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Cory and Tom have one final episode for The Flash ’90, discussing the unmade script for and early episode titled “War Wagon.” They break it down to find where it may have fit into the series, discuss the writing duo who penned it and decide if this story is a hidden gem that should have been made.
War Wagon:
Barry, despite protests from Tina about how it may affect the his body, continues his nighttime escapades as the Flash, helping wherever he can, in small ways like stopping a drunk man from driving, to big ways, like preventing a bomb from killing Murphy and Bellows who were investigating a break in at a government computer facility.
Meanwhile, fellow detective Neidermeyer and Chief Cooper, have been promoting the use of a new vehicle called the PeaceKeeper, a heavily armored and weapon laden vehicle as their latest tool in their war on crime, despite protests from a group of concerned scientists led by Tina herself.
Unfortunately, the PeaceKeeper is stolen that very night by the same mercenaries who broke into the computer lab the day before. Their plan? To use it to break out a known terrorist while being transferred to another prison. Having also kidnapped Tina in order to get the PeaceKeeper fully functional, they attack the city armory and frame her for the crime, including a note of here she plans to attack next.
Having linked evidence at both crime scenes to the mercenaries, Barry learns of the prison transfer and pleads with the chief to intercept them, but fooled by the frame job on Tina, the city’s resources are sent to another part of town. Barry tracks down the PeaceKeeper but ends up getting blasted and left for dead as the mercenaries get away with the terrorist.
When he awakes, he remembers that Tina keeps records on him in code and deciphers Tina’s note, discovering her hidden message, a radio frequency that he then tunes into and hears the plans being made. He rushes to the rendezvous point and throws off the PeaceKeeper’s targeting computer with his speed, causing it to shut down. He rescues Tina and faces off a homing missile that he redirects into the vehicle itself by speeding away at the last second, killing all inside and saving the day.
“War Wagon” Flash Points:
The writers of this script were Steven Long Mitchell and Craig W. Van Sickle, who often collaborated on projects. They didn’t go on to write at all for The Flash, but most notably in television they wrote episodes of The Pretender and 24. At the time of writing the “War Wagon” script, they had just finished up writing the script for the movie “Ski Patrol.” Check out the trailer below-
One of the most interesting aspects of the script is the writing out of Iris West. As fellow rewatchers will know, she was out before episode 2 began, but here you can find the story line of her deciding to leave Barry and move the Paris. We also enjoyed the writing style and descriptive language of the script, and it was fun to see early character development for almost every major character.
Summary:
Although it’s a tough read, it is cool to see what could have been. Yes, it’s full of generic or even cliche side characters (non of which are Quick Connections by the way), but it is a bit of fun. At the end of the day, are we devastated that it didn’t get to production? No, it’s not that good. If you’re looking for a little bonus after having seen the season several times over the years, it’s worth the read though.
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