Cisco’s farewell episode was a great reminder of how just how good The Flash was in its first season. Back then, the series focused on a much smaller group of characters protecting Central City from metahuman villains, while also helping Barry (Grant Gustin) develop an understanding of how to use his speedster powers.
As stated in the episode, Cisco’s exit was “the end of an era”, but also a nostalgic adventure that took viewers back to the way things used to be. That was because the episode reunited – as Cisco called it – “the OG Team Flash”. Throughout season 1, Barry’s main allies at S.T.A.R. Labs were Caitlin and Cisco. Under the direction of Reverse-Flash, the three worked together to capture a different a metahuman criminal in every episode. To defeat them, they often had to rely on tech invented by Cisco to counteract or neutralize their powers. To beat a new version of the Rainbow Raider, Barry and Cisco had to reuse the same device used to beat season 1’s version of the character.
The encounter with the first Rainbow Raider was just one example of the exciting, standalone battles offered by The Flash season 1, and the original trio teaming up to take down a second Rainbow Raider called back to those days by highlighting the dynamic shared by the three characters. It was largely their relationship and how the characters complimented each other that made the first season work so well, so it was good to see The Flash bring that back one more time before Cisco’s sendoff.
This wasn’t the only way that The Flash paid homage to what made it such a fun series in the first place. When Cisco was reminiscing about his time with Team Flash at the end of the episode, the character had several flashbacks from previous episodes, many of which being from season 1. Cisco ed seeing Barry wake up in the pilot, helping him train, coming up with villain nicknames, and being revived by the Flash after a fight with the Bug-Eyed Bandit. Some of these are among the show’s best moments. This era may be over for good, but episode 12 amounted to one last hurrah for the “OG Team Flash”.