S08.E14: Funeral for a Friend

[Trini]

Team Flash uses the distraction of a bank robbing Meta to detract from the grief of losing someone they love.

Vanessa Parise directed the episode with the story by Jonathan Butler & Gabriel Garza and teleplay by Jeff Hersh.

Airdate: 5/11/2022

 

Edited May 9, 2022 by Trini

[shantown]

That they are totally glossing over the fact that Killer Frost once tried to kill Iris is ridiculous to me. This morose montage of everyone grieving? Honestly, I think it's good drama wasted on a character who didn't deserve it. Be worried about Caitlin maybe, but acting like anyone of them were besties with Killer Frost is such a sham. They could have had Iris conflicted over writing the obit since she had conflicting feelings over Killer Frost, but having the conflict be like "Ohh it'll never live up to how great she was in real life" is such bad writing. 

And Iris' time sickness apparently took time off to grieve too, how convenient!

[Whodunnit]

It's even worse than that Shanton.  Not only did they forget what she did to Iris, but they forgot that in the episode where Frost went to jail, she committed the crimes that she was accused of, admitted it, and said that she deserved to do time. It was a great moment of personal growth that this revisionist history seems intent on wiping out.

It's official, this is my last season watching this show. Not only did they get rid of one of my favorite characters (Cisco) but the writing is becoming very inconsistent.

[Whodunnit]

I will say that Barry doing Frosts' bucket list was sweet.

[Trini]

Quote

Team Flash uses the distraction of a bank robbing Meta to detract from the grief of losing someone they love.

The actual plot was the exact opposite -- who is writing these summaries?? (Also it should be "distract")

Anyway, this would have been a great episode... if it was memorializing a character I cared more about. And it was just odd to have all these people telling all these stories about how Frost was super good and awesome when we hardly saw any of those things on the show. And yes, it would have been a better idea for Iris to be conflicted about Frost, given Frost's criminal past, which the show seems determined to ignore. Not to mention, Iris and Frost in particular barely interacted, much less had a relationship; so I wasn't buying her being so affected by her death.

Can't believe we finally got back to Iris doing actual work with her media company, but it's for a Frost-centric plot. And then the 'time sickness' comes back only in the last 20 seconds -- ridiculous. However I did like that Iris got a few scenes with other women.

So Caitlin is going behind the Team's back yet again with her own stupid plan - the same thing that just got her "sister" killed? Glad to see that she has learned nothing in 8 years! [<-- Please read that as sarcastically as possible.]

I'm not even going to get into how ridiculous it is that Cecile is out there in the field... to feel criminals feelings? Ma'am - don't you have a day job and a toddler to tend to??

It's just really lame that we hardly see Barry doing Flash-y heroic deeds lately. Hopefully next episode? (This one was clearly a low VFX one.) Well, now that Iris is actually gone, maybe Barry will finally be able to do something about the time sickness. ::sigh::

[Frozendiva]

The ep seemed like filler. Trying to stretch the season to have a death and funeral-centered ep. Sure Frost deserved the dignity and humanity of a funeral, but not an ep devoted to doing so. She did some bad things, went to jail. Could have taken 2-5 minutes of screen time. Plenty of time to deal with the Meta of the Week.

[cambridgeguy]

CC reporter - we should investigate who else is working with the Flash.  Given the complete lack of care shown by Allegra, Cecile, and Chester about concealing their identities shouldn't this already be public knowledge? 

About the time sickness plot - Team Flash's attitude towards it is nonsensical.  So you're NOT worried Iris is going to make someone else vanish?  Not worried she's going to go poof either?  No plan to monitor her?

[tennisgurl]

This episode really makes you think about Frost and what an amazing person she was. She was an artist, a risk taker, a poet, kind, generous, friend to all, a true hero...too bad that was all happening offscreen apparently, because none of that lines up with the person we've been watching. Frost has been, at best, an annoying waste of space who exists to get knocked around by the bad guy and provide half assed snark, and at worst, a horrible irresponsible person who has gotten away with countless crimes and gets mad whenever anyone tries to make her take responsibility for anything she has done and thinks mostly about herself. For as somber as this episode wants to be I admit that I was laughing my ass off half the time, I'm sorry if that makes me sound like a prick, and I did feel bad for the team having to deal with this grief, but the way they seem to be three seconds from calling in the Vatican to ask for frost to be declared a saint was hilarious. It would have been nice if they spent more time showing us how fun and creative and awesome she was instead of just talking about it after her death, but since they forgot to make her likable while she was around, they decided to just bring in a bunch of randos to wax on and on about how amazing and wonderful Frost was while the cast mourns like she was their lord and savior. My "favorite" parts were the judge apparently coming to her to apologize for presiding over her trail and how Frost "forgave her" and inspired her to be a defenses attorney, the reporter guy saying how he admired her for standing against those "ridiculous" charges, and the guy at the coffee shop dramatically changing the name of her Frappuccino from Killer Frost to Frost after Dr. Snow dramatically commented on it. Oh yes, those ridiculous charges which were completely legit and based on her real actual crimes, how silly to try and hold her accountable for a few minor instances of attempted murder and human trafficking. The levels this show has gone to whitewash her history is astounding, its like they think that if they tell us over and over how those previous crimes weren't a big deal and how wonderful she is, we will just forget everything that happened. This might have worked better for me, even the over the top praising, if it was all about a character that I cared about, but I have never cared about Frost, and the show telling me to isn't going to change that.

Why is Iris even so sad about her death? Not only did she hardly know Frost, Frost tried to murder her! Maybe that's the real reason she didn't want to write her obituary, she has mixed feelings about her, but of course that's not it, because no one is allowed to be mad at Frost or Caitlin. Of course we only get an Iris at work plot when we can make it a big celebration about our lord and savior Frost who died for our sins. I also guess everyone decided to take a break from worrying about her time sickness? 

I know that the mean girl reporter is supposed to be unlikable, but I did laugh at her "who told you that?" when Iris mentioned that Allegra must have done a great job running the office without her. She isn't exactly wrong from what we have seen of Allegra. 

So after Caitlin's grief caused her to go behind the teams back and take a huge risk that got several innocent people and her "sister" killed, Caitlin follows that up for...going behind the teams back to take a huge risk out of grief. I swear, if we wasted a whole episode on everyone crying over Frosty only to have her brought right back, I might be done. 

[Trini]

21 hours ago, shantown said:

Honestly, I think it's good drama wasted on a character who didn't deserve it.

5 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

For as somber as this episode wants to be I admit that I was laughing my ass off half the time, I'm sorry if that makes me sound like a prick, and I did feel bad for the team having to deal with this grief, but the way they seem to be three seconds from calling in the Vatican to ask for frost to be declared a saint was hilarious.

I mean, even Caitlin would have deserved this more. Another reason she should have died instead of Frost.

5 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

My "favorite" parts were the judge apparently coming to her to apologize for presiding over her trail and how Frost "forgave her" and inspired her to be a defenses attorney,

So many things wrong with the whole scenario, but my main thing was why would y'all even want to remind us of literally the worst 'BLM' episode out of all the network mandated BLM episodes that year?? They are truly out of touch.

 

5 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

I know that the mean girl reporter is supposed to be unlikable, but I did laugh at her "who told you that?" when Iris mentioned that Allegra must have done a great job running the office without her. She isn't exactly wrong from what we have seen of Allegra. 

LOL! Is she, though? Sis has made some points.

[Lantern7]

Just caught the episode. To review: Batwoman? Canceled. Legends of Tomorrow? Canceled. Naomi? Canceled today. And then I watched an hour of "A Very Special The Flash." I mean, there were good moments, but the series is still dragging. The canceled shows were more exciting in their final seasons (only one in the case of Naomi)

Bringing Cecile to face Blockbuster . . . why? Just . . . why?

Barry checking off Frost's bucket list boxes was nice. Might have been nice for him to strongly discourage the underprepared adventure-seekers that try to scale Mt. Everest. In real life, the place is a graveyard.

Caitlin learns to accept and let go of Frost . . . and now she's going to try and bring her back. Yeah, I don't see ANY way that could go wrong! Hey, maybe Chillsblane will get killed. Fingers crossed!

Given that Ezra Miller keeps shitting the bed, you think maybe we'd get an improvement on the one Flash property out there in 2022-2023?

[thuganomics85]

Whelp, I'm clearly going to hell because despite how overly somber and tearing at the heartstrings this episode was, it pretty much provoked no emotions from me outside pure annoyance over how over-the-top this was.  I swear, this might have been one of the most overdramatic ways to approach the aftermath of a character's death: not just on this show, but out of the entire Arrowverse.

Because, yep, not only was Frost apparently the best person in the world outside of that on slightly violent time that we won't talk about, she was apparently such a beacon to Team Flash that her death sends them into such a spiral that they can't even take on a D-list dude who actually calls himself "Blockbuster."  We also find out that not only does everyone really thinks she didn't deserve to be in prison (despite actually doing the crime she was accused of), it led to the prosecutor (or judge?) seeing the error of her ways and becoming a defense attorney instead.  Because she is Frost!  She was a poet.  A scholar.  A humanitarian.  She lived her life a quarter of a mile.  An inspiration.  A queen.  A Khaleesi.  The best of humanity.  Perfect in every way.  Barf.

Goes without saying that none of this is directed at the cast who all did their best to sell this.  In particular, Jesse L. Martin is making sure his time as a regular here is going to go out on a high note.  Man can make a speech!

I guess there was no way (or money) to get Carlos Valdes to zip over, because if they really were going to go all in with this, it didn't make sense not to have Cisco at the funeral.

But, hey!  This all leads to the big revelation: Caitlin is going all mad scientist on this joint and is going to try to resurrect Frost somehow.  Oh, goodie!

Iris disappears again.  Yawn... wake me up when something actually important happens here.

[Trini]

On 5/11/2022 at 9:06 PM, shantown said:

And Iris' time sickness apparently took time off to grieve too, how convenient!

On 5/12/2022 at 7:53 AM, cambridgeguy said:

About the time sickness plot - Team Flash's attitude towards it is nonsensical.  So you're NOT worried Iris is going to make someone else vanish?  Not worried she's going to go poof either?  No plan to monitor her?

On 5/12/2022 at 1:01 PM, tennisgurl said:

I also guess everyone decided to take a break from worrying about her time sickness? 

On 5/13/2022 at 2:29 AM, thuganomics85 said:

Iris disappears again.  Yawn... wake me up when something actually important happens here.

Like WHY have they been dragging this story out for two seasons when they clearly aren't interested in it? And I don't have any confidence that it will be properly explained and resolved later, either. But this tracks with Eric Wallace's method of writing "cool" stuff and then not figuring out what the story is until (much) later.

Edited May 15, 2022 by Trini