plane. At the same time, Barry is struck by lightning in his lab, spilled chemicals seemingly causing an adverse reaction.

Nine months later, Barry wakes up in what's left of STAR Labs. The facility has been more or less closed since the Accelerator blew, the only remaining staff are Harrison Wells, who is apparently paraplegic since then, and his assistants Cisco Ramon and Caitlin Snow. They want to keep him there to run some tests, but Barry is eager to get back to his life. He has a heartfelt reunion with Iris at the coffeehouse where she works, but something seems off when everything around him seems to slow down as a waitress drops a tray. Barry initially shrugs it off, but when it happens again at the police station, he heads back to STAR to find out what's going on.

They discover that what appeared to be things slowing down around him was actually him moving incredibly fast. After some initial tests, he remembers the incident with his mother, seeing a man inside the blur, which makes him lose his concentration. The resulting crash also reveals Barry's healing factor, as he recovers from a fracture in three hours.

Meanwhile, back in the city, a new string of bank robberies is occurring, and the perpetrator seems to have the ability to control the weather. Barry also discovers that while he was in a coma, Eddie and Iris have started a relationship. Apparently he covered Joe's shifts so they could both go visit him. A few cups of coffee later, they were dating. During their chat, the two are nearly hit by an out of control police car, but Barry gets her out of the way. Seeing the bank robber's getaway car, Barry pursues on foot, getting inside the car and flipping it. The robber is Clyde Mardon, one of the criminals who supposedly died when his plane exploded. Their confrontation is brief, as Mardon creates fog and disappears. Barry tries to tell Joe what happened, but Joe still writes it off as nonsense that Barry's been chasing all his life. However, sketch based on eyewitness accounts seem to corroborate that it was him.

At STAR Labs, Barry talks to Wells about it, and they conclude that the Particle Accelerator's explosion affected Mardon like it did Barry, and others could have been too. Barry wants to do something to stop him, but Wells isn't interested in that, only in the possible benefits Barry's transformation could have on mankind. Needing to clear his head, Barry runs all the way to Starling City, and has a talk with Oliver Queen, the (Green) Arrow. Ollie convinces Barry that he can do more for his city than the Arrow can do for his. He can inspire people with his powers, and be a full-on hero, not just a shady vigilante. He also suggests Barry wear a mask.

Back in Central City, Joe goes back to the same farmhouse from the beginning, where Mardon's ready for them. Barry is given a highly durable suit by Cisco and Caitlin and lightning bolt earpieces to keep in contact with them, and then head for the barn. He saves Joe from some debris, but Mardon has created a tornado and is heading for the city. Barry tries to stop it by running in the opposite direction, but his first attempt fails. Wells, however, has come around to Barry's potential and gives some words of encouragement. Barry is successful this time and Mardon is brought down, first by Barry beating his tornado and then when Joe shoots him. He sees Barry with his mask off, and after everything that happened, realizes that Barry had been telling the truth about his mother all along. He asks Barry not to tell Iris about his abilities, worried about keeping her safe.

Barry then visits his dad in prison, reassuring him that he always knew his father was innocent, and is now determined to find whoever was truly responsible and clear his name. The episode ends with Barry narrating while he runs around the city in his suit (now sporting a lightning bolt log in the front) saving people and deciding to give himself a name that might just catch on, followed by a title card....Then we cut back to Wells, as he enters an oddly patterned room. He stands up, which we thought he couldn't do, and walks over to a console in the middle of the room. A newspaper hologram appears in the middle of the console, with a headline about the Flash's disappearance 11 years in the future...

A very strong start to this series. It's much lighter and more optimistic in tone than its parent series Arrow, and the Particle Accelerator accident allows for the creation of more superpowered villains, similar to Smallville's Kryptonite meteor rocks. Grant Gustin is immediately likeable as Barry Allen. This is a hero who squarely wants to help people and do the right thing, and doesn't have any of Ollie's moral ambiguity. It's good to see Danielle Panabaker as Caitlin Snow, and I hope she gets fleshed out more as the series progresses. Her fiance was killed in the Particle Accelerator accident, which carries some baggage for her. Cisco provides her counterpoint. He's much more excited about this stuff than she is, and applies the lightning bolt to Barry's costume because it looks cool. Thawne is a name some might remember from the comics, but Eddie for now seems to be a decent man, albeit with an ego. It remains to be seen how long that sticks. Harrison Wells is a curiosity. We learn at the end of the pilot that his legs work fine, and that he is from the future, but his motivations remain to be seen, and whether or not he remains an ally.

With all the dark and brooding variations of superheroes in modern media, The Flash feels like a breath of fresh air and will hopefully pave the way for more positive atmospheres in comic book projects.