The Flash ended its nine-season run this week, and buried in the finale was something Buffy fans caught almost immediately.
In the closing moments, Barry Allen passes the Speed Force to three ordinary people, granting them the power to “create a world where nothing need be impossible.” The image of one hero choosing to share their extraordinary gift — multiplying it, spreading it outward to others — is hard not to read as an echo of Buffy’s series finale. In “Chosen,” Willow’s spell activates every Potential Slayer on the planet, and the burden Buffy has always carried alone is suddenly shared by thousands.
Whether it was intentional is genuinely unclear, but the show’s creative DNA has Buffy in it. Executive producer Andrew Kreisberg once cited Joss Whedon’s work as a direct influence, specifically namechecking “Hush,” “The Body,” and “Once More With Feeling” as examples of how to make a genre episode that still serves the season’s ongoing emotional story. “Those episodes really spoke to what the characters were going through,” he said.
Quiet nod or direct homage, it was a fitting way to end a superhero show that always had one foot in the late-nineties tradition Buffy helped define.
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