“The Flash: Escape the Midnight Circus” released its final episode earlier today. Totaling six episodes all less than 20 minutes long, the show went by a bit too fast—which for a show about the fastest man alive is both ironic and somehow appropriate.

Flash of Two Worlds: A Midnight Circus on Infinite Crisis

It’s hard to talk “The Flash: Escape the Midnight Circus” without comparing it to the Flash movie, starring Ezra Miller and released around the same time. So much of the audio drama, co-produced by Realm and Blue Ribbon Content (Batman: the Audio Adventures) borrows heavily thus far from that movie. I don’t just mean in tone, but plot points as well. Some things like how both the movie version and the podcast have Barry coming to the same idea of going back in time to fix something in the present in virtually the same way. The context may be different, but the way Max Greenfield and Ezra Miller play the scene is almost identical.

Of course, the Flash movie did bomb at the box office according to most sources. The desire for a Flash story to compliment the film and help boost ticket sales seems to be what Warner and DC are trying to do with this production. Even if it didn’t start out that way. The business funnel for the movie might have had the opposite trajectory, promoting the podcast instead. Those who bought the Flash movie on sites like Vudu had access to the podcast in the bonus features section of their digital movie copy. I’m not sure if the entire show was included before the final premiere date, but I imagine that bonus feature would be as one long continuous story.

MCU Humor Meets Lego Batman

By episode four, the comedy is ramped up to 11 and then some. The humor dial now broken early on in the episode and stuck at faster than the speed of light for the remainder. Uncertain if this is the tone the series sticks with for the remainder of its episodes, but the comedy lies somewhere in between the MCU and “Lego Batman” in terms of its effectiveness. Some of the jokes serve the story. Others feel like they belong in the “Batman and Robin” movie. It didn’t reach the level of cringe of having ice puns every few lines of dialogue—despite Captain Cold being Barry’s bunkmate in this world where criminals of all sorts fight to the death. Thankfully none of them were cringe or overused.

The final two episodes dial the humor back as the stakes are high and personal enough that it would feel disingenuous. The way Barry escapes the midnight circus will leave some listeners unsatisfied as it undermines most of the physical journey. The emotional one, which started all the way back in episode one, feels earned despite the comedy and hijinks in the middle of the season.

8.5/10+ Stars

Animation Guild Strike Disclaimer

Figured I’d take a moment to make clear that this article came out before the animation guild officially unionized and joined SAG-AFTRA and the WGA in their fight against studios. As of this writing the animation guild’s decision is still up in the air. Since Warner Bros. Animation helped produce this podcast with Realm, I wanted to make sure this article didn’t publicize a work that would benefit Warner Bros more than the workers themselves.