User blog:Itamar20112/How Harrison Wells changed over the years

I recently watched a video ranking all the versions of Harrison Wells. Besides it being a great video, it also reminded me how much the character evolved over the years. The Flash really handled the character (or characters) very differently in every season, to the point where his role was changed drastically. So here's how Wells changed over the seasons, and a short review of the way he was handled every season:

In season 1 he was just a regular character - someone who was a friend and mentor to the protagonists but turned out to be their greatest enemy. That was done so great. Tom Cavanagh managed to play both a mentor figure to Team Flash with mysterious intentions, but also being a great main villain of a season in Reverse-Flash. In season 2, with the introduction of the multiverse, they also messed with Harrison Wells. He was a guy who had good intensions and just wanted to help Team Flash and save his daughter, but because of the fact he looked like the guy who betrayed them all they needed to learn to trust him, even though he was a completely different person than Reverse-Flash and only looked like him. All that was handled really well. Harry is one of the best characters on The Flash: His personality of being a douch but still a good guy worked so well in that season, especially during his interactions with Cisco. Season 3 is where they started to mess up. They showed a lot of different versions just for comedy, and while H.R was also kinda comedy relief, the show managed to develop him enough to also be a great character. The scene where all the different Harrison Wells were shown in an hologram made the show look like a cartoon (and not in a good way). Definetally a step in the wrong direction, but still not horrible: That scene from episode 4 was stupid but really short, and the show actually managed to have fun with the fact Harry and H.R look the same. I really liked the scene from episode 13 where H.R approves of Wally and Jesse's relashionship, but then points out that Harry would be pissed. I found it funny that H.R approves of it but Harry doesn't, while they both look the same. That was a good way to mess with the Infinite Wells concept. Season 4 completely ruined the character. the show introduced both the Council of Wells and the Council of Harrisons, which are basically 8 different versions of Wells who are all exteremly one dimentional talking to each other. That was handled so badly. I get that it's a reference to the Council of Ricks from Rick and Morty, but that concept doesn't fit a live-action superhero show. That point of the show was where they went too far with the infinite Wells concept, and that was just too much for me. I don't really remember season 4 that well, but I don't think I laughed once during those scenes. This was like the scene from season 3 but in 2 episodes, and for 15 minutes total for each episode. Not to mention that the main Wells wasn't really good: They brought back Harry, but I really didn't like the storyline of him getting stupid, only to make him a good person at the end. This was just taking all the things that made him good in season 2, and throwing it down the toilet. Definetally the worst season of Harrison Wells. Season 5 was kind of a redemption. They returned the concept of two Harrison Wells's (yeah the german one appeared for like 2 minutes but it doesn't matter and was kinda funny), and the main Wells we got was.... ok. At first I couldn't really take Sherloque seriously with the accent - I felt like it was for a Wells from the councils not a main Wells. But I got used to it, and he did get some great scenes. I liked his storyline of investigating Nora, especially the parts where he was kind of compared to Thawne: The scene where he puts on Eobard's glasses from season 1 and sitting on the wheelchair was great. I don't know how to explain it, but it was such a good scene that showed me again the good things that can come out from the Infinite Wells concept. And speaking about Thawne, he was amazing. You can really believe that he wants to help Nora, only for it to hurt when it turns out he was using her. I also liked the part where Thawne made a plan to give Sherloque a love interest which will make him stop investigating Nora. Seeing a Wells trick a Wells was actually a good, fun concept. For those who say it should have been Matt Letscher I say "no". The entire point was good Wells and evil Wells.

So we went from the main villain to a comic relief, to whatever season 5 was. Personally I blame the writers for when the character felt like a cartoon, as it was 100% not Tom Cavanagh's fault. The fact he could play so many different versions of the same character (who all look the same) but still make them destinct is an amazing achivement. Probably the best actor in the Arrowverse (I actually can't decide between him and Stephen Amell). If you made it this far, thank you for reading!