The Doomed Relationship of Barry Allen

The Flash is the only currently airing TV show I keep up with. Other than that, it's distant reruns (though I'm getting caught up on Doctor Who.) The latest episode, "The Nuclear Man" in addition to focusing on a being who is the fused version of two men and who could detonate like an Atom bomb, wiping out a major city, and investigation into the murder of Barry Allen's mother that uncovers evidence of time travel, we have the really important:

Barry goes on two dates with a female sports reporter named Linda Park. Date one is a lovely night out at a restaurant and a walk. On the second night, he has a lovely night of dinner, mini-golf, and jazz music. Linda, however has other plans as she hopes to have sex with Barry, and she makes the moves on him, throwing him onto the couch, and beginning to passionately kiss him. However, he gets a text that a wildly burning inferno of a man has been spotted and goes to deal with that threat.

Barry tries to apologize but is called away on Flash duty, which he lies and tells her is police duty. She calls and checks up with him and after Iris (who he confessed feelings for but has always been just a friend) passive aggressively sabotaged the relationship with Linda by telling Linda he hadn't gotten over an unrequited love. Barry then he eats a dangerously hot pepper and pledges not to let anything interfere with his relationship with this woman he met days ago including his job as a crime scene investigator.

In fact, Barry is so serious about this relationship that he left his friends with Firestorm, who Doctor Wells indicated was less than two hours away from creating a nuclear explosion that could wipe out Central City. Because after all, while it might be helpful for STAR labs to have the fastest man alive handy, he has to go and find the hottest pepper he can to win the "affections" of Linda.

As you can tell from the tone of my summary, the relationship angle of this story really drags it down. Linda is a problematic character for a number of reasons.

My wife pointed out that there's clearly a double standard of gender at work here. Barry is clearly awkward, uncomfortable, and inexperienced in dealing with the opposite sex romantically and is concerned they're going too fast and he says so. She totally dismisses the concern and keeps pushing. If one flipped the genders, a guy who pushed a girl wanting a nice time on a second date into bed and then kept pushing when she made clear he was uncomfortable would be viewed as a creep and maybe a predator. Here, she's portrayed as sexy for it.

To make this even worse, Barry is a police scientist who states he went out on police emergency and she responds by checking up on him. This points to her being very possessive of someone she's only had 2 dates with. It'd be one thing if they were in a long term relationship and she had reason to believe he was cheating on her. But to call the police and check on him after two dates shows someone who is messed up.

Even worse is the idea that this is portrayed as normal and healthy with Barry's reaction being unusual. Hollywood has cracked down on smoking in films and on television to be socially responsible and not to encourage smoking. Given the family target audience of the Flash, this seems very socially irresponsible. The live in relationship between Iris and Eddie is not biblical or a good idea, but the idea that a second date is a good time to start a sexual relationship is insane. They know nothing about one another. This is very unhealthy behavior.

It was somewhat ironic when my wife and I watched his on Hulu that an ad for a dating site appeared which explained all the steps of getting to know each other that a couple took before being "in love" and offered the motto, "Before there's love, there's like." When the ads are more responsible the show, you have a problem.

And at the end of day, Barry humiliates himself to salvage this relationship (to use the word loosely) and makes impossible promises of letting nothing interfere with this three day old relationship and once again leaves the duty of watching a walking nuclear bomb to his non-super powered friends at STAR labs.

I can't help but feel for Barry.He's interested in spending time with a girl and getting to know her. When Cisco delicately raises the challenges the Flash's power could represent in bed, he brushes the concern off as this was only a second date. Instead, he gets a woman whose less concerned with a person and more concerned about how "good" he is at dating and has no time to really get to know him.

Linda, as portrayed so far is the polar opposite of Barry with a completely different value set. While Barry lives to help others (which is why he was so jazzed about being the Flash), Linda is the queen of being self-absorbed. This is not going to work.

I would like to hope this character quietly disappears from the series never to be spoken of again between Seasons 1 and 2 like Cat Grant in the 1990s Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, but this is the 21st Century and Linda Park was the name of a character in the comic book, although this version bares little resemblance to that character.

I'm not calling for a boycott or protests, or stopping watching the show. For prime time TV, this is fairly innocent. There was nothing sexually explicit in the episode and I give them points for making the mention of potential problems for the Flash so vague adults would have an idea but it'd go over kids heads.

But I think it's important to be aware of the messages and worldviews that entertainment is trying to sell us, and maybe it's a good point for parents to discuss wise and unwise relationship choices.