I'll cut to the chase. The only good part about this entire episode is the last, say, seven minutes of the episode. If you skip right to there and don't watch the rest of it, you will miss absolutely nothing and have much more fun with this episode than I did!
I did get bingo this week though, and with twenty minutes of the episode to spare, which has to be some kind of record. However, considering the Thawne reveal at the end of the episode, that means I lose my bingo from "Into the Still Force" since that was contingent on me crossing off "Non-Speedster Main Villain". This makes my current record 3 and 16, and next week, I will be tallying up the number of times I crossed each space off on my bingo card and saying what the most commonly crossed off spaces were so that we can say definitively if this season's truly better than last season or not.
So that review title, let's talk about it. Every single character in this episode should be dead! No ifs ands or buts about it. Team Flash just fought an army of gods that had the intent to kill them. Negative Deon even says that he's going to kill them. These "gods" have insanely strong powers like:
-Minor Terrakinesis
-Super strength
-Illusion projection
-Mental manipulation
-Freezing people, including speedsters, in place for an indeterminate amount of time
-The ability to age people a hundred years in a second
-And the ability to WARP TIME
Do you understand how outmatched Team Flash is? If these all powerful Negative Forces really wanted to, they could kill every member of Team Flash in an instant! And they don't even have to use their avatars to do it! So how the gosh darn heck (gotta censor myself because IMDb doesn't treat all reviewers equally) are any of these chuckleheads still alive? Especially regular human Chester who magically becomes a field agent for no reason this episode! Remember when he was a pacifist in "Armageddon, Part 2"? Well the writers sure don't! Then again, that stopped being a thing before it even STARTED being a thing!
I think this issue stems from the fact that the CW uses the term "god" incredibly loosely. I think the Fifth Dimensional Imps on Supergirl like Mr. Mxyzptlk are the closest thing we'll ever get to true gods in the Arrowverse since they have the ability to literally warp reality itself. And Supergirl had a Fifth Dimensional Imp as the main villain for their final season too. Go figure they'd screw that up. But when the Arrowverse shows constantly throw the term "god" around, it allows them to play too fast and too loose with the rules. First Ally Allston on Superman and Lois is a god, now the Negative Forces are gods, but none of them actually have reality warping powers like Fifth Dimensional Imps, so at best Ally Allston is live action Parasite without the big purple CGI monster model, and the Negative Forces are cosmic entities that grant people powers like the Speed Force.
And on the topic of the Forces, this episode talks about the Force's avatars and explicitly state that Nora (Barry's mom) is supposed to be the avatar for the Speed Force. This raises a question that I've already asked. Are Deon and co the avatars of the new Forces, or are they the Forces themselves? Considering that the Negative Forces use the forms of the "avatars" I guess we can assume that these people are the Forces themselves, but then that raises the question about whether or not these people actually ever existed in time in the first place! If they were the avatars, them existing before they got their powers would make sense, but if they're the Forces themselves, it doesn't. So why did Team Flash have to find these human people that existed somewhere in our timeline if they were UNIVERSAL FORCES OF NATURE?? Make it make sense! This is a plotline from a season and a half ago at this point, and we still don't have the answers to any of these questions about what these characters even are!
Also, Barry being in the Negative Forces presence drains his powers when the first show up, but that doesn't happen in the episode's climax. We've officially reached Supergirl levels of not being consistent from one scene to the next!
And my final point about these Negative Forces is that the show finally answered where they came from. The only issue is that their answer makes no sense! Apparently when Barry and Iris created the new Forces, they also created their negative counterparts. I'd be willing to buy this explanation if Iris had even an ounce of Negative Speed Force inside her when she created them, but she doesn't. So say it with me everyone! I wanna hear you scream it! That's not how the Speed Force works! Wooooooo! God, even when this show tries to answer the multitude of questions they've presented, the answers they give us make no sense whatsoever!
This then leads us into the Thawne stuff. I'm glad that we got to see Matt Letscher in his season 1 Reverse Flash suit, and that reveal of Tom Cavanagh's Thawne ripping his way out of Matt's Thawne's body was so cool! But don't you think it would've been better to just have Matt in the season 8 Reverse Flash suit and give him his "pre-Legends of Tomorrow rebooting the character" memories back? Don't get me wrong, I like Tom Cavanagh as the Reverse Flash more than Matt Letscher, but it would've made more narrative sense for Matt's Thawne connecting to his Speed Force to give him his memories back. There's even a precedent set for this from the season 7 finale "Heart of the Matter, Pt. 2" where giving August Heart real speed gave him his memories back after he'd been brainwashed. And sure, he was an artificial speedster before, but there's at least half of a precedent set here for this exact thing happening with Matt's Thawne.
If you're gonna kill the guy again before he gets to do any Reverse Flash-ing and replace him with Tom's Thawne again, couldn't we at least see him run with his red lightning instead of that awful looking black and white lightning? Please? This would've been such an easy way to get the fans hyped back up.
And then we get into the rest of the episode. Time for the lightning round of stuff I don't care about. Go!
-Cecile can steal other telepathic meta's powers and is apparently becoming one of the most powerful metas on the planet. Yes, this is an actual line from the episode, and no, you're not the only one that threw up in your mouth a little bit when you heard that.
-Caitlin and Mark trying to resurrect Frost again. Unless she turns into Killer Frost like it's implied she would in the season 1 finale "Fast Enough", I don't care.
-We finally find out the cause of Iris's time sickness, but nobody cares about that plotline anymore. Apparently the Negative Forces infected her with a Negative Tachyon, and it spread throughout her system and it's slowly killing her. That's not how Negative Tachyons work, but sure, why not.
-Meena gets a super suit. It's never said who makes it and how long it took, but she has one now, and the cowl looks AWFUL! It makes her look like she has a forehead the size of frickin' Jupiter! And the little wings on the side stick out so awkwardly! So ditch the cowl, but keep the rest of the suit. It's a good looking suit, but the cowl completely ruins it!
And now we finally get to the last seven minutes of the episode, aka the only part of this episode that was actually good! And even that has dozens of holes in it!
For starters, Barry hasn't needed to charge up a lightning toss since season 7, so why does he have to charge up a lightning toss here? That doesn't make any sense! Maybe it was because Barry needed more power to hurt the Negative Forces, but that can't be it because he hurt them with his lightning WHILE HE WAS FROZEN BY THE NEGATIVE STILL FORCE just fine. It was a cool visual I guess, but completely unnecessary, and if Barry had just thrown lightning at them standing still, he would've been able to (SUPER SPOILER APPROACHING, TURN BACK NOW) save Iris's life.
Yeah, Iris dies, I'm assuming because Candice Patton was getting too homesick to stay on the show for much longer. Yeah, that's the official reason that she's been missing these last few episodes. If this "death" lasts for even one episode, I will be genuinely shocked! There is no way in heck that Iris is actually dead, because I did something really horrible in a past life, and these writers aren't finished making me pay for it just yet!
If, *IF* Iris is actually dead, then at the very least that leaves the door open for Barry and Meena to get together during season 9, which will then feature Barry fighting his new love-interest as the main villain. I knew this character was a love-interest for Barry in the comics, but I had no idea they'd actually pursue it! And again, that's only contingent on the possibility that Iris's death actually sticks! Writers, please please please do this storyline! You haven't done an interesting storyline since the season 6 Eva McCulloch storyline, and you've literally got the golden opportunity to do something great for once! You refuse to do Cobalt Blue even with Rick Cosnett making appearances this year! You don't have the balls to do Killer Caitlin! Stephen Amell is doing Heels right now, aka an actual good show, so you can't properly do an Arrowverse version of Red Death with Oliver Queen taking Batman's place! The storyline with Barry and Meena is literally being shipped to you on a silver platter! So please for once in your lives pull a Legends of Tomorrow and listen to your fanbase!
Between the questions that are still in the air a season and a half later, the answers that just give us more questions, and the absolute ludicrous plot of this episode, I can confirm that the technical term for this episode is "bad". What did I really expect? Every single time we get a remotely good episode of this show, one of the worst arcs ever follows. I already touched on this in my review of "The Fire Next Time". Prove me wrong!
5 / 10.
I did get bingo this week though, and with twenty minutes of the episode to spare, which has to be some kind of record. However, considering the Thawne reveal at the end of the episode, that means I lose my bingo from "Into the Still Force" since that was contingent on me crossing off "Non-Speedster Main Villain". This makes my current record 3 and 16, and next week, I will be tallying up the number of times I crossed each space off on my bingo card and saying what the most commonly crossed off spaces were so that we can say definitively if this season's truly better than last season or not.
So that review title, let's talk about it. Every single character in this episode should be dead! No ifs ands or buts about it. Team Flash just fought an army of gods that had the intent to kill them. Negative Deon even says that he's going to kill them. These "gods" have insanely strong powers like:
-Minor Terrakinesis
-Super strength
-Illusion projection
-Mental manipulation
-Freezing people, including speedsters, in place for an indeterminate amount of time
-The ability to age people a hundred years in a second
-And the ability to WARP TIME
Do you understand how outmatched Team Flash is? If these all powerful Negative Forces really wanted to, they could kill every member of Team Flash in an instant! And they don't even have to use their avatars to do it! So how the gosh darn heck (gotta censor myself because IMDb doesn't treat all reviewers equally) are any of these chuckleheads still alive? Especially regular human Chester who magically becomes a field agent for no reason this episode! Remember when he was a pacifist in "Armageddon, Part 2"? Well the writers sure don't! Then again, that stopped being a thing before it even STARTED being a thing!
I think this issue stems from the fact that the CW uses the term "god" incredibly loosely. I think the Fifth Dimensional Imps on Supergirl like Mr. Mxyzptlk are the closest thing we'll ever get to true gods in the Arrowverse since they have the ability to literally warp reality itself. And Supergirl had a Fifth Dimensional Imp as the main villain for their final season too. Go figure they'd screw that up. But when the Arrowverse shows constantly throw the term "god" around, it allows them to play too fast and too loose with the rules. First Ally Allston on Superman and Lois is a god, now the Negative Forces are gods, but none of them actually have reality warping powers like Fifth Dimensional Imps, so at best Ally Allston is live action Parasite without the big purple CGI monster model, and the Negative Forces are cosmic entities that grant people powers like the Speed Force.
And on the topic of the Forces, this episode talks about the Force's avatars and explicitly state that Nora (Barry's mom) is supposed to be the avatar for the Speed Force. This raises a question that I've already asked. Are Deon and co the avatars of the new Forces, or are they the Forces themselves? Considering that the Negative Forces use the forms of the "avatars" I guess we can assume that these people are the Forces themselves, but then that raises the question about whether or not these people actually ever existed in time in the first place! If they were the avatars, them existing before they got their powers would make sense, but if they're the Forces themselves, it doesn't. So why did Team Flash have to find these human people that existed somewhere in our timeline if they were UNIVERSAL FORCES OF NATURE?? Make it make sense! This is a plotline from a season and a half ago at this point, and we still don't have the answers to any of these questions about what these characters even are!
Also, Barry being in the Negative Forces presence drains his powers when the first show up, but that doesn't happen in the episode's climax. We've officially reached Supergirl levels of not being consistent from one scene to the next!
And my final point about these Negative Forces is that the show finally answered where they came from. The only issue is that their answer makes no sense! Apparently when Barry and Iris created the new Forces, they also created their negative counterparts. I'd be willing to buy this explanation if Iris had even an ounce of Negative Speed Force inside her when she created them, but she doesn't. So say it with me everyone! I wanna hear you scream it! That's not how the Speed Force works! Wooooooo! God, even when this show tries to answer the multitude of questions they've presented, the answers they give us make no sense whatsoever!
This then leads us into the Thawne stuff. I'm glad that we got to see Matt Letscher in his season 1 Reverse Flash suit, and that reveal of Tom Cavanagh's Thawne ripping his way out of Matt's Thawne's body was so cool! But don't you think it would've been better to just have Matt in the season 8 Reverse Flash suit and give him his "pre-Legends of Tomorrow rebooting the character" memories back? Don't get me wrong, I like Tom Cavanagh as the Reverse Flash more than Matt Letscher, but it would've made more narrative sense for Matt's Thawne connecting to his Speed Force to give him his memories back. There's even a precedent set for this from the season 7 finale "Heart of the Matter, Pt. 2" where giving August Heart real speed gave him his memories back after he'd been brainwashed. And sure, he was an artificial speedster before, but there's at least half of a precedent set here for this exact thing happening with Matt's Thawne.
If you're gonna kill the guy again before he gets to do any Reverse Flash-ing and replace him with Tom's Thawne again, couldn't we at least see him run with his red lightning instead of that awful looking black and white lightning? Please? This would've been such an easy way to get the fans hyped back up.
And then we get into the rest of the episode. Time for the lightning round of stuff I don't care about. Go!
-Cecile can steal other telepathic meta's powers and is apparently becoming one of the most powerful metas on the planet. Yes, this is an actual line from the episode, and no, you're not the only one that threw up in your mouth a little bit when you heard that.
-Caitlin and Mark trying to resurrect Frost again. Unless she turns into Killer Frost like it's implied she would in the season 1 finale "Fast Enough", I don't care.
-We finally find out the cause of Iris's time sickness, but nobody cares about that plotline anymore. Apparently the Negative Forces infected her with a Negative Tachyon, and it spread throughout her system and it's slowly killing her. That's not how Negative Tachyons work, but sure, why not.
-Meena gets a super suit. It's never said who makes it and how long it took, but she has one now, and the cowl looks AWFUL! It makes her look like she has a forehead the size of frickin' Jupiter! And the little wings on the side stick out so awkwardly! So ditch the cowl, but keep the rest of the suit. It's a good looking suit, but the cowl completely ruins it!
And now we finally get to the last seven minutes of the episode, aka the only part of this episode that was actually good! And even that has dozens of holes in it!
For starters, Barry hasn't needed to charge up a lightning toss since season 7, so why does he have to charge up a lightning toss here? That doesn't make any sense! Maybe it was because Barry needed more power to hurt the Negative Forces, but that can't be it because he hurt them with his lightning WHILE HE WAS FROZEN BY THE NEGATIVE STILL FORCE just fine. It was a cool visual I guess, but completely unnecessary, and if Barry had just thrown lightning at them standing still, he would've been able to (SUPER SPOILER APPROACHING, TURN BACK NOW) save Iris's life.
Yeah, Iris dies, I'm assuming because Candice Patton was getting too homesick to stay on the show for much longer. Yeah, that's the official reason that she's been missing these last few episodes. If this "death" lasts for even one episode, I will be genuinely shocked! There is no way in heck that Iris is actually dead, because I did something really horrible in a past life, and these writers aren't finished making me pay for it just yet!
If, *IF* Iris is actually dead, then at the very least that leaves the door open for Barry and Meena to get together during season 9, which will then feature Barry fighting his new love-interest as the main villain. I knew this character was a love-interest for Barry in the comics, but I had no idea they'd actually pursue it! And again, that's only contingent on the possibility that Iris's death actually sticks! Writers, please please please do this storyline! You haven't done an interesting storyline since the season 6 Eva McCulloch storyline, and you've literally got the golden opportunity to do something great for once! You refuse to do Cobalt Blue even with Rick Cosnett making appearances this year! You don't have the balls to do Killer Caitlin! Stephen Amell is doing Heels right now, aka an actual good show, so you can't properly do an Arrowverse version of Red Death with Oliver Queen taking Batman's place! The storyline with Barry and Meena is literally being shipped to you on a silver platter! So please for once in your lives pull a Legends of Tomorrow and listen to your fanbase!
Between the questions that are still in the air a season and a half later, the answers that just give us more questions, and the absolute ludicrous plot of this episode, I can confirm that the technical term for this episode is "bad". What did I really expect? Every single time we get a remotely good episode of this show, one of the worst arcs ever follows. I already touched on this in my review of "The Fire Next Time". Prove me wrong!
5 / 10.