S08.E17: Keep it Dark

[Trini]

The Flash goes off the grid to look for answers about a new Meta in town. Meanwhile, Allegra pulls out all of the stops at CC Citizen Media, to protect a source and a friend.

Danielle Panabaker directed the episode written by Kristen Kim & Emily Palizzi.

Airdate: 6/8/2022

[Primal Slayer]

How did I know that Allegra would once again get a new power upgrade in order to survive this episode? 

So many repeated bits of dialogue, it felt like I was watching a basic childs show.

[Lantern7]

I'm going to look in the news to see if anyone was hospitalized from alcohol poisoning. I'll know that a. they h The Flash, and b. they centered a drinking game on the word "trust."

Aside from Scruffy Thrawne, a new speedster and the promise of the other Thrawne next week, this was a missable episode. It did check the trope box as far as characters remembering that they have a kid. Thanks for not doing empath exposition, Cecile!

Edited June 9, 2022 by Lantern7

[Frozendiva]

Somehow I thought this ep was the season finale of what has been a very long season. It wasn't.

So we get a new speedster, the folks at the newspaper don't now hate Allegra, Caitlin is taking a break from Team Flash, and Barry spends the episode somewhere in China. The 'source' wasn't all that interesting, the bad guys seem to come from nowhere, and most of the story would get maybe a few column inches as a news story somewhere in the City section. No real buildup to the bad guys, or maybe I just wasn't paying attention.

[Trini]

Besides Cavanagh's played out raspy voice, something was just off about the scenes between Barry and Thawne. The spark just isn't there anymore -- or a least this time. The main purpose of those scenes was to set up Reverse Flash's re-emergance, because there really wasn't a good reason for Barry to give him all that information; and he could have had his realizations about the new speedster without Thawne.

But hey, Meena Dhawan! Cool - wish the writers had made introducing her the arc for this back half of the season, though. Instead of this time sickness nonsense that they clearly aren't interested in. Kinda late in the season to introduce a new heroine.

I skipped the Allegra plot; will get to that later.

[cambridgeguy]

8 hours ago, Primal Slayer said:

How did I know that Allegra would once again get a new power upgrade in order to survive this episode? 

So she, ahem, leveled up? 

[starmachine]

Oh man, Thawne has gotten so petty and one note, I feel like the series will end with him tagging along the west-allen family holidays to knock over baby Nora's sandcastles.

[DanaK]

The episode felt disjointed, with Barry doing his own thing in his own little subplot

Has Candice (Iris West-Allen) gone to recurring? It certainly feels like it given the number of episodes she's not seen in

[tennisgurl]

This episode felt really weird and disjointed, neither plot seemed to have anything to do with each other and neither of them were all that interesting. Until we got to the end and met the new speedster it felt like this episode was on autopilot, like a series of Flash clichés all pilled together instead of an actual story. Thawne screams about how much he hates Barry, we get lots of long winded pep talks where we tell instead of show how awesome someone is, we say things like trust and hope a lot, Cecile shows up to be goofy for a minute, it all feels so hallow. Also, why didn't Barry ever mention the possibility that the Speedster could be Wally? He could have at least mentioned that he texted him to see if he knew anything, being one of the only speedsters still around with powers. 

Nice to see our favorite shithole island again, even if the scenes between Barry and Thawne have long since lost their spark. The only thing I enjoyed was laughing about how much Thawne sounds like Barry's bitter ex and how over it Barry seems to be. "No one will ever hate you like me! No one thinks about you as much as me!" And I was inappropriately amused by Thawne saying how Frost was in over her head, he's not wrong about that.

Was Danielle unavailable? Caitlyn leaving everyone a video saying she plans on leaving was so random, but I cant say I'm sad to take a break from Caitlyn and her drama before she gets anyone else killed. Team Flash is pretty short staffed these days though, especially when Joe isn't around much, the lab went from being full to the brim to having a skeleton crew.

Iris had better get back soon, Allegra was on track to not only run her paper into the ground but her questionable choices almost got the staff killed! Now I suppose it will improve with the whole staff, even the mean girl, on her side, but she was not impressing me with her leadership abilities, or her skills as a journalist. Her source is creditable because "she is"? We don't need any corroboration because "trust me"? She's lucky its this show, or they could have a massive liability suit on their hands if anything that was written about with so little research turned out to be wrong. Mean Girl reporter has made a lot of totally valid points about Allegra not being qualified to do this job, even if she's on Team Allegra now, and while she did get them out of this jam, she still seems massively unqualified to be running a newspaper, no matter how much Chester goes on about how amazing she is. I miss Iris so much. 

This new speedster has potential, its one of the only things making me excited going forward. This season has been alright, certainly miles better than last season, but its been mostly bland. Not terrible like last season, but not all that good either. I feel bad, having loved this show for so long, but I sort of wish one of the cancelled Arrowverse shows had been saved instead of this one. Legends and Batwoman at least seemed to still have some ideas, while Flash seems to be running on fumes. Maybe they can still pull off something cool in the last few episodes?

Edited June 9, 2022 by tennisgurl

[cambridgeguy]

3 hours ago, DanaK said:

Has Candice (Iris West-Allen) gone to recurring? It certainly feels like it given the number of episodes she's not seen in

Being a series regular doesn't mean showing up in every episode anymore.  Cisco went off on a few offscreen missions in the middle seasons - it's just more noticeable with it being consecutive absences. 

9 minutes ago, tennisgurl said:

I miss Iris so much. 

To be fair, Iris isn't that good at running a newspaper either.  She's the one who promoted Allegra (cronyism) and was happy to go off to Coast City even though the editor in chief really shouldn't have the time to chase down stories.  The paper seems to magically succeed independent of whatever Iris and Allegra do.

[opus]

41 minutes ago, tennisgurl said:

Was Danielle unavailable?

She directed this one, so was definitely around

[KaveDweller]

3 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

Also, why didn't Barry ever mention the possibility that the Speedster could be Wally? He could have at least mentioned that he texted him to see if he knew anything, being one of the only speedsters still around with powers. 

He also didn't seem to wonder if it was Nora or Bart visiting from the future again. 

I don't get why Barry doesn't seem to be worried about Iris or trying to do anything to find her. I know they gave some dumb explanation for it, but this wife literally disappears into thin air and they act like it's nothing.

[Trini]

1 hour ago, KaveDweller said:

I don't get why Barry doesn't seem to be worried about Iris or trying to do anything to find her. I know they gave some dumb explanation for it, but this wife literally disappears into thin air and they act like it's nothing.

It's dumb, right?? And it's just out of character for Barry. The fact that Iris is missing should be part of the plot in these "interlude" episodes, but the writers/showrunner refuse.

5 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

Maybe they can still pull off something cool in the last few episodes?

"Something cool in the last few episodes" seems to be their standard operating procedure now.  😒

[thuganomics85]

Oh, goodie!  An episode that focuses mainly on Central City News and Allegra.  Those are totally my favorite things about this show!

Not surprised in the slightest that they made sure to humble Taylor by having her panic the most when the shit went down and be gung-ho about throwing Lydia to Light and Rawlins, instead of protecting the source.  And then when Allegra saves the day and it all works out, she is all "I was so wrong about you, please forgive me!"  Even though; by all accounts; she was actually right about a lot of this.  Allegra showed herself to be a crap leader in almost every way and really did put everyone in danger by not telling them the truth about her history with the gang.  I don't care if it all worked out at the end: I will struggle to believe that Taylor and the other two would ever set foot in that building again as long as Allegra is running the show.

But, hey, we also get a new mysterious speedster now, so this allows the show to find a way to wheel out Eobard again and let Tom Cavanagh chew the scenery but continuing to do so in a half-assed way (something that has been happening these past few appearances) that it was just boring instead of fun.  Really, I don't if it was the writing or direction, but Tom and Grant Gustin almost had anti-chemistry here and I never felt that before.  Either way, I am so over this version of him and while I do respect Tom's ability, I can safely say that for me, Matt Letscher = Best Reverse Flash.

Caitlin is now going on a sabbatical.  Wish I could care.

The actress playing Meena Dhawan was charming enough at least, so maybe this particular plot will be interesting.  Granted, as much asI love Barry, he hasn't had a great track record with the whole mentorship thing.

Yeah, not a fan of this episode.

[tennisgurl]

10 hours ago, thuganomics85 said:

I will struggle to believe that Taylor and the other two would ever set foot in that building again as long as Allegra is running the show.

Its a classic "luckily" plot, where a protagonist gets into a conflict of some kind with a character we aren't supposed to like, but the supposedly unlikable character is making some solid points, so something happens that, luckily, makes the whole thing go away and retroactively justifies the protagonist and we can all ignore any valid points that the antagonistic character was making due to some other circumstances. The Arrowverse loves this sort of story, usually its finding out that the antagonistic character is actually a mustache twirling villain or hypocrite, or the character is put into some contrived circumstances where they see the "error of their ways" and totally side with the protagonist, which is what we got here. Taylor has made a lot of good points about Allegra's lousy leadership and how ridiculous it is that Iris put this obvious rookie in charge of people with way more experience, but now that she knows Allegra's secret identity, she was somehow wrong in all of her valid points and the audience doesn't have to think about those points she made because she was "wrong" retroactively and has to be the one to apologize. In any real reality, the three reporters might be willing to fight to protect a source and even to protect Allegra's secret, but would probably be putting in their two weeks in the morning. 

13 hours ago, Trini said:

It's dumb, right?? And it's just out of character for Barry. The fact that Iris is missing should be part of the plot in these "interlude" episodes, but the writers/showrunner refuse.

19 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

I know right!? This from a man who has had panic attacks because he's separated from her for too long! No one even knows what's happened to her, even if they assume she's fine because she's fine in the future doesn't mean that this shouldn't be trying to figure things out, its like she's out of sight out of mind! 

Edited June 10, 2022 by tennisgurl

[Cthulhudrew]

On 6/8/2022 at 7:50 PM, Primal Slayer said:

So many repeated bits of dialogue, it felt like I was watching a basic childs show.

"Bring them into the light" is the new "level up."

[Cthulhudrew]

On 6/9/2022 at 9:21 PM, thuganomics85 said:

Oh, goodie!  An episode that focuses mainly on Central City News and Allegra.  Those are totally my favorite things about this show!

Hee!

On 6/9/2022 at 9:21 PM, thuganomics85 said:

Either way, I am so over this version of him and while I do respect Tom's ability, I can safely say that for me, Matt Letscher = Best Reverse Flash.

Agree. I loved Cavanaugh as Wells/Thawne in S1, but he's gone straight downhill into self-parody ever since. Letscher has always done such an amazing job as Thawne, and I'm glad they may be bringing him back in that role, as I'd feared they'd finally done away with him after last season's Legends (and ignoring him for several seasons prior).

[rogvortex58]

I just found out that Eric Wallace created Allegra in the comics.

so it’s no surprise that she gets these centric episodes.

[Trini]

Just ridiculous that they finally do a CC Citizen-centric A-plot and Iris is missing and not even mentioned in the episode.

And there's more that I could say about this episode, But I'll just say that it being a Kim episode explains a lot.

Edited June 16, 2022 by Trini