The Flash season 4
| The Flash | |
|---|---|
| Season 4 | |
 Promotional poster | |
| Showrunner | Freddie Goodwin |
| Starring | |
| No. of episodes | 8 |
| Release | |
| Original network | Vesper+ |
| Original release | October 5 – November 23, 2029 |
| Season chronology | |
The fourth season of the American superhero drama television series The Flash is based on the DC Comics character Barry Allen, a crime-scene investigator who becomes the superhero known as the Flash. The season was developed for television by Freddie Goodwin, who returned as showrunner alongside executive producers Hannah Greer, Marcus Vale, Lauren Certo, and David Mercer. It was produced by Vesper Studios, Goodwin Television, Red Runner Productions, and Dominion Street Entertainment for Vesper+.
The season stars Dacre Montgomery as Barry Allen / The Flash, with Kiersey Clemons, Delroy Lindo, Rahul Kohli, Lakeith Stanfield, Jessica Henwick, Giancarlo Esposito, Riz Ahmed, Ming-Na Wen, Jodie Comer, Courtney B. Vance, Paddy Considine, Ben Mendelsohn, William Fichtner, Tati Gabrielle, and David Thewlis also starring. Maya Hawke appears in a guest role as Caitlin Snow through archived recordings and a Speed Force manifestation. Following the events of the third season, Central City lives with partial memories of erased timelines, while Barry Allen faces a new public era in which the city's citizens know that the Flash's battles have changed reality.
The season adapts several villains from the Flash comics, including Leonard Snart / Captain Cold, Lisa Snart / Golden Glider, Sam Scudder / Mirror Master, Roscoe Dillon / the Top, Mark Mardon / Weather Wizard, Axel Walker / Trickster, and Clifford DeVoe / the Thinker. Rather than using them as isolated threats, the season presents them as part of a growing organized criminal network called the Rogues, formed in response to the public and political destabilization caused by the Flash's time-altering battles. The season's main antagonist is DeVoe, who manipulates the Rogues, the city's testimony archive, and Barry's public accountability crisis to prove that Central City no longer needs a hero who acts faster than democratic consent.
The fourth season premiered on Vesper+ on October 5, 2029, and consisted of eight weekly episodes released until November 23, 2029. It received positive reviews from critics, who praised its use of the Rogues, its public accountability storyline, the development of Cisco Ramon's powers, and David Thewlis's performance as DeVoe. Some criticism was directed at the number of villains introduced, though many reviewers felt the season succeeded by treating the Rogues as a social response to the Flash rather than a simple collection of criminals.
Episodes
| No. overall | No. in season | Title | Directed by | Written by | Original air date | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 25 | 1 | "Rogues" | David Nutter | Freddie Goodwin | October 5, 2029 | |
| A year after Central City begins remembering fragments of erased timelines, Barry works under public oversight while Iris manages the testimony archive. A museum gala honoring the Flash is attacked by Leonard Snart, who uses cold-gun technology stolen from a sealed S.T.A.R. Labs evidence vault. Snart refuses to kill civilians and instead exposes the city's hypocrisy: it celebrates the Flash while imprisoning metahumans, sealing dangerous technology, and hiding timeline damage behind legal committees. Cisco, now more confident in his vibration powers, tracks Snart through dimensional residue left by a mirror-based escape route. Barry captures several thieves but lets Snart escape after saving hostages from a collapsing ice structure. Meanwhile, Clifford DeVoe, a former legal theorist turned metahuman strategist, studies Iris's archive and concludes that Central City's problem is not crime, but the speed at which heroes make irreversible decisions. | ||||||
| 26 | 2 | "Through the Looking Glass" | David Nutter | Lauren Certo | October 12, 2029 | |
| Sam Scudder, a criminal trapped in a mirror dimension during the accelerator disaster, returns with the ability to move through reflective surfaces and imprison people inside fractured reflections. Scudder frees Lisa Snart from police custody and offers Leonard a chance to build a crew that can survive a city ruled by speed, surveillance, and public memory. Iris investigates complaints that the testimony archive is being used by prosecutors to punish people for events from erased timelines. Barry enters the mirror dimension to rescue Linda Park and several witnesses, but Scudder forces him to confront reflections of people who remember being failed by the Flash in lives Barry never lived. Cisco and Hartley stabilize a vibration bridge, allowing Barry to escape. DeVoe secretly offers Scudder legal protection in exchange for access to mirror-space, calling it the first courtroom where time itself can be cross-examined. | ||||||
| 27 | 3 | "Weather Patterns" | Jennifer Phang | Thomas Pound | October 19, 2029 | |
| Mark Mardon attacks federal reconstruction sites using weaponized storm systems, claiming the city is being rebuilt for the rich while disaster survivors remain displaced. Joe investigates Mardon's past and discovers that his brother died during the first accelerator explosion after emergency crews diverted resources to protect S.T.A.R. Labs executives. Barry tries to reason with Mardon but is accused of saving institutions before neighborhoods. Iris publishes an uncomfortable report showing that several areas hardest hit by Flash-related disasters received the least aid. Leonard Snart recruits Mardon into the Rogues but warns him that killing civilians will make them no better than the systems they hate. DeVoe manipulates the relief hearings by presenting Barry's unsanctioned interventions as evidence that Central City has surrendered civic authority to a man who can rewrite outcomes before anyone else can object. | ||||||
| 28 | 4 | "Trick Questions" | Jennifer Phang | Sarah Tarkoff | October 26, 2029 | |
| Axel Walker, a livestreaming anarchist calling himself the Trickster, hijacks the testimony archive and turns erased-timeline memories into public entertainment. His broadcasts force victims to relive impossible deaths while viewers vote on which memories should be released next. Barry wants to shut down the archive entirely, but Iris argues that destroying the record would punish victims for someone else's exploitation. Cisco and Hartley trace Trickster's signal through old S.T.A.R. Labs communication towers, while Eddie confronts his fear that his own unstable timeline makes him another public curiosity. Caitlin appears briefly to Barry through an archived medical message, reminding him that systems built to heal can still be abused without becoming worthless. Barry captures Trickster without destroying the archive, but DeVoe uses the attack to propose a legal injunction against all unsupervised Flash activity. | ||||||
| 29 | 5 | "The Top Spins" | Deborah Chow | Eric Wallace | November 2, 2029 | |
| Roscoe Dillon, a physicist whose vestibular system was altered by the Speed Force fracture, begins inducing mass vertigo across Central City financial districts. Dillon believes the city must be physically disoriented before it can understand how ordinary people feel living under impossible events decided by speedsters, scientists, and politicians. DeVoe helps him target the courthouse where Barry's public oversight hearing is scheduled. At the hearing, prosecutors argue that the Flash's refusal to kill Zoom and Malcolm Thawne endangered the city, while Iris counters that accountability cannot become state ownership of a person's body. Leonard Snart interrupts Dillon's attack, revealing that even the Rogues believe DeVoe is pushing them toward chaos for his own agenda. Barry saves the courthouse by trusting Cisco to anchor the crowd through vibration instead of trying to move everyone himself. DeVoe privately declares that the Flash's team is the true obstacle. | ||||||
| 30 | 6 | "Cold War" | Deborah Chow | Lauren Certo and Thomas Pound | November 9, 2029 | |
| DeVoe engineers a conflict between the Rogues and Team Flash by leaking evidence that Lisa Snart's powers are slowly killing her. Leonard steals a cryogenic stabilizer from S.T.A.R. Labs, forcing Barry to pursue him through a citywide blackout caused by Mardon. Lisa admits that she joined the Rogues because the law only saw her as stolen technology wearing a human body. Joe and Linda expose DeVoe's role in arranging the blackout, but DeVoe uses mirror-space to appear in several courtrooms at once and announces that he is filing a civic injunction to suspend the Flash from operating inside Central City. Barry and Leonard briefly cooperate to save Lisa, creating an uneasy respect between them. However, DeVoe captures Hartley and uses his harmonic research to build a device capable of predicting Cisco's dimensional anchors before he creates them. | ||||||
| 31 | 7 | "The Trial of the Flash" | Uta Briesewitz | Sarah Tarkoff and Eric Wallace | November 16, 2029 | |
| DeVoe brings Barry before a special civic tribunal, arguing that the Flash's speed makes meaningful consent impossible because he can act before law, evidence, or public debate can respond. Barry refuses to reveal every secret identity and timeline event connected to Team Flash, knowing the testimony would expose innocent people. Iris defends Barry by admitting the archive's failures while arguing that the answer to dangerous power is transparent community, not DeVoe's intellectual dictatorship. DeVoe triggers his prediction device, trapping Cisco in a loop of failed anchors and allowing the Rogues to attack key sites across the city. Snart realizes DeVoe intends to sacrifice the Rogues as proof that Central City needs his rule. Caitlin appears one last time in a Speed Force echo, helping Barry understand that accountability means accepting limits, not surrendering judgment. Barry submits to oversight but refuses to stop saving lives. | ||||||
| 32 | 8 | "The Thinker's City" | David Nutter | Freddie Goodwin and Lauren Certo | November 23, 2029 | |
| DeVoe uses mirror-space, harmonic prediction, and testimony archive data to transform Central City into a controlled simulation where every emergency is anticipated and every citizen's choices are assigned risk values. The city initially appears safer, but Iris discovers that DeVoe's system prevents people from taking actions that might lead to unpredictable futures, effectively freezing civic life. Barry cannot outrun the simulation because DeVoe predicts every rescue path before he moves. Cisco breaks the prediction engine by anchoring dozens of uncertain outcomes at once, while Snart and the Rogues sabotage mirror relays to reclaim their own agency. Barry confronts DeVoe and admits that the Flash should be accountable, but no mind has the right to replace a city with a calculation. DeVoe is defeated when Iris broadcasts the archive live, flooding his system with contradictory human testimony. The season ends with Barry accepting a public charter for Team Flash as a new threat watches from the future. | ||||||
Cast and characters
Main
- Dacre Montgomery as Barry Allen / The Flash
- Kiersey Clemons as Iris West
- Delroy Lindo as Detective Joe West
- Rahul Kohli as Cisco Ramon / Vibe
- Lakeith Stanfield as Eddie Thawne
- Jessica Henwick as Linda Park
- Giancarlo Esposito as Eobard Thawne / Reverse-Flash
- Riz Ahmed as Hartley Rathaway
- Ming-Na Wen as Dr. Christina Vale
- Jodie Comer as Dr. Eliza Harmon
- Courtney B. Vance as Henry Allen
- Paddy Considine as Malcolm Thawne / Cobalt Blue
- Ben Mendelsohn as Hunter Zolomon / Zoom
- William Fichtner as Leonard Snart / Captain Cold
- Tati Gabrielle as Lisa Snart / Golden Glider
- David Thewlis as Clifford DeVoe / the Thinker
Recurring
- Ken Leung as Captain Elias Singh
- Ralph Ineson as General Wade Eiling
- Ana de Armas as Dr. Emilia Serrano
- Keith David as the voice of Gideon
- Dev Patel as Alex Singh / Superboy
- Ben Whishaw as Owen Mercer
- Sophie Thatcher as Avery Ho
- Rhea Seehorn as Senator Mara Ellis
- Winston Duke as Commander Adam Crey
- Ariela Barer as Brie Larvan
Guest
- Maya Hawke as Caitlin Snow
- Toby Kebbell as Marcus Dent
- Sam Claflin as Sam Scudder / Mirror Master
- Jack Quaid as Axel Walker / Trickster
- Taron Egerton as Roscoe Dillon / the Top
- Dan Stevens as Mark Mardon / Weather Wizard
- John Boyega as Ronnie Raymond
- Thandiwe Newton as Nora Allen
- Jurnee Smollett as Francine West
- Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as David Singh
Production
Development
Vesper+ renewed The Flash for a fourth season in December 2028 after the release of the third season finale, "Run Still". Freddie Goodwin returned as showrunner, with Hannah Greer, Marcus Vale, Lauren Certo, and David Mercer continuing as executive producers. The renewal confirmed another eight-episode season and described the fourth season as a more public-facing chapter about accountability, civic memory, and the rise of Central City's organized metahuman criminal class.
Goodwin said the fourth season was designed to move the series out of Barry Allen's purely internal Speed Force reckoning and into a citywide debate about what the Flash should be allowed to do. After the third season ended with Central City remembering fragments of erased timelines, the writers wanted to explore how a population would respond to proof that one hero's battles had altered reality itself. Rather than treat the public as ungrateful, the season was written to make some of the criticism of Barry legitimate while still rejecting the idea that fear should hand power to authoritarian figures.
The writers chose to adapt the Rogues because the show had reached a point where Barry's enemies needed to feel shaped by Central City's history. Goodwin said the Rogues were not introduced as random villains but as people responding to the same disasters, technologies, and institutional failures that created the Flash. Leonard Snart became the ideological center of the group because his criminal code allowed the writers to contrast him with both Barry and Clifford DeVoe. Snart breaks the law, but he rejects the total control DeVoe represents.
Clifford DeVoe / the Thinker was selected as the season's primary antagonist because the writers wanted an enemy Barry could not defeat by becoming faster or more emotionally honest. DeVoe's argument is intellectual and civic: the Flash acts before anyone can consent, and therefore Central City should be governed by prediction rather than improvisation. Goodwin described DeVoe as "a villain with a point and a monstrous solution." His presence allowed the season to adapt more comic villains while keeping one strong thematic spine.
The season also shifted Maya Hawke's role from main cast to guest. Goodwin said Caitlin Snow's death remained permanent and that using Hawke too heavily would weaken the impact of the second season's major loss. Caitlin appears only through archived recordings and a Speed Force echo because the writers wanted her influence to remain important without turning her into a regular ghost character. Hawke was credited as a guest star for the season.
Writing
Writing for the fourth season began in January 2029. The writers' room included Freddie Goodwin, Lauren Certo, Thomas Pound, Sarah Tarkoff, Eric Wallace, and consulting producer Hannah Greer. The season was structured around the question of whether accountability can exist when one person can act faster than every institution around him. The writers wanted to avoid simplistic answers. Barry saves lives because he can move before disaster completes itself, but the season asks who gets to review the consequences afterward.
The Rogues were written as a social response to Central City's instability. Leonard Snart and Lisa Snart represent people shaped by stolen technology and criminal survival. Mirror Master represents the hidden spaces created by scientific disasters. Weather Wizard represents neighborhoods abandoned after large-scale metahuman incidents. Trickster represents exploitation of trauma as spectacle. The Top represents disorientation and public distrust. DeVoe sees all of them as symptoms to be studied, manipulated, and eventually sacrificed in his argument for controlled order.
Iris West's testimony archive became one of the season's central narrative devices. In the third season, the archive helped Central City process impossible memories. In the fourth, it becomes politically contested. Prosecutors, victims, criminals, journalists, and DeVoe all attempt to use the archive to define what the city remembers and what it should do with those memories. Goodwin said Iris's storyline was essential because it prevented the season's public accountability theme from becoming only a courtroom problem for Barry.
Cisco Ramon's development into Vibe was expanded across the season. The writers wanted Cisco's powers to become practical and heroic without losing the horror introduced in the third season. His ability to anchor uncertain outcomes becomes the direct counter to DeVoe's predictive control. Where DeVoe wants to reduce the city to probabilities, Cisco's powers confirm that possibility remains alive precisely because the future cannot be fully calculated.
The seventh episode, "The Trial of the Flash", was written as the season's philosophical centerpiece. Goodwin said the episode is not a traditional trial about whether Barry is guilty of one crime. Instead, it is a trial over the idea of the Flash. DeVoe argues that speed destroys consent, Iris argues that records and community can create accountability, and Barry accepts that saving lives does not exempt him from limits. The episode was written to make Barry mature without humiliating him or making him abandon heroism.
The finale, "The Thinker's City", was built around the idea that perfect safety can become another kind of imprisonment. DeVoe's controlled simulation prevents crime and disaster by eliminating uncertainty, but it also eliminates meaningful choice. Goodwin said the ending was designed to reject both extremes: Barry cannot operate without accountability, but Central City cannot surrender its future to one mind that mistakes prediction for justice. The Rogues' decision to help destroy DeVoe's mirror relays was intended to show that even criminals can resist a world without agency.
Casting
Dacre Montgomery, Kiersey Clemons, Delroy Lindo, Rahul Kohli, Lakeith Stanfield, Jessica Henwick, Giancarlo Esposito, Riz Ahmed, Ming-Na Wen, Jodie Comer, Courtney B. Vance, Paddy Considine, and Ben Mendelsohn returned from previous seasons. William Fichtner and Tati Gabrielle were promoted to main cast as Leonard Snart / Captain Cold and Lisa Snart / Golden Glider after recurring in earlier seasons. David Thewlis joined the main cast as Clifford DeVoe / the Thinker.
Goodwin said Thewlis was cast because DeVoe needed to be persuasive before he became frightening. The character was written as a scholar and legal theorist whose intellect allows him to diagnose real civic problems but whose arrogance makes him believe only he should be allowed to solve them. Thewlis described DeVoe as someone who views empathy as unreliable data and heroism as a primitive response to systemic failure.
Sam Claflin, Jack Quaid, Taron Egerton, and Dan Stevens joined the guest cast as Sam Scudder / Mirror Master, Axel Walker / Trickster, Roscoe Dillon / the Top, and Mark Mardon / Weather Wizard, respectively. The writers used these characters to expand the Rogues without overloading the main cast list. Goodwin said each guest villain was chosen because their powers could dramatize part of the season's civic argument: reflection, spectacle, disorientation, and environmental consequence.
Maya Hawke returned as Caitlin Snow in a guest capacity. The production confirmed before the season premiere that Hawke would not be part of the main cast, emphasizing that Caitlin remained dead. Her appearances were limited to "Trick Questions" and "The Trial of the Flash", where archived messages and Speed Force echoes help Barry understand accountability without undoing the character's sacrifice.
John Boyega appeared as Ronnie Raymond in a guest role, continuing the ambiguity of his post-rupture state from the previous seasons. Goodwin said Ronnie's brief appearance was included to show that Caitlin's death still affects the living characters, not to reopen the same grief arc. Thandiwe Newton also returned as Nora Allen in a guest role through a Speed Force memory.
Filming
Principal photography for the fourth season began in March 2029 and concluded in July 2029. Filming took place primarily in Vancouver, British Columbia, with additional exterior work used to represent Central City's restored civic spaces, tribunal buildings, and reconstruction districts. Production designer Lila Chen returned and redesigned parts of the city to reflect partial recovery after years of disasters. The result was brighter than the second and third seasons but intentionally uneasy, with public memorials, surveillance systems, and Flash oversight posters visible throughout the city.
The season introduced several major new sets, including the civic tribunal chamber, the testimony archive office, DeVoe's study, and the Rogues' hideout. The Rogues' hideout was designed as a repurposed transit station beneath Central City, filled with stolen technology, improvised medical equipment, and evidence of people living between legality and survival. Chen said the set needed to feel criminal but not cartoonish, because the season treats the Rogues as products of the city rather than outsiders.
Mirror-space sequences required a combination of practical reflective sets and visual effects. Director David Nutter said the crew avoided simple mirror mazes and instead built spaces that looked like distorted civic interiors, including courtrooms, archives, and police corridors. This allowed Mirror Master's powers to tie directly into the season's themes of evidence, testimony, and distorted public memory.
The tribunal scenes in "The Trial of the Flash" were filmed over several days with limited action sequences. Goodwin said the episode was deliberately staged like a pressure chamber, forcing the characters to argue instead of run. The production used long takes and restrained camera movement to contrast with the speed-heavy episodes around it. Montgomery and Clemons described the episode as one of the most dialogue-intensive shoots of the series.
The finale combined practical city sets with extensive digital simulation effects. DeVoe's controlled version of Central City was created by cleaning up familiar locations until they felt unnaturally orderly, removing graffiti, traffic variation, and unpredictable human movement. As the simulation collapses, those details return in chaotic layers. The production team wanted the audience to feel that imperfection itself was being restored.
Visual effects
Mara Ellison returned as visual effects supervisor. The fourth season required a wider variety of powers than previous seasons due to the expanded Rogues gallery. The visual effects team created distinct looks for cold technology, mirror travel, weather manipulation, vertigo fields, and DeVoe's predictive simulation. Ellison said the challenge was making the season feel visually varied without losing the show's established speed language.
Captain Cold's cold-gun effects were designed as tactical and precise, forming angular ice structures rather than uncontrolled frost. Golden Glider's movement used gold energy trails and gravity-defying skating effects, distinguishing Lisa from the speedsters while still giving her action scenes fluid motion. Mirror Master's effects used fractured reflections and delayed images, often showing multiple versions of a character making different choices.
Weather Wizard's storm effects were tied to the red-weather imagery from the second season but made more localized and emotionally volatile. The Top's vertigo powers used rotating camera rigs, warped backgrounds, and subtle digital displacement. Trickster's broadcasts relied less on powers and more on distorted media overlays, hacked archive footage, and practical explosive devices.
DeVoe's simulation effects were intentionally clean and controlled. When his prediction system activates, the city appears overlaid with risk diagrams, probability paths, and mirrored decision trees. By the finale, the effect becomes oppressive, with citizens surrounded by invisible calculations that prevent spontaneous movement. Cisco's vibration anchors were designed as the visual opposite: unstable, colorful, and alive with branching possibility.
Music
Blake Neely and Hildur Guðnadóttir returned to compose the fourth season's score. Neely expanded the heroic Flash theme into a more public and ceremonial variation used during the oversight hearings and civic scenes, while Guðnadóttir developed colder and more mathematical textures for DeVoe. The season also introduced motifs for the Rogues, using recurring percussion and bass patterns that could be altered depending on which member was leading a scene.
Captain Cold's motif uses low strings and metallic pulses, while Golden Glider's theme adds brighter, sliding tones. Mirror Master is associated with reversed piano and glass-like percussion. Weather Wizard's music incorporates rumbling percussion and unstable brass. Trickster's scenes use distorted carnival rhythms and chopped media noise. The Top's motif relies on circling strings and gradually shifting tempo.
DeVoe's theme is deliberately restrained. Guðnadóttir described it as music that refuses to breathe. It uses controlled pulses, muted piano, and repeating patterns that become more complex as the season progresses. In the finale, the theme collapses when Iris floods his system with contradictory testimony, allowing the Flash theme and Cisco's vibration motif to re-enter the score.
Marketing
Vesper+ announced the fourth season in December 2028 after the third season finale. The announcement confirmed that the season would adapt the Rogues and introduce Clifford DeVoe / the Thinker. The first teaser showed Barry standing before a civic tribunal while voices from Iris's testimony archive accused, defended, thanked, and condemned the Flash. The tagline was "A city saved is not a city settled."
The official trailer was released in August 2029. It introduced Captain Cold, Golden Glider, Mirror Master, Weather Wizard, Trickster, the Top, and DeVoe. The trailer emphasized the season's shift toward public accountability and organized villainy, ending with DeVoe saying, "The Flash is not justice. He is velocity without consent." The trailer was widely discussed for positioning several comic villains within one connected seasonal arc.
Character posters were released for Barry, Iris, Cisco, Joe, Eddie, Leonard Snart, Lisa Snart, DeVoe, and Mirror Master. A separate set of Rogues posters used police-file styling but paired each villain with a civic theme: "Property", "Memory", "Weather", "Spectacle", "Balance", and "Control". Maya Hawke was not included in the main poster campaign, reflecting Caitlin Snow's guest status.
In September 2029, Vesper+ released an in-universe legal brief titled Central City v. The Flash, summarizing fictional arguments for and against metahuman oversight. The campaign also included weekly archive entries from Iris West and short Rogue files narrated by Linda Park. Goodwin said the campaign was meant to make viewers ask whether the Flash should be trusted before the season itself answered the question.
Release
The fourth season premiered on Vesper+ on October 5, 2029. The season consisted of eight weekly episodes, with the finale released on November 23, 2029.
| No. overall | No. in season | Title | Original release date |
|---|---|---|---|
| 25 | 1 | "Rogues" | October 5, 2029 |
| 26 | 2 | "Through the Looking Glass" | October 12, 2029 |
| 27 | 3 | "Weather Patterns" | October 19, 2029 |
| 28 | 4 | "Trick Questions" | October 26, 2029 |
| 29 | 5 | "The Top Spins" | November 2, 2029 |
| 30 | 6 | "Cold War" | November 9, 2029 |
| 31 | 7 | "The Trial of the Flash" | November 16, 2029 |
| 32 | 8 | "The Thinker's City" | November 23, 2029 |
Reception
Critical response
The fourth season received positive reviews from critics. Praise was directed toward the adaptation of the Rogues, the season's public accountability storyline, Rahul Kohli's expanded role as Cisco Ramon / Vibe, and David Thewlis's performance as Clifford DeVoe. Critics noted that the season successfully shifted the series away from Barry's internal grief arc and into a more civic, ensemble-driven story.
Reviewers responded positively to the way the season adapted comic villains without turning each episode into disposable villain-of-the-week storytelling. Leonard Snart / Captain Cold and Lisa Snart / Golden Glider were frequently highlighted as the strongest additions, with critics praising the decision to give the Rogues a code and a political function within Central City. Mirror Master, Weather Wizard, Trickster, and the Top were also noted for expanding the season's visual and thematic range.
David Thewlis's DeVoe received strong reviews. Critics described the Thinker as a quieter but more ideologically dangerous antagonist than Zoom or Cobalt Blue. His argument that the Flash acts faster than democratic consent was considered one of the season's strongest ideas, though some reviewers felt the show occasionally made DeVoe too persuasive before revealing the authoritarian logic of his plan. The finale was praised for rejecting both unaccountable heroism and total predictive control.
Maya Hawke's guest appearances as Caitlin Snow were generally praised for restraint. Critics noted that the season avoided overusing Caitlin after her death and allowed her brief appearances to serve Barry's moral development rather than reopen the loss for melodrama. Some fans wanted Hawke to appear more often, but reviewers largely agreed that limiting Caitlin to guest status preserved the impact of the second season.
Some criticism was directed at the number of villains introduced. A few reviewers argued that Sam Scudder, Mark Mardon, Axel Walker, and Roscoe Dillon could each have carried larger arcs in a longer season. Others felt the crowded villain roster worked because DeVoe's manipulation gave the Rogues a shared narrative purpose. The episode "The Trial of the Flash" was widely regarded as the season's standout installment, with praise for its dialogue, moral tension, and courtroom structure.
On review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, the season holds an approval rating of 89% based on 50 critic reviews, with an average rating of 7.6/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "A sharper civic reckoning for Central City's hero, The Flash season four makes smart use of the Rogues and lets the Thinker challenge Barry Allen in ways speed cannot solve." On Metacritic, the season has a weighted average score of 75 out of 100 based on 23 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
Audience viewership
Vesper+ reported that the fourth season premiere performed strongly, particularly among viewers who had followed the testimony archive campaign after the third season. The introduction of the Rogues was cited as a major driver of audience interest. Viewership reportedly increased for "The Trial of the Flash" and "The Thinker's City", with the finale becoming the season's most-watched episode during its first week of availability.
The service also reported strong engagement with the in-universe legal brief and Rogue files. Vesper+ did not release exact streaming figures.
Accolades
| Year | Award | Category | Nominee(s) | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2030 | Saturn Awards | Best Superhero Television Series | The Flash | Pending |
| Saturn Awards | Best Actor in a Television Series | Dacre Montgomery | Pending | |
| Saturn Awards | Best Supporting Actor in a Television Series | Rahul Kohli | Pending | |
| Saturn Awards | Best Guest Performance in a Television Series | Maya Hawke | Pending | |
| Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards | Outstanding Special Visual Effects in a Season or a Movie | The Flash | Pending | |
| Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards | Outstanding Sound Editing for a Comedy or Drama Series | "The Thinker's City" | Pending | |
| Hollywood Music in Media Awards | Best Original Score in a TV Show/Limited Series | Blake Neely and Hildur Guðnadóttir | Pending | |
| Critics' Choice Super Awards | Best Superhero Series, Limited Series or Made-for-TV Movie | The Flash | Pending |
Future
Vesper+ renewed The Flash for a fifth season in December 2029. Goodwin said the fifth season would deal with the consequences of Team Flash's public charter and the future threat teased at the end of "The Thinker's City". He stated that the fourth season had moved Barry from private hero to publicly accountable protector, while the fifth would test whether that structure could survive threats from outside Central City's present.
Goodwin also said the Rogues would remain part of the show's world rather than disappear after DeVoe's defeat. He described Leonard Snart as a character who had not become a hero but had become impossible to treat as a simple villain. The renewal announcement confirmed that Dacre Montgomery, Kiersey Clemons, Delroy Lindo, Rahul Kohli, Lakeith Stanfield, Jessica Henwick, William Fichtner, Tati Gabrielle, and David Thewlis were expected to return in some capacity.
Notes
References
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