The Flash: Season Eight
December 2, 2021 7:31 AM - Season 8 (Full Season) - Subscribe

On the off chance anybody is still watching this, I thought I'd put up a catch-all post to discuss the current season.

Honestly, I thought this was the last season--which is why I decided to watch it--until looked up the status in order to make this post. Apparently, the cancel/renew decision is still up in the air.

Apparently they're going with more a Brave and the Bold or team-up format rather than the big crossover this year. While the first big guest star, Brandon Routh's Ray Palmer, was wasted (in my opinion), Cress Williams' Jefferson Pierce was well used and well treated. For being one of the most junior members of the Arrowverse, he did a great job of handling one of the most senior members when Barry was being his usual idiotic self. It was this guest-starring turn that made me decide to post this thread, in case anybody else wanted to talk about Black Lightning.

I really could have done without a return of Iris' time sickness, which never really made sense in the first place, but the next episode looks like it might be interesting (and very Silver Age).
posted by sardonyx (13 comments total)
 
AV Club review for episode three.
posted by sardonyx at 7:32 AM on December 2, 2021


This show has a bland-character problem. Caitlin, Allegra, even Cecile when she's not hamming it up. I have a feeling that's part of how Ray got wasted -- if he's not very carefully written, he too is painfully bland. Chester, to his credit, manages not to be bland despite his junior status on the team and general deferential air.

But with several sources of quirkiness and humor gone -- Cisco, Ralph (and yeah, the actor NEEDED TO BE GONE), the Wellses, even Joe in his quiet way -- the blandness is just. Taking over. They're trying to plug the quirky hole with villains, and Despero is dutifully chewing scenery... but they need non-blandness actually on Team Flash or why root for it at all?

I did enjoy Jefferson just not being there for Barry's usual crap. The man has handled teenagers en masse and it shows!
posted by humbug at 8:25 AM on December 2, 2021 [3 favorites]


Jefferson's second power, and not just in this franchise, is being the adult in the room.
posted by Karmakaze at 9:27 AM on December 2, 2021 [3 favorites]


This has been relatively fun so far. I'm hoping they finally, finally, learned the lesson from Legends of Tomorrow and will lean in to the ridiculousness for the rest of the season. Tony Curran hamming it up to 11 as Despero is very entertaining. Jefferson being the adult to Barry is something Joe, and later Iris, should have been doing all along but they've never been written that way.
posted by plastic_animals at 10:41 AM on December 2, 2021 [2 favorites]


Honestly, I thought this was the last season

TBH, I'd have been fine if they finished up after the Gorilla Grodd arc. S06E13.
posted by mikelieman at 5:11 PM on December 2, 2021 [2 favorites]


Now that Arrow is over, I guess The Flash has taken up the job of ripping off Batman plotlines. Iris searching for a lost-in-time/presumed-murdered Joe (with nobody believing her) is essentially Tim searching for a lost-in-time/presumed-murdered Bruce, while nobody believed him, right?

Can I say I'm happy that we never got a full-blown official Injustice crossover in the Arrowverse? (I'm more than fine with them using that name as protocol/bone for fans.) I can't imagine how melodramatic and badly written and overacted that event would have been.

Seeing Oliver's costume at the Hall of Justice made me think back over that series for a bit. I can't believe I never commented about Oliver stealing Jason's Hood nickname. Okay, technically he is Red Hood, but let's face it, 99 per cent of the time, people just call him Hood. I guess Oliver putting a definitive article in front of his first alias was his way of making the name his own.

I don't know if the problem is one of blandness or one of niceness (or maybe it's in that area where they cross over), but yes, something needs to happen to shake the regular character (or the writers) up a bit.
posted by sardonyx at 7:09 AM on December 3, 2021 [1 favorite]


I get that not everybody watches all of the Arrowverse shows, so weaving in years of backstories from other properties is a challenge, but even still, there were things that didn't make any kind of sense.

Even though Team Flash and Team Supergirl have never met the current Batwoman (yes, I know, the new timelines changes all that) Ryan is all kinds of chatty about her relationship with her wife Sophie (who she mentions by name more than once). In contrast Alex, who has been a friend to Barry for years (and was at his wedding to Iris) only ever mentions her wife and never names her. It would have also made sense to get Alex's view on adoption, considering that she and Kelly adopted. (I guess this is because Batwoman is still on the air and the CW is trying to drive viewers to that show, whereas Supergirl is over, so who cares about Kelly?)

If Barry is down to five per cent of his speed, thanks to his encounter with Jefferson, how is he getting enough speed (even with the global runway) to get up to Mach 20? And why wouldn't Thawne have made himself as fast as Barry was at his peak?

I must admit, when Frost and Chillblaine mentioned John, I had no clue who they were talking about. I didn't make the leap to Constantine because I didn't they they had ever met.

Alex disparaging science when Ryan Choi was poo-pooing love and romance? Really? That seems out of character for her, given that she is a scientist!

Why would Thawne be so determined to live out his life playing a character (nice guy who doesn't kill people and who is in love with Iris)? Yes, he won, and he supplanted Barry, and that's fine, but if you're changing the timelines anyway, why not create one in which you are happy and enjoying your new life and not going through the motions echoing somebody else's life?

It was nice to see something resembling a traditional Atom suit and powers in the Arrowverse, given we never really got that with Ray. But why didn't he suit up when Thawne told his crew to suit up?

I don't know what non-viewers of Legends are supposed to think about Damien and Nora? Sure their arc was explained in Legends flashbacks, but that feels like a bit of a cheat for people who only watch The Flash.

Barry's Reverse Flash costume looked really cheap and poorly designed and constructed.

I guess the crack about who knows what face fate will wear was some kind of wink that this was Thawne wearing Harrison Wells' face and not true Thawne.

AV Club review
posted by sardonyx at 8:26 PM on December 8, 2021


Note: the post above is about episode four.
posted by sardonyx at 8:54 PM on December 8, 2021


Yes, the future alternate timeline stuff in episode four was, to put it politely, interesting. Thawne kills Barry when Barry was a kid, yet everyone at the wedding recognizes adult Barry who apparently has been running around as evil Reverse Flash for years. How does that work??? Later two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Iris comes to believe Barry simply because he asked her to trust him and, it is sort of implied, because she has some memories of their relationship, memories that could not have ever been created because in this timeline Barry was killed as little kid.

Darhk saying "Chillblaine? More like Chill-lame" is one of the best lines ever in the Arrowverse.
posted by plastic_animals at 5:48 AM on December 14, 2021 [1 favorite]


Episode 5: Armageddon, Part 5

AV Club review


I don't know what to say about this episode, but I'll take a crack at it.

Wasn't the Reverse Flash an acknowledged and important part of the future? And if so, that means the permanent stable timeline shouldn't have been attempting to wipe him out of existence (sand thereby mess up the future). Ditto for Team Flash taking away his speed. Yes, something needed to be done about him, but he needs his speed in the future to come back in time to make Barry's and Iris' lives miserable. Doesn't despeeding him now create some sort of time paradox or something? And why did Team Flash need to come up with away to do that? If Jefferson did it to Barry, why not just call him up on speed dial and ask him to do the same thing to Thawne?

I'll just skip the debate about killing him because it's an old, unnecessary hat at this point, although I will say it was nice to see Caitlin stand up to Thawne and set him straight.

I really didn't enjoy Cavanagh's performance this time around. That scratchy-throated rasp was irritating.

Speaking of guest stars, I mentioned earlier that I was sympathetic to Flash viewers who don't follow Legends, but I feel even worse for the ones who didn't watch Arrow and who are now trying to figure out the whole Mia and William stuff. (It was hard enough for Arrow viewers.) There had really better be a resolution to that story line sometime soon, and preferably on Legends, because otherwise reviving that and throwing it in our faces is playing dirty pool.

I'm glad Nora Darhk got to make an appearance again, but I'm disappointed that she was given so little to do. What a waste! Also, I think that if there has been so much monkeying around with the future and the timeline, that they could have figured out a way to keep both Nora and Damien in the picture. The Arrowverse is a much more interesting place with Damien in it.

As much as I've been loving Iris' wardrobe as of late, that caramel-colored outfit was a complete miss from the cold shoulder + turtleneck top to the ballooning pants to the footwear. The bottom half of her outfit made it look like she just got back from Tatooine, or some other desert planet.
posted by sardonyx at 10:02 PM on December 15, 2021


I was confused by Nora's appearance. Isn't she currently off fairy-godmothering and being married to Ray Palmer? Did Damien's surprise entry into the restored Flash 2021 timeline somehow erase that Nora and bring back the about-to-be-destroyed-by-the-demon Nora instead? I agree that the writers should have used the opportunity of keeping this Damien alive for future Arrowverse appearances.
posted by oh yeah! at 4:32 AM on December 16, 2021


I think Nora was killed in the Reverse Flashpoint and swapped for an alive Damien. Restoring the timeline should have fixed the problem, bringing Nora back (just like Joe was brought back) and changing Damien's status back to dead. I read some speculation that it was Fairy Godmother Nora, because her jacket was her FGM Wedgewood blue uniform/dress colour.

I know we got to see Ray earlier, but I would have been happier seeing Ray and Nora together, even if that meant Damien had a chance to be proud poppa, seeing how happy his little girl was with her hubby.
posted by sardonyx at 8:24 AM on December 16, 2021


Nora really should have appeared in a floofy dress but I suppose that was one step of confusing-if-you-didn't-watch-it continuity too far.
posted by Karmakaze at 6:10 AM on December 17, 2021 [1 favorite]


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