S08.E10: Reckless

[Trini]

Barry's desire to keep Team Flash safe is tested when Frost recklessly courts danger as she tries to stop the "Black Flame", meanwhile, Iris tries to help a teen girl reunite with her mother but unintentionally does more harm than good.

Kellie Cyrus directed the episode written by Jess Carson.

Airdate: 4/6/2022

[cambridgeguy]

How very old school - Iris is off doing newspaper stuff and is completely separate from the main plot.  Although back in the old days she didn't have a super rich friend to pay for a fancy hotel room and help her cut through the red tape.  Progress!  Plus all of the Barry/Iris fans got to see them kiss and are no doubt just pissed it isn't shown more often.

They played the Firestorm theme early in the episode, so it wasn't really a surprise when it turned out to be Ronnie (or something pretending to be Ronnie).

[scarynikki12]

My antenna crapped out about halfway through so I have no idea how things resolved. Any explanation as to why all the furniture vanished from the adoption place?

[Trini]

It's pretty rare for me to recognize and/or call out when an actor is 'phoning it in', but at the least, I was not feeling a lot of energy from either Grant or Candice in this episode.

Well, the time sickness arc is getting stranger; at least Barry knows about it now. Pretty contrived reason to keep Iris in Coast City, but otherwise her subplot was fine. I just don't know if this Tinya character is going to actually be important, so should I get invested?

Skipped Snow/Frost Family stuff.

21 hours ago, cambridgeguy said:

They played the Firestorm theme early in the episode, so it wasn't really a surprise when it turned out to be Ronnie (or something pretending to be Ronnie).

Firestorm has a theme? That people recognize and remember from 7 seasons ago? But I was already expecting it to be Ronnie anyway.

20 hours ago, scarynikki12 said:

My antenna crapped out about halfway through so I have no idea how things resolved. Any explanation as to why all the furniture vanished from the adoption place?

No; only the implication that it's related to Iris and her time sickness.

 

More thoughts later; going to bed....

Edited April 7, 2022 by Trini
spelling, d'oh!

[Pepper the Cat]

Iris is told to stay put and not move around.

Iris: Road trip!!

[tennisgurl]

Are Grant and Candace alright? They both looked so bored throughout, and the two of them are usually pros no matter how dumb the stories get. I guess even they cant stand all of these boring mother/daughter talks about relationships that I don't care about. The closest to interested I got was when Iris talked about her own issues with her mom, which hasn't been touched on in awhile, but I mostly spent this episode bored. It wasn't as insufferable as some bad episode, it was mostly just meh.

Frost gets more pep talks about how awesome so is than Barry did in all three first seasons. Can Frost maybe do a few more awesome things instead of standing around while everyone tells us how awesome she is? I have tried, but I do not care about Frost and her weird mom issues, especially as they never seem to know what to do with her now that she's separated from Caitlyn. 

Of course its something with Ronnie, obviously. Several disastrous relationships ago. 

At least they finally told Barry about the time sickness, and now Iris is accidently tossing people through time, including the angsty teens mom. Is Iris going to become a Weeping Angel? 

[Primal Slayer]

 

They really go over the top trying to make Iris the best person in the world. It's like they cant come up with value-added storylines that just has Iris being a great person so instead they do what Arrow did w/my girl Laurel. "The worlds ending and you're putting others above you" "Iris did a great job picking you as leader in her absence" Like....just stop. Allow Iris to be human, be scared, think of herself.

[thuganomics85]

At least Iris has already told Barry (who informed Joe and the rest) about the whole time sickness thing, but the whole thing was surprisingly lackluster.  All of this really feels like it should be the main focal point of an episode and not regulated to B-status.  But, hey, not only is her power now causing entire rooms to empty out, but she even can remove actual human beings like angsty teenager's mom after they finally reunite.  Whoops!

Usually mentally check out when Frost/Caitlin are the main focus and this one was no exception.  Just a bunch of Frost not listening to anyone and putting herself in danger, Caitlin freaking out complete with more Danielle Panabaker mugging and overacting, lots and lots of pep talk, and the return of their mother who I practically forgot about until now.  At least they surprised me by not having her die because they really were telegraphing that (complete with the "We should have dinner after all of this!" bit), so that was a decent swerve at least.

Sue going in with that Tony Star/Bruce Wayne "I'm rich as hell and know people!" power.  The best kind of power!

Unless I missed it, Barry never got to wear The Flash suit in this episode, correct?

Black Fire corners Caitlin at the end and might be connected to Ronnie?  Okay, then.

[Sweet Tooth]

2 hours ago, thuganomics85 said:

Black Fire corners Caitlin at the end and might be connected to Ronnie?  Okay, then.

Spoiler

Welllll...there could be interesting news on the horizon

https://screenrant.com/flash-season-8-firestorm-future-return-robbie-amell/

I'd been wondering why they suddenly introduce a totally boring, non-descript dude to be Caitlin's forever love, mention him fifty times, and then not feature him in the episode. So, we'll see what happens there.

I'm glad they didn't drag out Barry not knowing about Iris's condition.

10 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

Are Grant and Candace alright? They both looked so bored throughout, and the two of them are usually pros no matter how dumb the stories get.

Where this really stood out for me was with the end scene, where Mommy disappeared, and Iris, rather than freaking right the heck out, just kind of remained seated looking mildly confused. 

I mean, she's been freaking out over what all of this means, and now she's literally made a woman vanish, and she barely has a reaction.

It reminded me of those soap opera shots, where someone drops a bombshell, and everyone just stands around not saying anything, also parodied in the SNL sketch "The Californians."

[Diapason Untuned]

Should have known the black flame would be Ronnie when they played the Firestorm theme. I do like that they finally brought up Carla's ice powers and the fact that Frost is so reckless because she was created to protect Caitlin; that seems like the sort of stuff she needs to have a long conversation with someone about.

I laughed when Caitlin, who was so against Frost's plan to sacrifice herself, suddenly was cool with it when there was a possibility her mom would get killed instead.

That thing Sue pulled to get the No Order restriction lifted was...yeah, I love Sue, but I felt it for that poor clerk.

[shantown]

1 hour ago, Diapason Untuned said:

That thing Sue pulled to get the No Order restriction lifted was...yeah, I love Sue, but I felt it for that poor clerk.

I didn't think she actually called "Uncle Larry", I assumed she called someone (probably Ralph) to impersonate Larry. The wink to Iris made it seem like she was pulling another con.

[Lantern7]

Finally got around to watching it. Still feeling blah about the season in general. Or maybe I associate "black flames" with the Amaterasu in the Naruto series. The flames possibly being Ronnie from way back? Okay, that's interesting . . . but not enough to take away from the blahness of the Frosts and Iris's escalating problems . . . which now include her apparently vaporizing Tinya's biological mother.

[legaleagle53]

24 minutes ago, Lantern7 said:

Finally got around to watching it. Still feeling blah about the season in general. Or maybe I associate "black flames" with the Amaterasu in the Naruto series. The flames possibly being Ronnie from way back? Okay, that's interesting . . . but not enough to take away from the blahness of the Frosts and Iris's escalating problems . . . which now include her apparently vaporizing Tinya's biological mother.

I don't think Iris vaporized her. Remember that these involuntary power outbursts are caused by Iris' time sickness. So I think it's going to turn out that Tinya's mother was just accidentally transported to another time.

[Lantern7]

1 minute ago, legaleagle53 said:

I don't think Iris vaporized her. Remember that these involuntary power outbursts are caused by Iris' time sickness. So I think it's going to turn out that Tinya's mother was just accidentally transported to another time.

I said “apparently.” Basically, this will lead to Dion coming back yet again, and I was over with the “Forces Personified” story when it was happening.

Have I mentioned I’m not feeling this season? Right now, watching Survivor “live” is the better option for me.

[TV Anonymous]

Whoever wrote this episode and the previous one, perhaps should educate themselves about the meaning of 'cold fusion'.