The Flash: Iris Exposes An Ongoing Story Problem That Season 8 Has To Fix - Screen Rant

Warning: The following contains SPOILERS for The Flash season 7.

The treatment of Iris West-Allen and the other members of Team Citizen during season 7 revealed a major problem that The Flash season 8 needs to address. For all the lip-service the series has paid toward treating Iris like an equal partner in her marriage to Barry Allen, the latest arc severely undercut Iris' work as a reporter, focusing instead upon her status as a mother and her efforts to start a family. To make matters worse, Iris was missing from The Flash episode focusing on her possible pregnancy. This was systematic of the treatment of all of Team Citizen's membership, with all of the women working at the Central City Citizen being completely defined by their relationships to male characters.

Even the biggest fans of The Flash had to admit that season 7 was a rough one for the long-running superhero show. The COVID-19 crisis delayed production for the better part of a year, after halting the filming of the season 6 finale. This, coupled with a sudden need to rewrite the season 7 storyline to account for the absence of Elongated Man and set the stage for Carlos Valdes and Tom Cavanagh exiting the series, resulted in a scattershot storyline that did little to offer the show's sizeable ensemble substantial individual story arcs.

While The Flash season 7 did little to serve its supporting cast, it was the women on Team Citizen who seemed to suffer the most in this regard. Kamilla Hwang, staff photographer of the Citizen, was almost an afterthought in the setup for her boyfriend Cisco Ramon's departure from Team Flash. Allegra Garcia fared somewhat better, earning a promotion to staff writer after running the Citizen by herself for several months — but even her subplot was entirely reactive and focused on her attempts to redeem her murderous cousin while emulating Nash Wells.

Iris' Subplots Rarely Touched Upon Her Reporting

Iris west pregnant family matters Nora west allen bart allen

In the original The Flash comics, Iris West was a reporter to rival Lois Lane in sheer grit and gumption, even if she wasn't quite as internationally famous. Originally, the Arrowverse series tried to modernize the classic trope of the cliché "plucky reporter" by turning Iris into a maverick blogger who profiled the metahumans that Central City's traditional media were slow in acknowledging existed. However, as the series progressed and Iris got hired as a reporter for Central City Picture News, the show began to devote less time to Iris' journalistic endeavors, even as it tried to make her a more active part of Barry Allen's life.

This culminated in Iris acting as Team Flash's leader in Barry's absence between season 3 and 4, while he was trapped in the Speed Force. One clear sign of the shift in the writers' priorities during this time was that it was not explained that Iris had left the Central City Picture News until over halfway into season 4. This rather important life change was casually revealed during "Run, Iris, Run," the 16th episode of The Flash season 4, when Iris reminded Barry that "I quit my job. I joined this team, and now for the most part, I just stay here while all of you are out there putting your lives on the line."

Iris returned to reporting halfway through The Flash season 5 in episode 12, "Memorabilia," establishing her own newspaper, The Central City Citizen. Despite this, Iris still seemed to spend most of her time at STAR Labs helping Barry out with his superhero work. This culminated in Iris and her employees being dubbed Team Citizen and treated like their own independent group, though they usually acted as the junior varsity squad for Team Flash. Ironically, the one time a story Iris was investigating became a major plot point was in the second half of season 6, yet that led to perhaps her greatest disenfranchisement as a character, as she became a hostage of Mirror Monarch for the rest of that year and the first episodes of The Flash season 7. Even after her return from the Mirror World, Iris' story in season 7 barely touched upon her reporting, instead, having Iris focus on motherhood, her children from the future and her accidentally "giving birth" to three new cosmic forces while helping Barry recreate the Speed Force.

Kamilla Hwang, We Hardly Knew Ye

Victoria-Park-As-Kamilla-Hwang-In-The-Flash-Season-7

No character symbolizes the haphazard treatment of Team Citizen better than Kamilla Hwang. First introduced in The Flash season 5 episode "Memorabilia" as a love interest for Cisco Ramon, most of Kamilla's story was told to the viewers rather than shown, with Cisco making the radical decision to take the metahuman cure and erase his superpowers so he could pursue a romantic relationship with Kamilla after she'd made only three appearances on the show. Iris hired Kamilla as a photographer for the Central City Citizen in The Flash season 6, but (much like Iris) she seemed to spend more time at STAR Labs helping Cisco with his work than out taking photographs. Like Iris, she also spent the second half of The Flash season 6 as a hostage of Mirror Monarch, having no real purpose in the overall plot beyond giving Iris someone to talk to. Most of her on-camera appearances in The Flash season 7 were devoted to setting up her and Cisco's departure from the series, as they moved to Star City because of Cisco's taking a job as Director of Science and Technology at ARGUS. Kamilla's photos earning gallery screenings in San Francisco and Miami at the same time was barely acknowledged, except in so far as Cisco was said to be hunting for jobs in those areas as well.

The Underdeveloped Allegra Garcia

The Flash season 6 episode "A Flash of the Lightning" introduced the metahuman Allegra Garcia to the Arrowverse. Loosely based on an existing DC Comics character from a Teen Titans storyline written by The Flash executive producer Eric Wallace, Allegra was introduced as a career criminal and gang member who had apparently jumped from robbing liquor stores to murder. However, Cecile Horton sensed that Allegra was lying when she confessed to the killings and worked with Iris West-Allen and Ralph Dibny to prove her innocence. This led to Allegra, who had dreamed of being a reporter as a girl, getting an internship at the Central City Citizen and assisting Team Flash with her newfound electromagnetic energy powers.

While Allegra was quick to prove her worth, apparently running the Central City Citizen by herself throughout The Flash season 6 after Iris and Kamilla were trapped in the Mirror World, she suffered from being a reactive character entirely defined by other characters' actions. Her main purpose in the storyline of The Flash season 6 was to act as a source of angst to Nash Wells, who had been the foster father of Allegra's doppelganger on another Earth. Allegra's storyline in The Flash season 7 was similarly reactive, being based around Allegra's efforts to reconnect with her cousin, the assassin Ultraviolet, and Allegra's response to Ultraviolet's refusal to seek redemption for her past crimes. As a result, after two seasons, Allegra remains defined more by her powers and her relationships than her own actions.

How Does Team Citizen Have Time To Put Out a Daily Newspaper?

It should also be noted that it beggars belief that Team Citizen manages to put out a daily newspaper for a major metropolitan area with a staff of one writer/editor, one intern (who was reportedly acting as a writer and editor) and one photographer. Even allowing that the Central City Citizen seems to run on a digital subscription mode and doesn't print a physical paper, Team Citizen seems to spend more time hanging around STAR Labs or out in the city helping to evacuate civilians during disasters than covering the news. The same problems that hounded Iris in earlier seasons remain, but are now spread across three underused characters instead of just one.

How The Flash Season 8 Can Fix Team Citizen

The first thing that The Flash season 8 can do to fix Team Citizen is to take a page from Superman and Lois and recognize that its members need an existence outside of Team Flash, while still making their work integral to the story. The first season of Superman and Lois did a fantastic job of establishing the relationship between Lois Lane and Clark Kent as one of equals, with Lois' reporting and never-say-die attitude being just as important in the fight against Morgan Edge as the plethora of powers at Superman's disposal. Most of The Flash's efforts to make Iris a part of Barry's life as a superhero have felt incredibly forced, from her frequent declarations that "We are The Flash" to season 7's storyline making her into the mother of four cosmic forces. It would be better for Iris, like Lois, to pursue her own stories independent of her husband's work and tackle the problems that a man moving faster than a speeding bullet might miss.

While it is too late for The Flash to salvage Kamilla Hwang's character, season 8 could play up the partnership between Allegra Garcia and Iris West-Allen, putting the two investigative reporters in peril independent of Team Flash and having them overcome adversity on their own. Another avenue for Allegra might involve further developing the relationship between her and Frost. A few brief scenes during The Flash season 7 suggested a friendship had formed between the two former meta-criminals. Presuming that Frost's ongoing battle with Chillblaine continues into The Flash season 8, Allegra could partner with her, working to investigate Chillblaine's crimes as Frost tackled the science-minded thief directly.

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Matt Morrison (1581 Articles Published)

Matt Morrison has been writing about comics since before the word "blogging" was coined. He got his start writing for the legendary DC Comics digital fanzine Fanzing, before receiving his own column, The Mount. Since then he has gone on to write for over a dozen websites, including 411 Mania, Comics Nexus and The Cult of Nobody. He holds both an MS in Information Science from the University of North Texas and a BFA from the University of Texas at Arlington. Known as a font of comic book history trivia, he has delivered lectures on the history of American Comic Books, Japanese Manga, Doctor Who, and Cosplay at over a dozen conventions and served as an Expert In-Residence for a course on Graphic Novels for Librarians at the University of North Texas. In addition to his work for Screen Rant, Matt is currently the Editor In Chief of Kabooooom.com and writes reviews for No Flying, No Tights – a graphic literature and anime review site aimed at teachers and librarians. He also maintains a personal blog – My Geeky Geeky Ways – which hosts his extensive episode guide for the television series making up The Arrowverse as well as his comedic Let’s Play videos. What little spare time he has is devoted towards acting, role-playing, movie-riffing and sarcasm. You can follow his adventures on Twitter, @GeekyGeekyWays.